Today we’d like to introduce you to Darius T. Aram.
Hi Darius T., we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Darius Aram didn’t set out to become a pizza guy, he became one because the life he was living stopped feeling like a life he wanted. After years in the mortgage world, chasing numbers instead of meaning, he chose to walk away and rebuild from scratch. What started as a spark from childhood memories of family kitchens and old-world flavors became Slice Street Pizza, a community-rooted pizzeria in Dripping Springs known for craft dough, clean ingredients, and hospitality that feels like home. Today, through Slice Street Pizza and their wholesale bakery, Slice & Co., Darius pours his story of reinvention into every crust, proving that sometimes the best way forward is to start over and bake something new.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Darius Aram’s path to Slice Street Pizza wasn’t clean, linear, or easy. He walked away from a stable career in the mortgage world carrying years of burnout, self-doubt, and the uncomfortable question of what comes next. The transition wasn’t glamorous, there were financial risks, sleepless nights, failed recipes, setbacks in staffing and operations, and the constant fear that he’d traded security for a dream that might not rise. But with every challenge, he kept moving, kneading through frustration, rejection, and the weight of starting over. Slice Street Pizza was built not out of convenience, but out of grit, humility, and the belief that purpose is worth the struggle. Every crust tells that story.
From the moment Slice Street Pizza opened its doors, Darius Aram found himself fighting challenges on every front. Learning to manage a restaurant without a traditional culinary background meant steep on-the-fly education, balancing dough fermentation schedules, ensuring HACCP compliance, dialing in equipment quirks, and keeping consistency across New York, Detroit, gluten-friendly, and flatbread crusts. Staffing brought its own trials: building a culture of accountability, dealing with turnover, training team leads, enforcing logs and procedures, and pushing a young team to respect standards without losing morale.
Operational fires became a daily reality, running out of ingredients mid-rush, 86’ing items that should never be 86’d, troubleshooting ovens and POS systems, navigating vendors, scheduling dough production around a 48-hour fermentation cycle, and managing delivery variables that affected product quality and customer perception.
Then came the emotional and financial challenges: the pressure of risking everything on a business in a town where reputation spreads fast; watching sales fluctuate; handling online criticism with grace and humor; juggling wholesale growth while still running retail; and wondering, on the hardest days, whether leaving a career in mortgages for the chaos of pizza was bravery or insanity.
Through it all, Darius had to become a leader, creating a handbook, defining culture, shaping systems, strengthening hospitality, and teaching his team that consistency isn’t optional. Slice Street’s success wasn’t handed to him; it was earned through early mornings, late nights, bad burns, tough conversations, bold decisions, and the relentless belief that if you put the customer first, everything else follows.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At Slice Street Pizza, the work speaks long before anyone takes a bite. Every crust begins with non-GMO flour, real olive oil, no additives, and a slow 48-hour cold fermentation that brings depth, character, and texture you can feel the moment it hits your hands. The dough is hand-stretched, never machined, giving each pizza its own personality—imperfect in the best, most artisanal way. The ingredients stay clean and intentional, from whole-milk mozzarella to sauces crafted from California-grown Italian tomatoes. Monthly specials are built with the same philosophy: creative, bold, and a little wild, yet always grounded in approachability. The team at Slice Street is fearless, putting everything from Blueberries, to Butter Chicken and even Duck Confit on a pizza. Whether it’s NY, Detroit, gluten-friendly (made from scratch in-house), or flatbread, everything is made with craft over convenience, technique over shortcuts, and hospitality at the center of the experience. This is pizza that carries its own story.
What does success mean to you?
Success at Slice Street is defined by the community we serve and the way people feel when they walk through our doors. It’s the families who make us part of their routines, the local partners who grow alongside us, and the moments of hospitality that leave guests feeling seen, welcomed, and genuinely cared for. But success isn’t a single milestone, it’s built through hundreds of small, deliberate choices: sourcing clean ingredients, honoring the craft, holding the line on standards, communicating clearly, and fixing the things that need fixing even when no one is watching. It’s the trust we earn, shift after shift, slice after slice. And ultimately, success is simple: if you Trust the Crust™, the crust becomes the foundation for success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.SliceStreetPizza.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SliceStreetPizza/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slicestreetpizza/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SliceStreetZa
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/slice-street-pizza-dripping-springs-2
Image Credits
Summer Miles
