East Idaho Eats: Taking care of customers is what life is all about for Mr. Pizza

SHELLEY – For more than 30 years, Mr. Pizza at 164 South State Street in Shelley has been a place for customers to get a hearty bite to eat without it being hearty on the wallet.

The mom and pop pizza restaurant offers fresh, homemade pizza, subs, breadsticks and salad, but many customers know it as the home of the $2 lunch special. The deal includes a small personal pizza, breadsticks and a fountain drink. EastIdahoNews.com gave some of the menu items a try, which you can watch in the video player above.

The $2 lunch special has been available to customers since the restaurant opened in 1987 and Owner Shannon Albright tells EastIdahoNews.com it’s never going to change. When asked how he’s able to make a living with a $2 price tag, Albright simply responds, “We don’t owe anything. Everything is paid for.”

Offers to purchase the business would have allowed the 60-year-old pizza chef to retire with a hefty sum of money a long time ago. He’s passed it up every time because taking care of customers and making pizza that’s affordable for everyone is what life is all about for him.

“Money is a tool and … it’s a tool I wish we didn’t have. If you get to the point where you’re chasing a dollar bill, there’s nothing else. It takes precedence over everything,” says Albright. “I have families come in that have eight to 10 kids. When you add the parents into the mix, that’s up to 12 people. With a family that big, you’re very seldom able to eat out.”

Everything seems to be working out for him because the $2 price point is a big hit with customers, who are scattered throughout eastern Idaho.

RELATED | A Feel Good Friday surprise for Mr. Pizza

Mr. Pizza is a daily stop for many patrons. Albright and his small staff are often swamped filling orders and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He also stays busy making deliveries.

“I’ll deliver anywhere,” says Albright. “As a matter of fact, I’ve delivered to Blacktail. I’ve delivered to Bill’s Island and out to the site just outside of Arco.”

(Yes, he does charge a delivery fee for his services.)

Albright’s commitment to service over money hasn’t always been his philosophy. There was a time when things were much different.

A life-altering experience and a leg up

He got his start making pizzas in the early 1980s after graduating high school at a now defunct restaurant in Blackfoot called Mama Jolene’s. Both of his parents died when he was 11-years-old, so he lived with a friend.

“I had no money. My hair was long (and all I had on was a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts). I was pretty (rough around the edges) and they didn’t want to give me the time of day. I went home and my friend’s dad asked me if I got the job. When I told him no, he goes, ‘Would you hire you? Cause I wouldn’t,'” Albright recalls.

That night, Albright says he got a haircut and borrowed some clothes from his friend. He went back to apply for the job the next day and was hired on the spot.

Frequent customers at Mr. Pizza know that Albright walks with a limp and has a huge scar on his right leg. When he was 16-years-old, he crushed his right leg in a car crash.

“I was drinking and ran into a tree. It wasn’t good,” he says. “Because I was in the car for so long, the front of my leg died. They (put my left leg on top of the other one and pinned them together) for two months.”

Albright says his leg got caught behind a piece of metal on the seat. If it hadn’t been for that, the damage to his leg wouldn’t have been as bad it was.

Albright also had to have his hip replaced as a result of the crash. He recalls cleaning the exposed bone daily during his recovery.

“You would think that would’ve been a game-changer for me, but it wasn’t. I stayed on the same path I was on when this happened. I ended up getting a job at the pizza place and got a DUI while I worked there,” says Albright.

Albright showed up for his court date and a judge sentenced him to 10 days in jail, a $300 fine and six months of probation.

“‘If I miss 10 days of work, I’ll lose my job,” Albright remembers telling the judge. “‘I can’t miss. It’s the first job I’ve had that I’m really serious about.'”

The judge carried out the sentence, despite Albright’s plea. The support of his coworkers and employers allowed him to keep his job.

“The owners gave me some unbelievable deals (and bent over backwards to help me keep my job),” says Albright.

Several of Albright’s coworkers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and he says they often “hounded him to change his ways.”

Albright turned his life around and eventually worked his way to the top before deciding to venture off on his own six years later.

‘I love what I do’

Despite his injuries, Albright says he can still walk or run without any problems and still has full mobility in his leg.

He is grateful to the pizza shop owners who gave him a second chance all those years ago and says his life wouldn’t be what it is today if it hadn’t been for their support.

Though offers to buy his restaurant still come, Albright has no interest in selling or expanding and has no plans to retire any time soon.

He loves running the restaurant with his wife, Deann, his son, Zach, and eight other employees and says he’s happy to do it until the day he dies.

“The product I was taught how to make is a very good product,” Albright says. “I love what I do.”