They serve macaroni and cheese, black beans, avocado and feta cheese, beef stroganoff and cookie dough on pizza. These nontraditional toppings stray from the typical American \cheese and pepperoni"" style, but that is not all that is unique about the story of Ian's Pizza and the owner, Ian Gurfield.
Ian's Pizza by the Slice, 319 N. Frances St., may only have been open since Halloween 2001, but for 24-year-old Gurfield, the pizzeria's opening was the culmination of a 3-year-long dream.
""I always wanted to kind of do something entrepreneurial ... something on my own,"" he said. ""I didn't want to go off to cubicle-land, so to speak.""
Gurfield studied philosophy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and plans on attending graduate school in the future. But before doing this, he wanted to do something he considers more useful.
""I spent four years of just doing theoretical work and writing papers and I really wanted to do something that was practical,"" he said.
Gurfield modeled his restaurant after one located in Amherst, Mass.
""There's a restaurant where I went to school at the University of Massachusetts that I thought was really good,"" he said. ""It was super popular, and I thought it could be replicated in another college town.""
So after getting his bachelor's degree in January 2000, Gurfield traveled across the country in search of the right town for his restaurant.
""I looked at 60 college towns. I wanted to find [the one] where I thought I would do best,"" he said.
Throughout his search, Gurfield examined each town, looking for the one with the right balance between the school itself and the town in regards to his potential for success and profitability. He considered opening his restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana, but at the last minute decided against this in favor of Madison.
""I really liked Madison the first time I came here two years ago,"" he said. ""[There were] a number of factors that I liked [about Madison]'demographics, psychographics, size of the school, general other food places in town, a bunch of things.""
