BackZeek's was founded in 1993 by two friends, Tom Vial and Doug McClure. A ski trip to Montana brought them to a Pizza Hut with a line around the corner. "It was ten below zero — one of the coldest days of that winter, and here people were standing outside a Pizza Hut." Vial said. “We had no background in restaurants, but we had a lot of entrepreneurial energy and a little money in the bank,” Vial said.
When they returned home from the ski trip, they borrowed $15,000 from each set of parents and went shopping for a location for their pizzeria. “Starbucks kept taking all the really good retail locations.” Eventually they settled on a tiny 580-square-foot space by Seattle Pacific University, on Queen Anne. That was 1993, 29 years and 22 locations later, they are still as stoked as the day they started.
Mill Creek
Year2022
1,384 sq ft
ArchitectSkidmore Janette
