Build your pizzeria website in Jackson
A Jackson pizzeria lives on loyalty: neighbors in Fondren and Belhaven, and families who moved to the suburbs but still drive in for the pie they grew up on. A website keeps all of them ordering directly from you, at your own price, instead of through an app that takes a cut every time.
Neighborhood pizza in Mississippi’s capital
Jackson is the state capital and Mississippi’s largest city, sitting along the Pearl River. It is a majority-Black city with a deep civil-rights history, home to Jackson State University, Millsaps College, Belhaven University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. It is also a city that has been shrinking: between 2010 and 2020 it lost more of its population than any other major U.S. city, much of it to the suburbs around it.
The pizzerias that last here are neighborhood places. In Fondren, the city’s arts district, Basil’s serves pies on North State Street, and The Manship runs a wood-fired kitchen further down the same road. The Pizza Shack, on Fortification Street between Millsaps and Belhaven, has been a casual student and neighborhood spot for years. Over in Eastover, Sal & Mookie’s sells New York-style pizza and ice cream at the District.
Your market is bigger than your delivery zone
DoorDash and Uber Eats cover Fondren, Belhaven and the North State and I-55 corridor well. But the Pearl River forms most of the city’s eastern edge, and Ridgeland, Flowood, Richland, Byram and Clinton surround the city with their own chains. Many of the families who love your pizza now live in those suburbs. They are too far for delivery, but they drive into Jackson for work, church, games and family, and they will happily stop for a pie.
Keep control when things change fast
Jackson residents know what it means when the city’s water system fails: boil-water notices in 2021 and 2022, and the days in August 2022 when the largest treatment plant failed. On days like that, restaurants have to adjust hours or close quickly. On your own site you can update your hours or post a notice in a minute, so customers see it before they drive over. An app listing rarely keeps up.
The rest of the time, your own site simply keeps more of your money. Every order from a regular that goes through an app pays a commission, and many owners raise app prices to compensate, so loyal customers pay more than at the counter. On your site, the menu price is the same everywhere, and you keep each customer’s name and order so you can tell them about a game-day special for Jackson State or a new pie on the menu.
Keep the apps for discovery if they help. Then put your own ordering link on every box, receipt and Google listing, so the second order comes straight to you.