On a hot Texas summer day in June 1976, Jerry Strader and Scott Leist arrived in Austin in their respective vans—Jerry driving a ’76 Dodge, Scott behind the wheel of a ’68 VW microbus. They were questing across the continent in search of the perfect college town to start a pizza place—stopping in Austin when they realized the city needed an introduction to Chicago-style, deep-dish pies. They opened on July 19, 1976, on 29th street, debuting Austin’s original deep pan pizza and calling their place Conan’s after Scott’s favorite comic book hero. Allandale’s outpost opened in 1979, now run by siblings Chris, Carly, and Chad after their father Jerry retired.
Stepping into Conan’s is stepping back into the 1970s. Nothing has changed. Wood everywhere, hanging ivies, voluptuous spindles, fantasy art, arcade games, music. Even the youngsters working the counter seemingly step right out of Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused” to take your order. The food is just as good as in the glory days of muscle cars and t-shirts (or least as far back as 1991 for me when I first partook). The wheat crust is surprisingly slightly sweet and unique. The salads are buried in mozzarella cheese and housemade ranch dressing. Their best-selling pizza is The Savage, topped with sausage, hamburger, pepperoni, green pepper, white onion, mushroom, black olive with optional jalapenos and anchovies. The pizza is good, and the beer is cheap. What else do you need?
Don’t like wheat? They have white crust. Don’t like thick? They added thin crust pizza in 1989 for the flatatarians. Don’t like pizza? May your grave be piled high with mozzarella and ranch dressing.
Conan’s Pizza, 2438 West Anderson, conanspizza.com, (512) 459-3221
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