Ray vanMerrienboer’s passion for entrepreneurship goes back to his childhood, when he operated a makeshift lemonade stand.
As Business Report details in the latest Entrepreneur feature from its new issue, vanMerrienboer’s carried his passion for entrepreneurship well into his adult life. The entrepreneur is the owner of Red Zeppelin Pizza on Perkins Road. While the business is a thriving pizzeria today, it took a lot of trial and error before vanMerrienboer perfected the thin-crust combinations featured on his menu.
With pizzas such as “Whole Lotta Love,” “The Mothership” and “Heartbreaker,” Red Zeppelin opened on Perkins Road in 2010 with an atmosphere that is equal parts family-friendly and rock n’ roll.
Considering the significant growth of the restaurant’s business in recent months and the increasing frequency with which his inside dining area and outside patio are filled with hungry customers, he plans to further expand the patio, which he built after opening the restaurant, this summer.
“Growth has been so good, but I don’t think we are done here,” he says. “We are going to expand as much as we can, and when I have done everything to where I can’t do anymore, then I’ll do another location.”
As a child, vanMerrienboer remembers observing the successes of those around him and trying to pinpoint what they were doing right so that he, too, could someday build a thriving business of his own.
After getting a degree in hospitality management, the New Orleans native got his first taste of running a business as a Smoothie King franchise owner in Auburn, Alabama. After 10 years there, vanMerrienboer felt called back to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and was drawn to Baton Rouge because of the buzz about the city’s growth. He initially pursued a chicken restaurant with a friend at State Street and Highland Road, but when it fell through during the recession, he decided to start developing his own pizzeria concept.
Inspired by his grandfather, a restaurateur, vanMerrienboer was driven by a desire to do more than simply work for someone else.
“When you are working blue collar jobs, you realize, these guys are making money,” he says. “But you need to have something that is going to work, that is going to be unique.”
His idea for the pizzeria was hindered by one rather large obstacle: He had no experience making pizzas. Undeterred, vanMerrienboer and his wife made countless pies in their home oven, trying to identify flavor profiles they liked.
Despite stiff competition from other fast-casual pizza joints, Red Zeppelin has garnered a loyal following from the surrounding neighborhoods and the LSU area. “It makes you work harder,” vanMerrienboer says of his many competitors. “If you are serious about what you are doing, people go see the competition but then they come back to you.”
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