Donato's Pizza Elizabethtown One-Year Anniversary Review (Hot Honey)

Key Takeaways

• Donato's Pizza Elizabethtown is celebrating its one-year anniversary at 1511 Ring Road, Suite 100 — near Buffalo Wild Wings, Hobby Lobby, and Academy Sports.
• Owner Phillip Justice drives an hour each way every day to be in the store. Brett's framing: that owner-in-the-building presence is what turns a franchise into a real small business.
• Must-try: the Hot Honey Pepperoni (square cut — Phillip's recommendation) and the Donatos Cinnamon Bread.
• The conversation about what makes a franchise a small business is the soul of the segment — same answer applies to Subway under Barry Saylor and Lee's Famous Chicken under Kim Dennis.
• Small Business Week framing: if you're going to spend a dollar somewhere new this week, this is the place to do it. Tell Phillip the Experienced Eater sent you.

Summary

Britten McDowell's video review of Donato's Pizza Elizabethtown — anchoring the live-reaction segment with Michele McDowell — turned out to be the perfect Small Business Week story. Britten visited on Donato's first-year anniversary (a milestone Nate Bryan flagged in last week's Business Buzz), spent quality time with owner Phillip Justice, and walked away ordering everything Phillip recommended.

The food held up — the Hot Honey Pepperoni is the star, with the Donatos Cinnamon Bread as a worthy dessert. But the real anchor of the segment was the conversation about what makes a franchise location a genuine small business: when the owner is in the building, every day, doing the work.

Full Article

Britten opened the segment with what turned into the line of the show: "There's a difference between a franchise and a chain when the owner is in there working daily. In Radcliff, two of the most successful favorite places I had — Subway and Lee's Famous Chicken — Subway was synonymous with Barry Saylor because he owned both Subways. Barry was in his stores working every day. Lee's Famous Chicken — same thing. Kim Dennis, the owner, is in there every day working. That's what I was excited about with Donato's. The owner is in there on a daily basis."

That framing came back four times during the segment — and it ties Donato's directly into the Small Business Week thread that ran through the whole episode.

Britten visited the store on Friday for Phillip Justice's one-year anniversary at 1511 Ring Road, Suite 100, near the Buffalo Wild Wings / Hobby Lobby / Academy Sports cluster. "I got there at two," Britten said. "I just wanted to be a little early, see what was going on. Phillip was there. I got to spend some quality time with him. Everything I tried was based on his recommendation. I said, 'I'm going to do a review. You tell me what we need to get.'"

Phillip's commute is part of the story. He drives an hour each way every day to be in the store. "He has made a significant investment in E-Town, in his store, in his business — and that's not even the financial side. It's the timing. He lives an hour away, commutes to E-Town every day, comes in and works. That's something I just admire."

The Hot Honey Pepperoni was Phillip's pick — square cut, on a thin crust, with hot honey drizzled across pepperoni. "They asked me if I like spicy and — yeah, sign me up," Britten said in the video. "I love square-cut pizza because I'm not a big crust guy. I tried to take one bite — it didn't work. The sweet, the heat, the crunch — that's fantastic. I'm all in." Michele got a take-home portion (she didn't make the trip), and her verdict: "Pretty darn tasty. That hot honey pizza, man. It was good."

Dessert was the Donatos Cinnamon Bread. "I wish you could smell what I'm smelling right here," Britten said. "Once you look at that, I'm in trouble. It's light. It's crispy. It's sweet. That's fantastic. You've got to get some of that." He noted Donato's also does an Oreo cookies-and-cream version — not tried this visit, but on the list.

The location has a quirk worth flagging: the parking-lot flow is rough. Donato's sits in the same cluster as Buffalo Wild Wings, Hobby Lobby, and Academy Sports — a busy area that's a little hard to access from Ring Road. "You have to be intentional about going there," Britten said. "You kind of can't get there from here — you have to come around from one end or the other. But it's worth the effort."

The closing conversation — the what makes a franchise a small business thread — kept circling back to Phillip Justice and how he runs the place. Brett laid out the case: "Nobody takes care of a business like the owner. When you have the owner working in the business every day, the level of growth and the way the store performs is different — because they're managing resources daily and adapting weekly. That's the drive. That's the difference." And the discussion broadened — Scott raised the saturation question (do we need more pizza places?), and Britten's answer was the same answer that applies to every category in Hardin County: "If you're going to do it, do it right. We have lots of coffee shops, but Vibe thrives. Lots of pizza, and Impellizzeri's does great. Quality wins."

Donato's Pizza Elizabethtown · 1511 Ring Road, Suite 100 · (270) 506-4100 · donatos.com/location/elizabethtown · facebook.com/donatosetown.

It's Small Business Week. Britten said it on-air and we'll repeat it: spend a dollar at Donato's this week. Tell Phillip we said hi.