Business of the Week: Partners II Pizza Is Where Fayette and Coweta Go to Eat

When my grown sons come home from their big-time adult jobs in the Midwest, they want Partners II Pizza.

When my uncle visits from Texas, he wants Partners.

My mom and I split the potato pizza. My husband is a purist: pepperoni. Over the years, my sons have celebrated birthdays at Partners locations from Aberdeen to SummerGrove to Braelinn. I’ve been eating there for more than 25 years.

Partners II Pizza won The Citizen’s Choice Award for “What’s the First Place You Think of When Someone Says ‘Let’s Go Eat’?” The Citizen’s Choice Awards are powered by the Fayette Chamber of Commerce. 

When I found out Partners won, my first thought was: Well, of course.

Apparently, my family has just been saying out loud what families across Fayette and Coweta have been saying for decades.

For this Business of the Week feature, I talked with Tiffany Royal, daughter of Partners founder Jim Royal and owner and operator of the Braelinn location, about the family business she has known almost her entire life.

Partners II Pizza traces its roots to 1977, when Jim Royal and his then-wife opened the original Aberdeen location in Peachtree City. Nearly 50 years later, Jim and his wife, Marilyn, still operate the Aberdeen location and are there every day, Tiffany Royal said.

The next generation is very much in the pizza business, too. Tiffany Royal’s Braelinn location has been open for 10 years. Her sister Rebecca Tate owns the Arbor Springs location, and stepsister Tasha operates the SummerGrove restaurant, now about 20 years old.

There are also independently owned Partners locations in Fayetteville and Tyrone, plus a Woodstock location where Jim Royal is a silent partner.

Royal thinks she knows why people keep coming back.

“I think part of it is because the longevity,” she said. “A lot of people grew up on it, so that it just comes natural, I think, to think, ‘Let’s go get Partners.’”

The pizza itself has remained remarkably consistent.

“We haven’t changed our pizza recipe in 50 years,” Royal said.

That means the same fluffy, buttery crust generations of customers have come to recognize.

Royal understands that continuity better than almost anybody. She was almost 4 when the first Partners opened and doesn’t really remember life before it.

“I always wish that I could try Partners pizza for the first time,” she said. “I wish I could experience it for the first time.”

She still eats it, too.

“Oh yeah, oh yeah,” Royal said.

Her favorite is surprisingly simple: a thick-crust cheese pizza, with the crust dipped in Partners Special, the restaurant’s creamy Italian dressing.

The dressing is another piece of family history. Royal said Partners Special came from her maternal grandmother’s recipe and is actually a creamy Italian, despite generations of customers calling it “Partners Ranch.”

“There’s no dill in sight,” she said.

And then there’s the potato pizza.

Royal said it is Partners’ bestselling specialty pizza across the locations, behind only standards like cheese and pepperoni. People who have moved away even return during the holidays and order take-and-bake potato pizzas to carry home.

It starts with a sour cream base, followed by a potato salad mixture with cheddar, bacon, and green onions. Then comes extra cheese, extra bacon, and more green onions.

“So it’s like a loaded baked potato,” Royal said, “and it’s just so good.”

Correct.

It is magical.

At Royal’s Braelinn restaurant, though, food is only part of what keeps people walking through the door.

“Sometimes I feel like the community center with the groups that we get in here,” Royal said.

There are neighborhood groups, mahjong players, bridge groups, a book club, Bible studies, church gatherings, sports banquets, high school organizations, debate teams, and end-of-season parties.

That is also one of the reasons the Partners story is bigger than pizza. For decades, the restaurants have been places where kids worked their first jobs and where teams, clubs, churches, and families gathered.

Some parts of the business have changed.

The famous Partners buffet and salad bar, originally created because the Aberdeen restaurant needed a way to serve huge lunchtime crowds quickly, disappeared during COVID and isn’t coming back. Royal said eliminating it helped control food and labor costs and allowed the restaurants to put money toward employee wages, health insurance, and store improvements.

Delivery has also become easier. Customers can order through the Partners website and have their food delivered through DoorDash. Royal said ordering delivery directly through the restaurant website generally allows Partners to keep its regular menu pricing rather than adding the menu-price surcharges required on third-party apps.

And another generation is experimenting with something Jim Royal once resisted: a Partners food truck. Royal said Tate and her son, Tucker Morris, are working on that project.

But don’t expect Partners II Pizza to suddenly become a nationwide chain.

“No, we definitely would never go national, at least not in my dad’s lifetime,” Royal said.

There is plenty happening close to home.

The original Aberdeen site is in the middle of a major redevelopment, with Partners continuing to operate during construction. The project will eventually include residences above the businesses.

I’ve already heard someone ask who would want to live above a pizza place.

Me.

I volunteer.

I could smell Partners pizza every day and not hate my life.

Royal said the family also puts much of what might otherwise be an advertising budget back into local schools, sports, fun runs, and community organizations.

“The main thing is that we all love what we do,” she said. “You’d have to honestly to stay in it because it’s not easy.”

Then she came back to what has kept Partners rooted here for generations.

“We just all of us love what we do, and we love being parts of the community.”

Apparently, the community feels the same way.

So, who wants to go eat?