Slice Pizza

| By: ANDI R. TISCARENO photos courtesy of: THE VILLALOBOS FAMILY |

What started as a dream of making good food as a side hustle for the family became a full time second job.

Sun City Slice Pizza is owned and operated by Alicia Villalobos, her husband Ismael and their daughter Amanda, as well as Ismael’s brother Julio and his wife Cristina. Starting with an idea from Ismael Villalobos, the family worked for half a year to get their first location and their signature flavors rolling.

Ismael was the first to say “You know what? Pizza is something everyone loves, we could have our own pizza place!” Each family member worked hard outside of their own careers and family lives to bring it all together.

“We have meetings to decide together what happens with the shops, along with our employees,” Alicia Villalobos, co-owner, says.

“When we first opened, we had to come up with our whole concept, our brand, and the name, the décor, everything,” Cristina

Villalobos explains. “So with the five of us, we’ve been able to put our heads together and build something and grow.”

With Ismael’s background in business and construction, the family united to learn about running a pizza shop. From purchasing their own small pizza oven and working from home and making their own dough, to developing their own sauce as a family recipe, they shaped the building blocks for creating their menu.

Slice’s menu features a wide variety of specials, daily promos, and specialty pizza creations, such as the El Buffaloco pizza topped with mozzarella cheese, buffalo chicken, fresh tomatoes, and julienned basil, all drizzled with ranch and buffalo sauce.

Another popular item is the Chile Relleno Pizza featuring a crust stuffed with mozzarella cheese and green chiles, topped with red onions, green peppers and chiles, chorizo, and bacon.

Amanda Villalobos, Alicia and Ismael’s daughter and Slice’s manager, is credited with coming up with most of the menu ideas along with helping keep the business running.

“We really wanted to stand out, while focusing on family and affordable food. Right away we knew we wanted to do pizza, wings, and salads,” says Amanda. The family says that Amanda is the real boss, the rock of the business, running from location to location and making sure operations are running smoothly on the services end and the business end.

When it comes to wings, Slice brings it home with a list of flavors for bone-in wings in varying levels of sweet and tangy like BBQ, lemon pepper, and garlic parmesan, to hot and savory like mango habanero and honey hot.

Of course, if you like pain, they also have flavors like Mega Hot and Diablo Hot. Slice also utilizes the hottest sauce flavor for the Russian roulette style pizza called The Devil’s Slice. This daunting pizza features a seemingly normal pepperoni drizzled with buffalo sauce, only it’s hiding a painful secret: one slice is extremely hot, and only the one who eats it will know!

As with every business, Slice likes to lean into different trends in order to draw in more customers and keep current customers engaged.

When the video game “Among Us” grew in popularity during the pandemic, Slice came out with an “Among Us” pizza in the shape of the little characters from the game, with either “Crew Mate” or “Imposter” written on the inside of the box.

During the month of February, Slice features a heart-shaped pizza, along with the famous peppe-roses for anyone looking to wow their significant other with a sweet but cheesy gesture.

Even during the Halloween season, Slice rolls out spooky pizza, featuring a pumpkin shaped pie with a creepy face, and pizza skulls, which feature a skull-shaped dough filled with marinara, cheese, and any topping you choose.

Slice even offers a gluten-free option, a cauliflower crust that has become yet another staple at each location.

Partnered with Tin Man, Slice sells growlers featuring Tin Man’s designs throughout the year.

They currently have a growler with their own name and murals on the glass. Customers can choose from a variety of beers from tap or cans to enjoy with their hot pizzas.

With a menu like that, there’s something for everyone to bring home to the table.

With the support from the El Paso community as well as their loyal regulars who continue to come in for their pizza fix, the Slice family has been able to grow to have four locations. These locations include the original location on the eastside, one on the westside, one in the lower valley, and the newest in Eastlake, which has become the busiest location.

Three of these locations are open for dine in, pick up, delivery, and food delivery apps; and the lower valley location is currently operating as a catering location for large orders such as the ones Slice fulfills for the local school districts.

“Our school districts support us as well,” says Cristina. “They’ll have end-of-year parties where we get our big orders, so we do our best to take care of them as well.”

Slice also make large orders to sell at various high schools during the students’ lunch periods

“We’re at Del Valle, Eastwood, Ysleta High schools where we take the pizzas over and sell them to the students, staff, everyone,” says Alicia.

With a wide array of services and operations, each member of the family is involved in running the business; yes, even the little ones. “I’m not there full time because I also teach, but when we can, we come and we help out. Sometimes we’re here delivering or we’re in the kitchen,” Alicia says.

Whether it’s making pizzas, serving customers, folding a mountain of boxes, or cleaning up at the end of the day, everyone in the family helps out whenever needed on short staffed or extremely busy days.

“Our kids, our sister-in-law, our mother and father-in-law help with our school orders. We have a family that has their own piece in it,” Cristina adds.

Even the crew that’s hired, as well as their regulars, have some input when it comes to different ideas and suggestions that are considered when deciding what else to add to the menu or what else to bring in more customers.

All the locations Sun City Slice feature trendy music playing overhead, natural sunlight coming in from the large windows in the dining area, as well as Slice-themed décor around the dining area, such as murals painted by local artists as well as whatever fits the theme of the month or holiday.

The Villalobos family hopes that they can grow enough to either open another location or feature more items on their menu, but for now say that they are happy with where they are currently.

“We just need to continue to grow,” Cristina says, “we have lots of ideas waiting to come forward and we’ll keep evolving and following trends.”