“When we first put out the line in the morning, there are probably 15 different pies all laid out. It’s beautiful. It’s a work of art,” says John Ordway ’85, whose chain of Pennsylvania-based pizza restaurants, Jules Thin Crust, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. But while the team at Jules has been serving up their unique take on the Italian classic for two decades, when Ordway launched his first location in 2005, he never imagined that his dream of creating a restaurant for young families like his would eventually grow into a

mini pizza empire.

      Ordway first had the idea to open a pizzeria while, as parents of two small daughters, he and his wife struggled to find places to take their family out to dinner near their home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Using some of the know-how that had led him to a successful career in advertising, he threw himself into researching the new venture, traveling around Europe and the United States to sample numerous pizza variants. “I realized that for us to stand out, it couldn’t just be another pizza place,” Ordway says. Ultimately, he landed on the formula that would become their signature: a long, narrow pie inspired by Roman-style pizza, but with a distinctive thin crust. “No one had seen anything like it,” he adds.

    But more than just the shape was novel. “It’s not your typical pepperoni and sausage,” he says. “Everything is fresh, with seasonally grown vegetables. We want people to walk out feeling satisfied but not overly full, whereas in typical pizza places, they walk out feeling dreadful an hour later.” They also led the way in providing allergy-friendly options, offering gluten-free alternatives from the very beginning and introducing vegan pizzas soon afterward—long before plant-based cooking had become ubiquitous. Within months of opening, the first Jules Thin Crust—named after one of Ordway’s daughters—was already a hit with the local community in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and Ordway quickly expanded to additional locations over the next few years.

      Inspiration struck again in 2017 when, on a trip to London, Ordway noticed the wild popularity of chicken restaurants. It was only a matter of time before he launched Lovebird, specializing in fried chicken, and again he wasn’t content to just follow the standard recipe book. “Rather than use buttermilk, we discovered that the gluten-free buckwheat flour we used at Jules was by far the best dredge for the chicken. It was light and airy and didn’t leave the chicken greasy,” he says. “We do everything ourselves. We cut and blanch the French fries ourselves and use really good brioche buns. Nothing’s frozen—we don’t even have freezers in the restaurants!” 

      Ordway now operates seven Jules and four Lovebird restaurants across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But beyond the delicious food, he says the real secret ingredient is that “there’s a soul to our brand. The environment is clean, and the staff are bubbly. We recently had a number of former employees—who were in high school when they worked at Jules—back to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Many have kids of their own now, and I realized we had come full circle. All these years later, it’s still a place where parents can enjoy a good meal with their children.”