SISTER LAKES — Propaganda Pizza may be a new restaurant in Sister Lakes, but the owners, Tim Tinker and Alain Helfrich are not new to the restaurant business.

“Tim and I have a combined 40 years of restaurant experience, and we’ve seen it done right and have seen it done wrong when opening a restaurant,” Helfrich said.

It all started when Tinker moved back to the area, 10 years ago from Seattle, Washington. He frequented the Keeler Keg for his pizza fix, but it burned down five years ago. After that, Tinker saw a need for a little pizza place in the area.

Tinker and Helfrich worked together at several different restaurants in South Bend, most recently at the Crooked Ewe Brewery & Ale House. Tinker is the service manager and Helfrich is the executive chef.

Tinker approached Helfrich about an available space and suggested it would make a great little pizza spot. Helfrich agreed to enter the business venture without hesitation. Tinker and Helfrich continued working their full-time jobs, giving any additional time, money or effort into creating Propaganda Pizza.

“It’s just really fun to say the name Propaganda Pizza,” Tinker said. “My background is also in graphic design, so with a name like that, I was excited to do literally anything with all our logos and fonts. It never had to be boxed in. You could really do almost anything with that name. It was really exciting to explore that artistically.”

Outside of the name being fun to say, Helfrich said propaganda is loud, bold and exciting.

“It’s very direct in a very short number of phrases and I really like that idea,” he said. “There is kind of a general negative connotation to the word propaganda. … Some of it is really bold, really honest and really about supporting your community, your country and the place that you live. … I think propaganda happens all the time. It’s a really cool idea I do like the brevity of it too. ‘Like loose lips, sink ships.’ Then being able to take that idea or that concept and create a sign saying, ‘make America pizza again.’”

With two strong artistic backgrounds, Tinker and Helfrich strive to be fun and creative when making food and in customer service, which allowed them to marry the two worlds together.

The restaurant hosted two soft openings, which garnered more customers than expected. The events attracted about 60 people from all over, including South Bend, Niles and even Seattle.

“I was surprised, for us being open only in the evenings, and we didn’t really tell anybody,” Helfrich said. “A lot of people do huge grand openings on the weekends, then things go all wrong, and they run out of product. We didn’t make some grand ole’ like Friday at 4 o’clock we’re open. We just unlocked the door and let people come in, and we sold over 100 pizzas in a few hours. It was great.”

When it comes to the pizza, Helfrich believes in the merging of unique flavors and styles.

“In my career of food, I’ve found that bridging the gap between styles or cuisines is really important,” Helfrich said. “Especially if things just go together, but combining things based on flavor profile is really fun. In trying to create a unique crust, I tried to go with my two favorite crusts which are traditional Neapolitan-style pizza and a New York pizza.”

To keep the rest of the pizza simple, Helfrich said the kitchen uses well water from the area to add the flavor of the town and keep things familiar. Other ingredients, like the flour and tomatoes, are imported from Italy.

Tinker’s main goal for Propaganda Pizza is to be a pizza for the people.

“My wife’s family owns a farm here, we know a lot of the other business owners around, so one of the main goals is that we are here for the people who live here,” Tinker said.  “We are super excited to serve those people in this community, as well to be inclusive in that community to our seasonal visitors.”

Tinker would also like to be included in the expansive business community of Sister Lakes.

“I want to serve a high-quality product that I’m confident in my kids eating, but since we are open on a daily basis, that probably won’t be the case,” Tinker joked.

Propaganda Pizza is located at 92018, M-152, Dowagiac.