Michael Lindsey bought the restaurant in August 2018, changing the name from David’s Oak Cliff Pizza to Old Hag’s, in honor of his mother. This is Lindsey’s first foray into food. After getting laid off from a corporate job in early 2018, he decided he wanted to own a business. After three months of research, he settled on food.
“My background is customer service-centric,” Lindsey says. “I delivered pizza for Domino’s when I was 18, but that’s all the experience with pizza I had. I just like food.”
Lindsey stumbled into the 24-hour model a few months after taking over the business.
“I wanted to max ZaLat Pizza, which is open until 4 a.m. So I thought, ‘OK, if we’re going to be open till 4, why not stay open all the time to get the prepping done?’”
Initially, he planned only to be open 24 hours on weekends, but the response was overwhelming, and he decided to remain open 24/7.
“We have a sign on the door that says, ‘We never close,’ and I mean that,” Lindsey says. “We will be open 24 hours on Christmas Day.”
Old Hag is uniquely positioned in DFW.
“You can get barbecue all night, you can get tacos all night, but not pizza,” Lindsey says. “People order pizza until 6 a.m., 8 a.m. in the morning.”
And they deliver beyond Oak Cliff, too.
“We’ll deliver up to 20 miles. We go as far as Grand Prairie, Irving and Mesquite. People pay the big delivery fees because we’re the only option,” Lindsey says.
People find Old Hag through delivery apps like Grubhub and UberEats. Lindsey uses his own fleet of drivers and does not rely on Grubhub’s drivers.“People just don’t care. If people are hungry, they’ll pay for whatever. The No. 1 delivered food is pizza, so why aren’t there more 24-hour pizza places?” — Michael Lindsey
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“Their drivers end at 11 every night, and they stop taking orders at 10:45,” Lindsey says. “If you open Grubhub after then, Old Hag is the only place — not just pizza place — that will show up because we’re the only people using our own drivers.”
Lindsey says the pizzeria has been busy every night until 4.
“During the weekdays, I have to have three drivers until 4 a.m.," he says. "I never thought I was going to need more than one overnight driver.”
The hours weren’t the only thing Lindsey changed when he took over the place last year. He also focused on improving the quality of the product.
“I stopped using their cheap food vendor," he says. "I started using the highest quality ingredients there are. I stopped using canned pizza sauce, and I developed my own sauce recipe. I went to all-beef meatballs. Our pepperoni are all beef, too. We use top-of-the-line cheese — it’s never been frozen, it comes straight from California.”
Lindsey adds: “People aren’t paying Little Caesars prices for the pizza, because it is expensive, but people aren’t going to get Little Caesars quality. If I’m not happy with it, I’m not serving it.”
The No. 1 pizza is the triple pepperoni, made with three types — deli-sliced, diced, and cup and char — along with extra mozzarella cheese and their spicy pizza sauce. Porky the Hag is another favorite. It has Canadian bacon, pepperoni, bacon, extra mozzarella cheese and spicy pizza sauce.
But it’s not just pizza that people order through the night.
“They order the craziest things,” Lindsey says. “People will get just one Hag Fries (seasoned potato wedges with melted cheddar and bacon) and pay the $20 delivery fee to take it to Grand Prairie.
“More than once, people have ordered small mozzarella sticks for $3.95. And they still pay the $20 delivery fee. People have ordered just one pint of Blue Bell ice cream.”
While Lindsey is pleased to be the only business fulfilling this need, he doesn’t understand why there aren’t more 24/7 pizza options in Dallas.
“People just don’t care. If people are hungry, they’ll pay for whatever," he says. "The No. 1 delivered food is pizza, so why aren’t there more 24-hour pizza places?”
Old Hag Pizza and Pasta, 1315 W. Davis St. (Oak Cliff)
