New business offers handmade, customizable pizza

By Thomas Clapper

CCM Reporter

Kessler’s Pizza brings more variety to the Carrollton pizza scene and offers custom made pizzas in a variety of ways. 

Owners Rachelle and Kurt Kessler decided it was time to open their own pizzeria about a year ago and haven’t looked back since the first day on Sept. 26. 

“We are not opening to bring competition to the pizza world in Carrollton,” said Rachelle. “When you drive down Canton Rd. you have Taco Bell, Dairy Queen, McDonald’s, and the others, so I thought why not more pizza options as well. I just wanted to offer another option available.” 

Rachelle and Kurt are legal guardians of their nephews, and the one child would not eat until Rachelle made a homemade pizza and discovered he enjoyed this and everyone else enjoyed it. This helped birth the idea of the pizza shop. 

“I always loved to cook and I cook a lot at home,” said Rachelle. “My mom was Italian, and I grew up making homemade noodles and other dishes in the kitchen with her. We don’t only want to do this for us, but for our nephews’ future as well because we don’t have our own kids.”

Rachelle explained as soon as the building was rented there was extensive remodeling done to get everything up to code. 

“I have to have my kitchen clean and am very particular about that,” said Rachelle. “A lot of customers say how clean it is in here and I pride myself on that. I was an STNA for 11 years and did a lot of home-based healthcare and I liked to get the patients into the kitchen so they could have fun and make their family recipes.”

Kessler’s offers small, large and double XXL with a large variety of toppings and combinations.

The shop now offers stuffed crust and it can be stuffed with sausage, bacon, pepperoni, banana peppers or whatever the customer asks for. There is also a selection of sauces such as the house sauce which is tangy or a sweet sauce, spicy sauce, BBQ sauce and more. 

Kessler’s also offers cauliflower crust pizzas. 

“My main goal is to make everyone happy,” said Rachelle. “I make everything like I am going to eat it. Everything is homemade and can be tailored to your taste. I think the quality of the pizza will sell itself and customers will come back.”

Kessler’s offers round pizzas with triangle slices and square pizzas with square slices. Also available are subs, calzones, salads, pepperoni rolls, breadsticks and cheesy breadsticks. There are bags of chips, two liters of beverages as well as cans of beverages for sale. 

“My husband Kurt builds houses as a contractor and I will build pizzas while he builds houses,” said Rachelle. “I have a heavy hand of toppings and cheese; my cheesy breadsticks are homemade, I roll the bread out. There is no machine that does this, I roll every pizza out by hand.”

There is Lunch Special every day with the primary goal to feed kids after school and local workers. It includes a piece of pizza, a bag of chips and canned beverage for $5. This runs 12:30-3:30 p.m.

“Carrollton has been great with the whole process of getting opened up,” said Rachelle. “Everyone at the courthouse and the health department has been great to work with.”

Kessler’s Pizza is located in the back alley between Ashton’s and Que Pasa, 80 W. Main St. Rear. Hours are Sunday, 12 p.m. noon-4 p.m.; Closed on Monday; open Tuesday through Saturday, 12 p.m., noon-8 p.m.

See Kessler’s Pizza on Facebook. To place an order call 330-868-8220 or 330-739-0267. Curbside pickup is available, call back after arrival and someone will bring the pizza to the vehicle. 

 “What I enjoy most is making the customer happy and for them to walk out with a good meal and a good experience,” said Rachelle. “I enjoy being an independent owner and operator. Every experience I try to tailor to every customer from the time they call to when they pick it up and enjoy it.”