LOCAL BUSINESSES
They say there are five love languages, but Cody Taylor, Valentino’s owner and operator, has discovered a sixth — pizza. Over the past few months, Taylor and his crew have been surprising San Marcos companies with free pizzas, spreading love one business at a time. The Spread the Love campaign has plans to continue into the new year, expanding into collaborations with other local restaurants, in pursuit of uplifting and promoting local businesses.
Valentino’s Pizza has been a staple in the San Marcos community since 1981, closing in 2018 much to the public’s dismay. Four years passed until the doors were opened once again in June 2022 to a newly renovated restaurant complete with two new bars, a patio, new recipes as well as some classic Valentino’s staples like their cheese bread sticks. It has been over two years and the San Marcos community has embraced this new era of Valentino’s Pizza, just as Valentino’s embraces the community. A focus on supporting local businesses was implemented in 2023 when Cody Taylor stepped down from day to day operations at his other restaurant, Industry, and took over operations at Valentino’s exclusively in order to have more time with his wife and kids.
Taylor has put a lot of work into supporting the legacy of Valentino’s inside the shop, but the love of the local community extends outside the pizza parlor’s doors.
“Being a local business, it’s pretty common that we would take pizza to some of our close neighbors around here. It would be for whatever reason,” Taylor said. “Late night, typically, if we make too many pizzas, we would take them to some of the bars.”
Sharing pizza was just a natural part of their day to day operations, but earlier this summer, the shop started Local Love Giftcards, which were discount coupon cards that Taylor gave to his staff and encouraged them to share with the community.
“When you guys are out, whether you’re buying groceries or you’re at another restaurant or just wherever, if you have a good interaction with someone, give them one of these cards,” Taylor instructed the staff.
The Local Love campaign started with those cards, which evolved into Student Love Cards in the Fall. The giving grew organically over the next months, Taylor realized they could broaden the Local Love campaign and surprise people randomly with pizzas at lunch time, emphasizing the value of sharing a moment with someone. The pizza and love were well received, and Taylor turned to his staff to push the idea further. His lead team recommended staff incorporate businesses that they were regulars at, like their morning coffee shop or their hair dresser. “Connecting the community and these businesses through my staff members who were regulars at these places” was a new goal of Valentino’s.
“When you bring free pizza to people it usually brightens their day so it just feels good,” Taylor said.
There is no limit to the businesses that Valentino’s is spreading the love to.
“We’ve done a pretty good gamut; we’ve done barber shops [and] salons. We took one in the sheriff’s office. We’ve done head shops. We did Pie society. So we’ve just hit a lot of different types of businesses. Babes was one too. I think in total, we’ve probably done 12 to 14.” Taylor explained.
The campaign continues to evolve and grow into new ways to share the love to other local businesses.
“The whole month of January we’ll be doing collaborations with four other local restaurants; places that we really love, and [we will] do a collab where it’ll be like a menu item or something from their restaurant that we’re going to turn into a pizza here” Taylor said. “I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun. It was another thing that just felt really good, talking to the other operators and giving them a chance to tell their story; it was another moment for us to connect with these other local businesses and not just as local businesses, but as other local community members; There’ll be four weeks in January that we will be collabing with four different restaurants, and I cannot wait. I am very excited about this one.”
Valentino’s has much more local love to spread, but after reflecting on these past two years, Taylor has felt the love himself.
“It’s been so rewarding to be able to operate this restaurant,” Taylor said. “My staff has been so amazing. I’m thankful that we’re here. I’m thankful that the town continues to support us. You know, when I wear my hat or a Valentino’s shirt, anywhere I go in town, somebody usually says something, and it just, it feels so good. The only thing I can really say is thank you. I’m just very appreciative.”
You can taste the love yourself seven days a week at 110 N LBJ Drive and you can follow Valentino’s Spread the Love campaign on their instagram @valentinossmtx.
