PMQ Pizza April 2024

WINNING THE COLD WAR

Una Pizza Napoletana’s Anthony Mangieri plunged into the icy world of frozen retail pizza and resurfaced to success.

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JOE SCRIMA’S PIZZA DREAM

Joe Scrima was 63 years old—make that young when he launched his mobile catering operation, Scrima’s Pizza, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. A former home builder, he’d lost everything in the 2008 recession. He’d always wanted to open a pizzeria but never had the time. Suddenly, he had the time but no money. He followed his dream anyway, buying a used Blodgett conveyor oven and other older equipment with his credit card.

He started out with a space in a gas station, then moved into a supermarket spot. “The pizza sales were good, but it was difficult to compete against the frozen pizzas at the other end of the store,” he wrote in an article for PMQ.com. Finally, he purchased a wood-fired oven kit and paid a friend to build a custom truck to hold it. Today, his operation includes a take-and-bake shop, three ovens and a custom-built concession wagon for selling deep-fried pizzas.

“Even though life knocks you down sometimes, you have to think out of the box and go in a different direction,” he says. “I’m still going strong at my advanced age, and I am never going to retire.”

CONTENT

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Rick Hynum rhynum@wtwhmedia.com

SENIOR EDITOR

Charlie Pogacar cpogacar@wtwhmedia.com

COPY EDITOR

Tracy Morin tmorin@wtwhmedia.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR/USPT COORDINATOR

Brian Hernandez bhernandez@wtwhmedia.com

VP, ASSOCIATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Allison Dean adean@wtwhmedia.com

VP, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Greg Sanders gsanders@wtwhmedia.com

ART & PRODUCTION

ART DIRECTOR

Eric Summers esummers@wtwhmedia.com

SENIOR ART DIRECTOR

Tory Bartelt tbartelt@wtwhmedia.com

DIGITAL PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Blake Harris bharris@wtwhmedia.com

A Publication of WTWH Media, LLC 662-234-5481

Volume 28, Issue 3 April 2024 ISSN 1937-5263

BRANDED CONTENT STUDIO

DIRECTOR, BRANDED CONTENT Peggy Carouthers pcarouthers@wtwhmedia.com

ASSISTANT EDITOR, BRANDED CONTENT Ya’el McCloud ymccloud@wtwhmedia.com

ASSISTANT EDITOR, BRANDED CONTENT Olivia Schuster oschuster@wtwhmedia.com

SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER

Tom Boyles tboyles@wtwhmedia.com

NATIONAL SALES MANAGER

Ashley Cyprien acyprien@wtwhmedia.com

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Jerry Moschella jmoschella@wtwhmedia.com

NATIONAL SALES DIRECTOR

Eugene Drezner edrezner@wtwhmedia.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

Brandy Pinion bpinion@wtwhmedia.com

CO-FOUNDERS

Steve Green/Linda Green

JOE SCRIMA

April 2024

14

Why I Charge $35 for My Pizzas

What do you do when you want to take good care of your team and still turn a solid profit? You charge what your pizza is worth.

19 Bar Hopping

It may be lesser known than some styles, but the “magical alchemy” of South Shore Bar Pizza yields crunchy, savory deliciousness in every slice.

34

20 Pizza Brands to Watch

From robotics to weed pizza, this new breed of disruptors, innovators and marketing wizards are raising the bar for the entire industry.

50 The Happy Factor

The true holy grail of pizzeria success is guest satisfaction. We spoke to four chain and independent operators who are leading the quest.

56 Tips From the Pizza Team: Daniel Saccone

For top honors in pizza making competitions, don’t sleep on a classic cheese pie, says the U.S. Pizza Team member and owner of Saccone’s Pizza.

Winning the Cold War

If you think running a pizzeria is hard work, try getting into the retail frozen pizza business. Luckily, Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana figured it out and is ready to share what he learned.

BY TRACY MORIN

COVER PHOTO BY MELANIE DUNEA

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

11 Moneymakers

22 Recipe of the Month

32 Idea Zone

58 Pizza Industry Bulletin Board

60 PMQ Resource Guide

66 Pizza Hall of Fame

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THE ACCIDENTAL PIZZAIOLA

HEATHER KERNER, FOUNDER OF THE GOOD CRUST IN Canaan, Maine, started her dough manufacturing company for altruistic purposes—she wanted to support her state’s wheat growers and create jobs for people facing employment challenges. What she wasn’t interested in was making her own pizzas. But the community loves her dough so much, locals started demanding it as an alternative to gas-station pizza. Fortunately, her facility occupies a former restaurant with a cook line and an impinger oven in place. “We finally

decided to start a Friday-night-only pizza program,” Kerner says. “It’s been incredibly successful. We serve anywhere between 30 and 50 pies. In our tiny village, that’s a lot.” The pop-up pizzas come in a single size, 16”, and include Cheese Pizza, Pepperoni Pizza and the Carnivore, plus rotating pies like the Broccoli Alfredo; the Shaved Steak, Pepper and Onions; and the Maine Scallops and Bacon. “Our customers really like to connect the pizza they order with their farmers, who might be their neighbors,” Kerner says.

Heather Kerner started The Good Crust to support Maine farmers and locals who struggle to find employment. Now she’s also a pop-up pizzaiola with a loyal following.

THE GOOD CRUST

TONY GEMIGNANI’S BIG GAME

Selling pizza at the Super Bowl is lucrative work if you can find it—and Tony Gemignani found it. His Slice House by Tony Gemignani concept, headquartered in San Francisco, has five concession locations in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, where the NFL’s grand finale played out in February. We don’t know if Taylor Swift bought a slice from Gemignani, but a lot of other people certainly did: Slice House sold a staggering 8,200 slices to the starstudded crowd during the game. All together, Slice House boasts 29 locations in arenas and stadiums in California and Nevada, including the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park, San Francisco Warriors’ Chase Center, and San Francisco 49ers’ Levi Stadium. Gemignani started franchising Slice House nationwide last year, and the company reports that it has 145 franchised units open or under development in five states. Of course, getting approved to sell your slices in a pro sports venue is almost as hard as winning a national championship. But college and even high school sports can be a different story—it all starts with the right pitch to the right decision makers. “Food has a way of bringing people together, and [the Super Bowl] was no exception,” Gemignani says. The same goes for your hometown games, and who knows? You might be the first in your market to make an offer.

GIVE ’EM WHAT THEY WANT

Sacramento-based Pizza Guys, a brand with 80-plus stores in three states, recently used customer data to nail down which toppings they order the most—and then built a marketing campaign around the fan favorites. From early February through the end of March, Pizza Guys promoted four new specialty pizzas with catchy names. These included The MVP (red sauce, whole-milk mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage and black olives); the Veggie Guy Pizza (red sauce, whole-milk mozz, fresh mushrooms, black olives and a blend of Parmesan, Asiago and Romano); the Chicken Pep Pizza (a Tuscany thin crust, white garlic sauce, whole-milk mozz, diced pepperoni, grilled chicken, Parmesan, Asiago and Romano); and the Spicy Luau Pizza (red sauce, whole-milk mozz, pepperoni, pineapple chunks and jalapeños). Pizza Guys, incidentally, has never shied away from the pineapple controversy; in June 2023, the company featured the fruit on a pair of specialty pies, the Hawaiian Luau Stuffed Crust Pizza and the Hawaiian BBQ Pizza.

As Slice House by Tony Gemignani expands nationwide, its founder likely scored thousands of potential new customers by selling slices at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. SLICE HOUSE

PIZZA GUYS

The MVP pizza is one of four specialty pies featuring the favorite toppings of Pizza Guys’ customers.

WHY I CHARGE $35 FOR MY PIZZAS

Not charging what your pizza is worth doesn’t benefit anybody— the industry or the people working in it—and puts your business at risk.

BY ALEX KOONS

DO YOU EVER FACE CHALLENGES from pizzeria customers questioning your pricing? In today’s economy, price sensitivity is at an all-time high. I’ve encountered people walking into my shop who were visibly taken aback by the menu prices—or they opted to purchase a pizza only to later express discontent about the cost. It’s a tough hurdle to overcome with certain customers, especially when you’re charging a premium price.

While ensuring top-notch quality is crucial when charging a higher price, the reality is that even the best pizza may go unappreciated if the cost—say, $35 for a large pie at Hot Tongue Pizza—offends someone unwilling to fork over the money. But don’t let that stop you from making a profit.

Admittedly, my pizzas aren’t cheap, but then again, nothing about my approach is. When you consider the various components, from the pizza itself to packaging and overhead costs, it becomes clear why I feel justified in setting my prices where they are.

Offering benefits like healthcare and fair wages for employees is something most people believe in, but these come at a cost, too. Communicating the intricacies of pricing to consumers has proven to be a challenging experience. I understand that the cost of living is going to vary and that Los Angeles comes with a higher price tag, but a lot of those aforementioned corporate values are, for me, not debatable.

I use a unique blend of four flours in my dough, creating a sourdough pizza with 100% organic flour. These distinctive flavor profiles elevate my product, and, in my view, the additional digestibility from quality grains and the sourdough process makes it worth the investment. My hard red whole-wheat flour itself sits at close to $4 a pound!

But not everyone appreciates the effort that goes into naturally leavened pizza or values organic ingredients. So what do you do if you’re not willing to sacrifice your own profit for the sake of your product? What do you do when you want to ensure your team has the right opportunities to thrive beyond work and live comfortably?

You charge what your pizza is truly worth. Not doing so is of no benefit to our industry or the people working in it. That’s how I sleep soundly every night, knowing my community is getting the best product made by some of the happiest people I have ever worked with. What’s your pizza worth to you?

Koons

MATT POLIZZI

MIRIAM BRUMMEL

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Bar Hopping

Don’t let this thin-crust, no-frills pie fool you—the South Shore Bar Pizza is packed with flavor from edge to edge and has gained a fervid fan base far outside its Massachusetts birthplace.

SOME AMERICAN PIZZAS WERE BORN at—and for—the bar, designed to soak up patrons’ booze as an easy-to-make, crowd-pleasing snack food. In Midwest and East Coast states, some of these iconic watering holes turned pizzerias have been neighborhood standbys for decades. But in Massachusetts, there’s a dedicated style describing this kind of pie: the South Shore Bar Pizza, named for the south-ofBoston coastal stretch where it was born.

BY TRACY MORIN

BRIAN SAMUELS PHOTOGRAPHY

Despite this region being relatively small in size, its pizza fans are a fervid bunch. “I’m not sure any other pizza has such a devoted fan base,” opines Andrew Janjigian, who helms Wordloaf, a bread and pizza newsletter based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Maybe it’s because it is from a tiny geographical area, but it’s so iconic and delicious that those who are familiar with it want to share their love of it with others far and wide.”

Brockton Born

Jeremy Jamoulis, chief operating officer of Cape Cod Cafe in Brockton, Massachusetts, notes that his pizzeria lays claim to originating this simple but delicious style. As a bar, the business opened in 1939, and when Jeremy’s grandfather, E. James “Papa” Jamoulis, assumed ownership in 1947, he added pizza to the menu. “In Brockton, an industrial city, every neighborhood had a neighborhood bar,” Jamoulis explains. “Our grandfather collaborated with friends and came up with a recipe. It’s a simple dough, but the main thing is our pans—that really distinguished bar pizza.”

At Cape Cod, dough is considered prime after a 24-hour proofing time. It’s topped with a California-tomato sauce laced with oregano and secret spices, plus a blend of cheddar cheeses (that’s right, no mozz in sight, although a few modern-day adopters may add this pizza standard to their blend). The 10” pie pans, with a 1”-high rim, are greased and, over years of use, become well-seasoned to lock in flavors. “We have some pans that are 20, 30 years old,” Jamoulis says. “We put cheddar all the way to the edge. So, even though it’s a 10” pizza, it feels bigger. Our grandfather always told us: ‘You gotta feed ’em!’”

The pizzas are cooked in deck ovens and emerge with a crispy, caramelized rim. Customers can also request sauce spread to the edge, a sub-style called a “burnt edge,” which accounts for one out of every seven pies sold. “Burnt edge is a labor of love, because you have to pay more attention to it as you’re cooking, but people love it,” Jamoulis says.

Plus, a thin crust means that it’s easy for one hungry patron to tackle alone. “I love it for loads of reasons—the crisp, oily, almost-fried crust, the tang that comes from

the use of sharp cheddar, and maybe most of all the magical alchemy that happens at the edges of the pie, where the sauce, cheese and crust combine in the heat of the oven to form a crunchy, greasy, savory, just-shyof-burned deliciousness,” Janjigian marvels. “Bar pizza is mysteriously somehow light-seeming, making it easy for one person to down a whole pie.”

The South Shore Spreads

Today, Cape Cod Cafe offers nationwide shipping of its pies—a boon to those who grew up in the area and moved away. For the past 12 years, its frozen pies have also made a splash on grocery store shelves—they’re now available throughout New England, plus New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, among others. “Gaining traction in other states with our frozen pizza really helps spread the word about bar pizza,” Jamoulis says. “We’re happy to be a part of it, but we’re proud to be the originators of it, too.”

Cape Cod Café has grown to four outposts in Massachusetts (the full-service original and three smaller takeout-oriented locations), plus a facility for its frozen pies. And nowadays, of course, many more establishments are offering a South Shore Bar Pizza style to customers in the region and beyond. “It keeps you on your toes,” Jamoulis says. “You gotta get creative, come up with new ideas and new ways to execute them, and know how to make things special—which is a good thing. We’re not the only game in town anymore!”

Still, the pizza style’s growth is far beyond anything “Papa” Jamoulis likely imagined, and that’s reason enough to be thankful for the spread of this humble yet delicious pizza style. “Maybe in the past 15, 20 years, it’s been getting a lot of attention,” Jamoulis says. “I think around COVID times, it really started to take off, with people talking about it on social media. It’s been wonderful. I wish our grandfather was still here to see it. When it comes to pizza, people are as passionate as they are about their politics or religion. They want their bar pizza—they love it, and they’re loyal to it.”

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s copy editor.

ANDREW JANJIGIAN

GETTIN’ FIGGY WITH IT IN CHICAGO

One of the things Derrick Tung loves just as much as pizza is the creative collaboration that goes into inventing new pies. He and his team put a lot of thought—and flavor—into their menu, and it’s truly a group effort. This pie is the invention of Paulie Gee’s chef partner, Tony Dezutter, who was inspired by his mother’s Christmas dinner of porchetta with fresh fruit. Gettin’ Figgy With It features concentrated fig jam to really bring out the fruit flavor. It pairs well with the pork, while the olives add a subtle briny saltiness that’s a perfect combination to gets customers’ tastebuds dancing.

Ingredients

• 1 par-baked Detroit-style pizza dough

• 3 oz. cheddar cheese

• 4 oz. Galbani® Premio Whole Milk Mozzarella, shredded

• 5 thin slices porchetta

• 2 oz. Marbella sauce

• 2 oz. fig jam

• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Directions

Turn up the funk with this flavorful pizza recipe.

1. Preheat oven to 550˚F, or as hot as it will go.

2. Place par-baked Detroit dough into a pan, line the walls of the pan with cheddar cheese, and press against walls.

3. Add mozzarella to the middle area of pizza. Then add the porchetta and Marbella sauce on top.

4. Bake for 11 minutes.

5. Detach side wall of cheddar with a spatula and pull pizza out of pan.

6. Top with fig jam and fresh parsley.

Find your Ispirazione Italiana

What's my Italian Inspiration? Letting great taste drive the menu. My managers and I chose Galbani® Premio Mozzarella in a triple blind taste test. The tang is just right, the salt level is perfect, and the look is superior to other cheeses. We pride ourselves on offering three styles of pizza, with three different doughs—but there’s only one cheese we reach for again and again.

Derrick Tung, Owner, Paulie Gee’s Chicago

Learn more at GalbaniPro.com

WINNING THE COLD WAR

By Tracy Morin

Photos by Mark Weinberg

When Anthony Mangieri, one of the world’s top pizzaioli, took the plunge into frozen retail pizza, he discovered an unknown—and troubling—world. Here’s how he conquered it.

MANY OWNERS ARE CONVINCED THAT IT DOESN’T GET more difficult than running a restaurant. Veteran pizzeria pioneer Anthony Mangieri, owner of New York City’s acclaimed Una Pizza Napoletana, thought so, too—until he entered the frozen food biz.

Since opening his first pizzeria in 1996, Mangieri has made every pizza dough himself; to this day, the restaurant closes if he’s not present. Over the years, Una Pizza Napoletana has earned numerous awards and rave reviews, even claiming the No. 1 spot as 50 Top Pizza’s best pizzeria in the world in 2022. 50 Top Pizza also ranked Mangieri’s pizzeria as the best in the U.S. in 2022 and 2023.

No one would fault Mangieri for maintaining the status quo, but he has taken on a new challenge, launching Genio Della Pizza, a frozen pizza line, in 2023. In this Q&A with PMQ, Mangieri discusses the unique challenges of the grocery world.

PMQ: Why expand into a frozen pizza line?

Mangieri: I guess anybody would think, “Obviously, I’m limiting my growth abilities here….Is there something else I could do to grow as a businessperson and also connect with people on a larger scale than just in my restaurant?”

We’re open a few nights a week. We have super long waits with 1,000 people on the “notify” list every night, so it’s not always the easiest place to get into. Or you might not live in New York.

So I thought about different things—tomatoes, olive oil, pizza—and landed on frozen pizza. That was the start of Genio Della Pizza, about three years ago. I was doing R&D, trying to find someone that could produce it with me, because I didn’t really want to produce the pizza in the restaurant. I felt that would dilute what I do in the restaurant, so I wanted it to be separate. Instead, I could use my knowledge and, hopefully, my skill from 30 years of making pizza to create this frozen pizza. But not to be like, “Hey, this is Una pizza,” because I felt that would not be fair to my 30 years at Una. I wouldn’t want people to try it in Ohio and say, “This is what they make at Una?” Because it’s frozen pizza. It’s a completely different product.

That’s also why I didn’t name it Una Pizza or Anthony Mangieri. I named it something that was separate from the restaurant and myself. But I’m on the back of the box, and I’ve given it all my love. I go to Italy every single time we do a production run. I’m in the factory, and I make the pizza and run around driving everyone nuts, telling

them that we need to turn the oven temperature higher or lower, add more cheese or less cheese, and all that. I’ve tried to give it the same attention to detail that I’ve given Una, but with the idea that it’s accessible to people outside of the restaurant.

PMQ: Why do you produce the line in Italy?

Mangieri: I just couldn’t find anyone in the United States or Canada who had the skill set to produce it. There’s really no scalable business or co-packer using woodfired ovens [for frozen pizza] in the U.S. And to work at scale, the ingredients need to be packaged in certain size containers—it’s just such a different world than the restaurant world. There was a lot to learn. I realized pretty quickly I couldn’t get the ingredients that I’d want to use to make the best product for the frozen line. How am I gonna get Italian tomatoes into the U.S. that are in the right container size that we use in a co-packers setting—plus the mozzarella, all this stuff? It just was impossible.

“If you want to get into retail, figure out how to make what you want to sell scalable, before you start presenting it. Don’t take what you make, freeze it or package it, and try to get it out in the world.”

Anthony Mangieri

PMQ: What have you learned about the frozen pizza and grocery world?

Mangieri: The first thing I learned—and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it—is the sales side. To most of us who have restaurants, the food and quality are No. 1. This business is so different. It’s not even about the food. Food stores, brokers and the whole landscape of the CPG (consumer packaged goods) world are pretty heartbreaking when you come from the restaurant world, where you’re used to being around other likeminded people, where chefs talk about the things that get them excited. [In CPG], it tends to be more like, here’s the promos we need, here’s our margins we need every month, and you need to do this, this and this, or you’re not coming into the store, and that’s it. They don’t necessarily even care what it tastes like. Ultimately, I think that’s been the hardest thing for me to learn and understand. I’ll send samples to food store buyers, and they don’t even like it. They like the big legacy brands, where it’s super salty and has a taste that I don’t personally identify with.

“From the beginning, I asked, ‘How can I make something that, when people first taste it, that’s the worst it’s ever gonna be?’ It’s only gonna get better as I keep learning and growing.”

Anthony Mangieri

The other crazy thing was working at such scale— approaching it like I would the pizzeria, just way bigger. What do I do in the restaurant when the dough isn’t coming out right or the oven isn’t working right? Then trying to understand, learn and grow to be able to manage that at scale—with a lot of people also handling the product, which was new to me, since I’ve had my two guys that have been with me for years, and no one else ever touches the product. To try to let go of that and deal with this kind of world and be better at delegating, it’s been a lot for me to learn.

PMQ: What advice would you offer for restaurateurs trying to get into retail?

Mangieri: I think it’s about learning how to delegate and how to make what you make scalable. That’s why it took so long with the R&D. I didn’t want to come out with a product that, let’s say, I made at the pizzeria on the days we’re not open and sold frozen. It’d be amazing, but then, say I get it into a Whole Foods and want to go national. Then it’s like, “OK, let me now go back to the drawing board and find a co-packer and figure out how to make this scalable.”

From the beginning, I asked, “How can I make something that, when people first taste it, that’s the worst it’s ever gonna be? It’s only gonna get better as I keep learning and growing, but it’s not gonna get worse.” So I get into Whole Foods, and they’re like, “We love this.” One of the buyers told me it’s their favorite product on their shelf. And that’s really empowering. I’m like, all right, now we’re in a good spot, because I know this was the worst it’ll ever be—I already did all the R&D, and it’s already scalable.

If you want to get into retail, figure out how to make what you want to sell scalable, before you start

presenting it. Don’t take what you make, freeze it or package it, and try to get it out in the world. That’s not going to be a fair representation of what you’ll end up doing when you do scale it. It’s two completely different businesses.

PMQ: What was the process like in terms of making the recipe?

Mangieri: In the beginning, the main focus was the dough. We spent probably a year going back and forth, trying to figure out how we can make it have flavor and interesting texture and depth, hold up when it’s frozen, and not add preservatives. I would rather not have it last for three years and have a huge shelf life—instead, a year-and-a-half shelf life frozen, with no stabilizers, nothing in it.

Once we figured that out, which took at least a year— and we still work on it—I would say probably the biggest thing was how far the hydration level should go in the dough. The hydration levels are insane; we’re running sometimes at a 90% hydration, and the dough is never refrigerated. A lot of people push the hydration, but then they refrigerate and proof it that way for 24, 48 hours. Once that goes in the fridge, the hydration level is not the same to handle as if it were a high hydration and it’s never been refrigerated. And that’s what we work with at Una—it’s super difficult, sometimes extremely stressful.

I wanted to try to do that in frozen pizza and quickly realized it was impossible. You have a lot of people handling the dough, and every single ball is hand-opened.

“You go to food stores and pay to get in. But it costs millions and millions of dollars to do it, and we’re not that.”

Anthony Mangieri

So when the balls come down the line, they’ll get picked up and hand-stretched. Obviously, you’re not going to get people in that setting who can handle that level of hydration and work at the speed that it’s going through the line and be able to produce that volume every day. And once you cross that line of hydration, dough can’t go through the machine—it gets stuck on all the roller belts and makes a disaster. So that was what we spent the first year on.

PMQ: What about the toppings?

Mangieri: That was much easier. It was really just trying to use the same flavor profiles and things that I’m excited about at Una, then finding producers in Italy that could produce and send it to our co-packer in the right sizing, consistency and standards, to get non-GMO and all the declarations that we need, and everything else. That was the next phase.

Anthony Mangieri applies a pizza-passionate, hands-on approach to both his brick-andmortar Una Pizza Napoletana and his Genio Della Pizza frozen line.

Once we figured that out, for the first four SKUs, I wanted to do the three that are the core of what we do at Una: the Margherita, the Marinara and the Bianca. And then the fourth SKU is a special at Una—every week, we have one special—and I thought it would be cool to expose people outside of the Northeast to broccoli rabe. And for people who want a vegetable, I didn’t want to come out and be like, “Oh, here’s bell peppers on a pizza.” I wanted to do something that felt a little bit more in line with our values at the restaurant.

PMQ: What are your ultimate goals for Genio in terms of growth?

Mangieri: Our goal right now is to just keep getting better at what we’re doing, understand and navigate the landscape and grow in a way that’s meaningful and makes sense. We want to make sure we win in any retail store we go into. It’s a very, very difficult landscape to work with, especially in frozen pizza. Getting into the retail space is a nightmare, but frozen is the worst of all of it. It’s the most expensive to work within and the most

expensive to transport and store. And the food stores have a lot of fees—slotting fees and things—because the freezer section is their most expensive section in the store. To get on the shelf, somebody else has to get kicked off. So you need to prove why you should be there. If you’re not performing, they kick you off.

We’re not a huge company—we’re not Rao’s, for example, which launched a frozen pizza and was in every single food store in the U.S. overnight. Few can compete with the volume of money that’s being dumped into the market. You go to food stores and pay to get in. But it costs millions and millions of dollars to do it, and we’re not that. We have to be more thoughtful, try to grow in a way that makes sense, and make sure the retail stores we end up in have the customer base that’s going to care about getting an $11.99 frozen pizza that’s handmade in Italy, with buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil. That’s our growth plan right now.

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s copy editor.

How One Company Helps Pizzerias Unlock the Power of Branding

KNOWING WHAT

OPTIONS

A RESTAURANT

OR BUSINESS HAS for branding and advertising can be a hurdle for many operators. Private Label Specialities has been helping pizzerias and restaurants of every size access the benefits of marketing, advertising and branding through beverages for nearly 35 years.

Ray Duhaime, founder and president of Private Label, started by creating a unique root beer and from there 18 other beverages and spring water. Duhaime sells beverages directly to restaurants labeled with the restaurant’s logo and colors. This process is known as private labeling and allows restaurants to brand themselves.

“Why would you advertise for anybody else?” Duhaime asks. “Why wouldn’t you advertise for yourself, if you knew you could? Our company gives pizzerias, and small businesses, the opportunity to advertise, market and brand themselves.”

Restaurants can increase brand recognition through Private Label Specialities’ unique soda formulations—which customers associate with a restaurant’s brand. Furthermore, businesses can up-charge for a product marketed as their own, which can increase profits.

Peter Edwards, co-owner of Zeb’s General Store, has been selling private-label Zeb’s beverages for 30 years. “The quality of Private Label’s products are excellent,” he says. “I often see customers purchasing cases of our sodas. We price our Zeb’s beverages higher than the national brands, and our customers have always been willing to pay more.”

This simple yet powerful branding concept helps small businesses and restaurants keep their name in front of their customers, which drives repeat customers willing to pay more for private-label beverages.

For more information on Private Label Specialties Unique Branding Advantage®, visit plspecialties.com

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20PIZZABRANDS TO WATCH

BY RICK HYNUM

THERE’S NO SCIENCE TO BRANDING A PIZZERIA SUCCESSFULLY. There is a bit of art to it, of course, but mostly it’s about knowing your customer base—and knowing yourself. If you’re a single-unit operator, you are your brand. Pour your personality, passions, values and life experience into marketing your restaurant, and you’ll likely build a pizzeria brand to watch. That is certainly the case for the companies listed in this article (in no particular order). Even the larger brands started out with key individuals who believed in what they were doing, whether or not they had a long-term vision for growth. You will have heard of some of these pizza brands; others might be unfamiliar to you. The PMQ editorial team chose them based on a certain set of criteria. Consistent, innovative, on-trend and/or creative marketing was the big one. (Sorry, but if your store doesn’t have a website, that’s a major negative.) We also took into consideration each brand’s corporate values, community involvement, growth/expansion and uniqueness of concept. (For our purposes here, the quality of the food, obviously paramount to any restaurant’s success, is taken for granted.) So read on, learn a little bit and keep building your own brand—with authenticity and a firm belief in your food, your team and, above all, yourself.

From single-unit operations to chains with under 10 locations, these innovators represent a new breed of pizza entrepreneurs who are raising the bar while standing out in the crowd.

Mamma Ramona’s RAMONA, CA

As a kid, Andrew Simmons would go trick-or-treating on Halloween and later sell his candy to other kids. He is, in other words, a born entrepreneur. And as owner of the fast-growing Mamma Ramona’s (also called Pizza Roboto), he’s also one of the most visionary innovators in the pizza segment today. Simmons took over Mamma Ramona’s, formerly just another hometown pizza joint with a homey name, several years ago and has since transformed it into a tech-forward concept built around automation, including the Picnic Pizza Station, high-speed ovens from TurboChef and even robotic bussers, with a small footprint (less than 300 square feet) and minimal labor. He now has three Mamma Ramona’s locations, including one that opened last December in San Diego and a brand-new store in Philadelphia—yes, on the opposite side of the country—with two additional licensees getting ready to launch, plus two more of his own stores set to open soon. The concept is growing at such a blazing-hot pace, it’s difficult to keep up with the latest developments. Maybe that’s because Simmons has made it so affordable to jump on board. The cash

MAMMA RAMONA’S

requirements for select licensees are $95,000, with a total purchase price of $165,000. He has also developed a pizza subscription service for $199 a year, offering one pizza (12” cheese or pepperoni) to each subscriber per week; in Ramona alone, he says, he has been selling an average of $40,000 annually in subscriptions. There’s even more to his story, so if you want to follow Simmons’ wild journey and learn a thing or two, follow him on LinkedIn. Every post offers a valuable lesson in reinventing the pizza business.

Mattenga’s Pizza

SAN ANTONIO, TX

Mattenga’s founders Hengam and Matt Stanfield are an energetic couple with a lively social media video presence that puts hip young employees—and sometimes their own super-cute children—front and center, often to laugh-outloud effect. Now a six-unit brand, Mattenga’s opened four new stores in 2022 alone, with more in the works. It’s an amazing success story, considering the Stanfields had no pizzeria experience when they bought a failing joint in 2014. In fact, Hengam is an electrical engineer by training, while Matt is a former civil engineer. But brainy engineers, it seems, make brainy pizza marketers. With their amiable, fun-loving on-camera presence, they’re like everyone’s favorite aunt and uncle, and their video output, with help from a trend-savvy marketing team, is prodigious. Last year, they recruited a local high-school cheerleading team to make up a routine just for Mattenga’s. Other Instagram Reels and TikTok videos showcase their team members in brief comedic skits. Employees A.J.

and Marcus, for example, tease each other while reviewing key menu items. In a Reel posted in February, a staff member demonstrated how Mattenga’s caters to lovelorn customers on Valentine’s Day. “Upon request,” he says, ripping a heart-shaped pizza in half, “we even tear it up, LIKE THEY DID TO YOUR HEART!” It’s funny stuff, and it makes Mattenga’s one of the industry’s most watchable brands on social platforms.

Pink Panties Pizza

DETROIT, MI

The founder of Detroit’s Pink Panties Pizza is a mysterious figure—he wouldn’t even divulge his real name for this article. But his

customers know him as Motown’s DELCO dealer of (perfectly legal) weed-infused pizzas in boxes featuring a “sexy” slice clad in panties, fishnet stockings and high heels. His pies can be ordered with THC levels ranging from 500mg all the way up to 1,200mg. And if you order one for carryout, chances are the Pink Panties founder will follow you outside and interview you for his popular “What Up Dough” videos, one of which went viral in May 2023, with more than 1 million views on TikTok (let’s just say that customer looked like he might have already eaten a slice or two of his 1,200mg pepperoni-and-sausage pie). The enigmatic owner formerly managed cannabis dispensaries in Ann Arbor. “During my time there,” he tells PMQ, “I encountered a lot of patients that had painful ailments— MS, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease,

MATTENGA’S PIZZA

Employee A.J. Graham donned a bib-style pizza box for an Instagrammable moment at Mattenga’s.

Beyond The Dough

Presented By

I always remember the Chick-fil-A at Eastland Mall in Tulsa. You came down the escalator, and there it was! They DOMINATED the food court! Why? Not because their food was better. Because when you got off the escalator, they had someone with a tray giving out a sample to everyone!

You tried and bought. Maybe because it tasted good? Maybe guilt because they gave you something? Maybe because they were fast? Probably all of those things.

We live in this digital age, where we think everything should be done on our phone. BUT...when was the last time you made five large pies, drove out to local businesses, gave them away and left a menu?

Your BEST form of advertising is STILL people trying your pizza. Fact. Forever Fact. Do this five days a week for a month and watch what happens. You will dominate like Chick-Fil-A at Eastland Mall. Fact.

To learn more about Perfect Crust’s pizza liners and other products, visit perfectcrust.com or email Eric Bam at Eric@perfectcrust.com.

About Eric Bam:

Eric is the VP of Sales & Marketing for Perfect Crust Pizza Liners and Incrediblebags.com. Eric is a goal driven optimist that uses his positive attitude to lift up those around him. He’s a father to Nycholas, Alayna and Ruby. He’s a public speaker and show host. You can find him on all social media @TheEricBam.

Craving the freshest insights into the pizza restaurant industry? Subscribe to PMQ’s e-newsletter, Pizza Pulse, and we’ll fill your inbox with:

• Hot-from-the-oven pizza industry news delivered twice a week (Mondays and Wednesdays)

• Moneymaking promotions from leading independents and chains

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• Pizzeria success stories and expert insights

cancer. They would travel from different states to our dispensary to get THC oil and edibles. A lot of them would tell me how great the edibles worked for them, but they contained too much sugar. We only had brownies, cookies and gummies. I had a plan to create some kind of food that people could eat, enjoy and not worry about the sugar.” After leaving his dispensary job, he launched Pink Panties Pizza in September 2017. What’s next?

“We recently purchased an RV that we’re renovating to create a lounge where people can smoke and chill while they wait for their order,” he says. “It should be finished by fall of this year.”

Blue Square Pizza HOPTINKON, MA

Established in 2022, Blue Square Pizza touts itself as Massachusetts’ only pizza shop where customers can get three distinct pizza styles— Detroit, New York and grandma—

Kitchen 17

CHICAGO, IL

Kitchen 17 is surely the world’s only pizzeria founded by a woodchuck trying to impress his little woodland friends. So the myth goes, anyway, although the credit really goes to owners Jennie Plasterer and Don Clements. They have proclaimed Kitchen 17 the “birthplace of the original vegan Chicago deep-dish” and a bastion of “ethical decadence”—which is to say, the pies feel extravagantly indulgent without a smidgen of pork or beef. Housemade vegan cheeses and meat alternatives shine on pizzas like the Jalapeño Popper (marinara sauce, cheddar, jalapeños and seitan bacon) and the Plant-Eater (marinara, mozzarella, artichokes, onions, spinach, green pepper, za’atar and minced garlic) in deep-dish, pan and New York styles. The restaurant supports animal-welfare nonprofits, and even the loyalty program has an ecological theme: Forest Friends. At night, the restaurant transforms into the Fallen Log, a “woodland space cowboy cyberpunk food and music exploratorium” with live shows. Kitchen 17 also ships frozen vegan pizzas around the country, which boomed business in the pandemic. Then there’s the gorgeously surreal website video, in which a young woman in a druid-like robe and cowl places an order by phone, then rushes off into the lush green forest, observed by anthropomorphized flowers and plants along the way, to pick it up. Part fever dream, part proenvironment message, it’s one of the coolest pizza-shop videos on the internet today.

logged 205% comp sales in 2023 and revenue totaling $1,843,000, all in a 1,200-square-foot off-premise format. This tech-forward brand employs AI software to process 90% of its incoming phone orders, and 89% of all orders are automated, whether via mobile, web, third-party or AI ordering channels. In the kitchen, digital bump screens help keep employees on track, while a status board

lets customers keep track of their pizzas’ progress and how long they’ll be waiting. Owner Tony Sproul, an alumnus of the acclaimed OTTO Pizza in Portland, Maine, studied the craft under Tony Gemignani and bakes his Detroit-style pies in real-deal blue steel pans. He also pays his employees a living wage and categorizes all tips as charitable donations for local nonprofits.

KITCHEN 17

TONY SPROUL

Tony Sproul (left) with Tony Gemignani

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Pizzeria da Laura BERKELEY, CA

When Laura Meyer, a protégé of Tony Gemignani, opened Pizzeria da Laura in March 2023, many of her fans probably thought, “It’s about time.” In 2013, she became the first woman—and the first American— to win the Pizza in Teglia (pan pizza) division at the World Pizza Championship in Parma, Italy, and went on to win the Non-Traditional division at the International Pizza Challenge in Las Vegas the next year. And in 2019, she won the Caputo Cup in Naples for the best American-style pizza. Her pop-up venture, Focaccia da Laura, had only one problem: She kept selling out of pizzas. Naturally, lines stretched down the block when Pizzeria da Laura opened last spring. Over the past decade, Meyer has become a name brand, celebrated by top food writers at the San Francisco Chronicle,

The Mercury News and SFGate.com, while Eater.com called her “the pizzaiola [who is] changing the face of pizza.” Meyer humbly describes Pizzeria da Laura as “a corner pizza joint,” but that little corner in Berkeley might feel too little in the coming years.

master pizzaiolo in his own right. And The Las Vegas Review-Journal once said Michael Vakneen, partner and head pizzaiolo at ØØ Pie & Pub, “might be making the best pizza in Vegas.” What happens when this powerhouse trio teams up? You get Truly Pizza, where guests can dig into 12” hearth-baked pies—both rounds and squares—on a garden patio or sip wines on the rooftop. Backing the concept is D&S Partners, owned by hospitality veterans Donna Baldwin-Muller and Steve Muller. Truly Pizza creates memorable social experiences at its Community Table events, featuring food and wine pairings for groups in the garden, and the inside of every pizza box has a typed note. “We thought of you today as we made this pizza,” it begins. “For us, a pizza is so much more than dough, sauce and cheese. Our pizza is a wonderful collaboration between sunlight, rain, earth, local farmers and artisanal food producers….At our pizzeria, you will always be drawn into the loving embrace and restorative spirit that is found in the fire-heart of pizza, the

PIZZERIA DA LAURA

Las Vegas pizzaioli Chris Decker, John Arena and Michael Vakneen joined forces to launch Truly Pizza in Dana Point, California.

TRULY PIZZA

pi00a

LOS ANGELES

There’s only one other pizza concept in America—maybe the world—like pi00a (pronounced pie-oh-ah) in Los Angeles: Mozzeria in Washington, D.C. But Mozzeria wouldn’t exist if not for its founders, Melody and Jeff Stein, who now operate pi00a with a mission that goes beyond serving amazing Neapolitan pizza with an Asian twist. pi00a (think of the word “pizza,” then replace the Zs with the numerals 00, as in 00 flour) is a deaf- and CODA-owned concept that provides career and job training opportunities to Deaf individuals. (CODA stands for Children of Deaf Adults, and the Steins’ kids, Taysia and Rylan, are co-owners with their parents.) pi00a eliminates communication barriers for Deaf employees by using an automated touchscreen ordering system, offering pickup and delivery only and using American Sign Language in the store. In 2014, Melody and Jeff became the first-ever Deaf pizza makers to earn AVPN certification and built Mozzeria into a nationally acclaimed pizza destination in San Francisco. They later partnered with Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) to open the D.C. location, then sold the concept to CSD a few years ago (the San Francisco dine-in location ultimately met its demise during the pandemic but continues as a food truck). At pi00a, the Stein family pleases discriminating palates with classic Neapolitan pies like the Marinara, Soppressata and Quattro Formaggi. But Melody’s Hong Kong roots show in unique fusion items like the Hainan Chicken (pickled English cucumbers, poached chicken, gingerleek sauce and crispy rice) and the Miso Eggplant (roasted eggplant, miso, sesame and leeks).

Dough Boy Pizza

BIRMINGHAM, AL

Featured on PMQ’s August 2023 cover, Dough Boy Pizza is one woman’s vision of the future of pizza. Currently boasting three locations (Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, and Decatur, Georgia), founder Erica Barrett creates franchisee opportunities for fellow entrepreneurs by reducing the largest barrier to entry: franchise and operational costs. Her dough is made in Naples, Italy, and her own company, Southern Culture Kitchen, creates the sauce. Customers place their orders using kiosks, and the pies are topped and baked in fast-cooking compact, ventless ovens. When the pizza is ready, Barrett’s automated system shoots off a text message to the customer. No fuss, no muss, and no need for a bunch of employees; on slower days, one employee can do it all, and, at the most, three are working on a busy shift. “Our franchise fee is $25,000,” Barrett says. “A typical build-out is between $25,000 and $40,000. So, all in, you’re probably looking at about $60,000 to $80,000, which are low numbers. The kiosks are financed through Toast, so there’s no up-front cost with that. And we lease our ovens from our dough supplier, so the same company that’s making our dough

PI00A

SOCU SOUTHERN KITCHEN & CO.

Down North Pizza

PHILADELPHIA, PA

Muhammad Abdul-Hadi says he and his Down North team make “Philly-style” pizza: Detroit-inspired squares with a chewy crust. But he’s also making a difference in the lives of formerly incarcerated people who are making a new start in a world that often distrusts them. His executive chef, Michael Carter, is one example. Carter, also known as the Flavor Regulator, spent more than 12 years behind bars; today, he’s one of Philadelphia’s most celebrated chefs, has appeared on NBC’s Today and the Food Network’s Chopped, and spearheaded “A Match Made in Philly” with notable chefs like Marc Vetri. At Down North, every pizza takes its name from hiphop songs written by Philadelphia artists. And Abdul-Hadi lets new hires live in two furnished apartments above his pizza shop for up to six months. “There’s a unique set of needs for people who are formerly incarcerated, but I don’t know a thriving company that’s not supportive of their staff,” AbdulHadi says. “Where companies are thriving, look at what they do for the people who are working for them.”

Much Ado About Pizza

PLEASANTON, CA

If pizza be the food of love, play on. That’s not exactly how Shakespeare put it in Twelfth Night, but it’s the philosophy behind Much Ado About Pizza, a whimsical carryout concept inspired by the Bard of Avon and owned by Kira and Mark Zabrowski Ranked at No. 51 on Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat this year, business has skyrocketed for the Zabrowskis. Made with a 72-hour-fermented sourdough crust (forsooth, they dubbed their starter Shakespeare), their pies allude to the world’s greatest playwright with names like Taming of the Chew, Henry the 8 (eight meat and veggie toppings), O’Thello’s Obsession (featuring a housemade pesto sauce called Beatrice) and the chicken-based Fowl-staff. Kira taught theater and English for 25 years before she and Mark bet their savings and launched Much Ado About Pizza in 2022. Shall we compare their food to a summer’s day? Let’s just say Kira took second place in the Southwest Traditional division and fourth place in the world overall in the Traditional category at 2022’s International Pizza Challenge, not to mention her top-10 finish in PMQ’s 2021 Virtual U.S. Pizza Cup. In our book, that’s much ado about something.

Atlanta Pizza Truck ATLANTA, GA

There’s no mistaking Alessio Lacco’s accent: The pizzaiolo behind Atlanta Pizza Truck is as Italian as they come. He and his wife/partner, Sofia Arango (founder of Latinos en Pizza on social media), now live in Atlanta, where they cater to movie and TV stars filming in the area (most recently, Neil Patrick Harris) as well as everyday folk with a hankering for authentic Neapolitan pizza. Lacco was the first food truck operator to receive certification from the AVPN (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana) and now leads that association’s Atlanta outpost. As if all that wasn’t enough, Lacco and Arango have developed an innovative business franchising model specializing in Neapolitan pizzas sold from vending machines by Quikza. The machines provide additional revenue possibilities through LCD screens on the front, so pizzerias can sell advertisements that play while customers wait for their pies to bake. Pizza recipes require some tweaking for the vending format, but Lacco has trained pizzaioli across the United States and the world. If anyone can make it work, it’s him.

DOWN NORTH PIZZA

MUCH ADO ABOUT PIZZA

ATLANTA PIZZA TRUCK

Pizza Man Dan’s SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Dan Collier isn’t afraid to look silly. In fact, it’s become his trademark, and it sets his Pizza Man Dan’s eight-store chain apart. He turned his flashy 1972 Corvette into a rather unsightly pepperoni pizza on wheels and drives it all over Ventura County. Clad in pepperoni pants and sporting a mullet, he occasionally mugs his way through Instagram Reels reminiscent of the corniest used-car commercials of bygone years. In one video, he orders Pizza Man Dan’s $9.99 large carryout special, only to get reprimanded by a cartoon-style voice for trying to eat it inside the restaurant; he then falls asleep and dreams that the special has been

Slingin’ Pizza

LITTLE ELM, TX

Like so many newcomers to the pizza business, Audrey Jayne opened Slingin’ Pizza just in time for the pandemic. Unlike many pizza pros, she started out as a delivery driver, then went on to learn the pizza making craft from every angle in both the mom-and-pop-shop and chain environment. In 2019, she opened Slingin’ Park in Laguna Park, Texas, but by 2021 she felt the need to grow her business in a larger market, so she moved it in 2021 to Little Elm, north of Dallas. Today, Jayne, a competing member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team, puts her dough slinging acrobatic skills to good use in marketing her pizza shop; passersby often spot her tossing dough in the parking lot while sitting astride the shoulders of a lime-green ET-like creature (not a real one, we’re pretty sure). But Jayne was born for the pizza kitchen, where she and her team make pies like the Peppy’s Cheeseburger (beef, onions, tomatoes, bacon and cheddar) and the Apollo (with housemade garlic Parmesan sauce, meatballs, onions, bell peppers and black olives).

changed to dine-in and delivery as well. Upon awakening, he finds that his dream has come true. For a Veterans Day Reel, he recited a humorously clunky poem that was both a tribute to America’s military heroes and to the cheesy goodness of his restaurant’s fare: “Piping hot with your favorite toppings of choice/pizza’s just another way to express your freedom of voice.” But it’s all an act. Dan the Pizza Man is a highly respected businessman and trade show speaker who starts his general managers at a base pay of $60,000, then sweetens the deal with generous monthly bonuses tied to sales, food and labor costs, and even Yelp reviews.

PizzELLA

MIAMI, FL

The Miami New Times hailed PizzELLA owner Larry Galper as the city’s “newest lord of the pies” in 2022. More recently, his Miami Beach food truck landed at No. 40 in 50 Top Pizza’s list of the best in the U.S. last year—a rare feat, indeed, for a pizza vendor without a brick-and-mortar restaurant. Galper gave up a 15-year career in corporate entertainment to enroll in culinary school and started making

SLINGIN’ PIZZA

PIZZELLA

Dave Portnoy (left) with Larry Galper

pies for his friends and family during the pandemic, then sold them from a tent outside Imperial Moto Café in Little River. After one food writer rated his pies among the best in Miami, he bought an old FedEx truck and later took over the Neapolitan oven at Time Out Market. Even Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports Fame, who isn’t a big fan of Neapolitan pizza, gave it a 7.5 score. Meanwhile, Galper recently announced he’s searching for PizzELLA’s forever home—a brick-and-mortar location where he can continue to offer the kind of service that 50 Top Pizza deemed “perfect, familiar and professional.”

Pizza X

BLOOMINGTON, IN

Jeff Mease’s college-town concept has been thriving for years under the One World Enterprises umbrella. It’s a seven-store brand that’s famous across the state—everyone knows superhero mascot Xpress Man when they see him—and a musttry during Big 10 games at Indiana University. That means sports fans from every state in the Big 10 conference knows Pizza X, yet it has never gone corporate—and likely never will, as long as Mease owns it. A self-described “dirt-worshipping tree hugger,” he just isn’t that kind of guy. His black-and-red Pizza X truck shows up at tailgate parties during football season to give away free slices, while Pizza X logoed

Nemec Brothers / Zazas Pizza

CHICAGO AND GENEVA, IL

PMQ first reported on Zazas Pizza in March 2022, just a few months after the restaurant, founded by brothers Chadd and Brett Nemec, opened in the Windy City. Now we feel like prophets. The Chicago Tribune praised Zazas as “the New York slice shop Chicago needs,” while Dave Portnoy, visiting there in August 2022, gave it a score of 8.2, adding, “I think this is my favorite pizza in Chicago.” On December 1 of last year, the brothers followed up with a new co-branded shop, Nemec Brothers Pizza, offering another taste of the Big Apple in Geneva, Illinois (Chadd and Brett are all about the New York and grandma styles, not Chicago). The shrewd marketers started getting their pies in the mouths of online influencers several weeks before the Nemec Brothers location opened. And those influencers went nuts, promoting the new store with Instagram Reels that likely reached hundreds of thousands of potential customers. “Trust me, it’s the absolute best,” raved Chicago pastry chef Sherrie Tan, who has 85,600 followers on Instagram, in a Reel that logged 46,600 views, 807 likes and 476 shares on Instagram. And there’s more to come: A second Nemec Brothers store will open this spring. Gazing into our crystal ball, we see great things in their future.

cups can be found in virtually every dorm room on the Indiana University campus. But 42 years of success doesn’t mean Mease has been resting on his laurels; he keeps growing with the changing times. The One World KitchenShare facility is a food business incubator that has helped numerous aspiring restaurateurs and mobile operators get their start (Bloom Magazine

hailed it as a “culinary Bat Cave”). Mease also created Hive, a spot for “comfort food with an international flair,” offering eggs, beef, pork and chicken from local growers. And every Pizza X box comes with a proof-of-purchase tab worth 25 cents (50 cents during National Education Week) to raise money for local schools.

PIZZA X

BRIAN HERNANDEZ

ZAZA’S PIZZA

PIZZALEAH WINDSOR, CA

When she was a child, PIZZALEAH owner Leah Scurto once told PMQ, “I had the palate of a 50-year-old man who smoked a lot. Extra cheese and garlic were my go-tos.” Today, her tastes are more refined. A member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team, Scurto was crowned the grand-prize winner of the Real California Pizza Contest: Tournament of Champions in October 2023. But her entry, called the Nut-torious F.I.G., wasn’t exactly lacking in flavor. It featured mozzarella, Fontina and feta, plus black mission figs, Italian sausage, chopped almonds, julienned sage leaves and, yes, minced garlic. Even before that victory, Scurto was becoming known as the pizza maker’s pizza maker, thanks in part to her bravura performances

in other national and international competitions. In 2022, she competed on Hulu’s Best in Dough, spreading her fame nationwide. Scurto is living proof that a singleunit pizzeria owner is the brand, especially when they keep bringing home trophies and kudos from around the country and the globe (she also finished No. 13 in the World Pizza Championship’s Pizza a Due competition in 2019). She is now building a strong rep as a pizza making instructor, teaming up with Laura Meyer of Pizzeria da Laura on classes offered through Pizza University. Next month, she’ll teach her craft to home cooks at Wind & Rye in Sonoma County, and she’ll compete in the 2024 Caputo Cup on June 17 to 19 in Italy. Every contest makes Scurto a better pizzaiola— and PIZZALEAH a better and more watchable brand.

Billy Bricks

Wood Fired Pizza CHICAGOLAND, IL

A brand doesn’t have to be constantly growing to thrive. At Billy Bricks, founded in 2005 by Bill and Donna Wilson and now managed by their son, CEO Ric Gruber, cutting back the total number of units recently proved the smart thing to do, Gruber says. Selling Neapolitan and New Haven styles in taverncrust and deep-dish country, the brand currently has seven brickand-mortar stores after dropping a few underperforming franchise operations “to really focus in on our core stores and areas where we can re-expand.” Four restaurants and another pizza truck should open by the end of 2024. Billy Bricks provides regular pay raises, bonuses and a 401(k) match program so employees “can make a career and a life” at the company, Gruber notes. And women play a leading role in the company. Lindsey Hartline, for example, was hired straight out of college less than three years ago. Today, she’s the CMO and brand manager and has dramatically improved Billy Bricks’ social presence, especially on TikTok. A single video spotlighting a catered pizza wedding last September garnered more than 7.4 million views, while two similar ones earned 4.4 million and 1.2 million. “I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, truly learning our business from dishwasher to CEO,” Gruber says. “What a ride it has been thus far!”

PIZZALEAH

BILLY BRICKS

Flour + Water Pizzeria

SAN FRANCISCO

Flour + Water was an acclaimed Bay Area brand before Flour + Water Pizzeria came along. Thomas McNaughton, who co-founded the original pasta-centric Flour + Water, had a cookbook bearing his name (Flour + Water: Pasta) and his own Wikipedia entry (which is in dire need of an update). But when Ryan Pollnow joined the brand’s team, he and McNaughton turned their attention to the world’s greatest food—and mastered it. At their stylishly elegant pizzeria (which shares a building with the quick-service/carryout Flour + Water Pizza Shop), guests can peer through a glassed-in dome and watch dough being made after the hostess seats them and the bartender has poured their cocktails. In PMQ’s January-February 2024 cover story on the concept, McNaughton said plans call for four additional Flour + Water Pizzerias, with that dough facility serving as a commissary. The hub-and-spoke model “allows us to evolve so that we can go into smaller 1,500- to 2,000-square-foot spaces,” McNaughton said. And as the brand grows, these pizzaioli want to make sure their employees grow with it. Water + Flour Pizzeria offers a 401(k) benefit, grants for the arts and education, and annual financial planning meetings for their staff. As Polnow put it, “We want to elevate and make any position in restaurants a job that people should be proud of and can look at as a career.”

Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor in chief.

KRISTEN LOKEN

THANK YOU TO OUR U.S. PIZZA TEAM SPONSORS!

Thanks to our generous sponsors, the U.S. Pizza Team competes year-round in acrobatic and culinary events around the United States and across the world. With their support, many of the country’s best pizza chefs and dough spinning acrobats have earned nationwide and global acclaim—and 2024 will be our biggest year ever!

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Happy The Factor Happy The Factor

Chains and independents alike are seeking a leg up on the competition by improving the guest experience. Here are some of their most successful strategies.

BY TRACY MORIN

WHILE FOOD QUALITY WILL ALWAYS REMAIN a top priority in pizzerias, perhaps the true holy grail of operator success is guest satisfaction. After all, you can control what goes into your food, but you can’t control every last personality and preference of the customers who walk through your doors (not to mention the staff members who interact with them).

What you can do, however, is use a wide range of tactics to help ensure guest satisfaction. From loyalty programs and employee training to technology assists and “surprise and delight” extras, the options are seemingly endless—and every pizzeria, chain and independent alike, employs its own unique blend. Here, we’ll explore a few supersmart strategies that are grabbing sky-high ROI from brands of all sizes, in their own words. Use their success stories to inspire the optimal approach for your business.

The Independent Hustle

Dedham, Massachusetts-based Dedham House of Pizza owner and operator George Panagopoulos explains how he taps the powers of technology—and every other advantage possible—to better serve his customers and succeed as a single-location independent.

Our multifaceted customer satisfaction strategy includes a robust loyalty rewards program and targeted SMS and email marketing, coupled with a commitment to staff training. We’ve implemented online platforms to streamline the ordering process, minimizing human errors and leading to a notable increase in the average ticket price.

Examining the transaction data for December 2023, a clear trend emerges, with a nearly 10% surge in online transactions. The breakdown reveals user preferences: kiosks (average sale $15.50), website ($35.80), in-store ($24.15), app ($31.19) and third-party ($34.18). This data underscores the importance of a robust online presence, with a significant portion of customers opting for the convenience of digital channels.

Meanwhile, post-order surveys on our website and app provide invaluable insights. This guides our efforts to

“Post-order surveys on our website and app provide invaluable insights. This guides our efforts to continuously improve, with monthly reviews of feedback and [coupons] for winning back [unhappy] customers.”

George Panagopoulos,

Dedham House of Pizza

continuously improve, with monthly reviews of feedback and a strategic coupon program aimed at winning back customers who have encountered issues.

Catering has also proven to be a standout success. After introducing catering in 2022, sales started at $8,300. In 2023, we created an official catering menu, and by January 2024, we featured catering on thirdparty platforms, resulting in a remarkable sales increase, to $17,700. The emphasis on presentation, including branded boxes, serving utensils and an expanded menu with unique offerings, has undoubtedly contributed to this growth.

Staff training remains a challenge at our bustling pizzeria, but the introduction of comprehensive training handbooks with visual aids in multiple languages addresses this issue. The use of laminated pictures and group text messages has proven instrumental in bridging language gaps.

DEDHAM HOUSE OF PIZZA

Dedham House of Pizza owner and operator George Panagopoulos uses a wide range of marketing tactics, including menu innovations, like limited-time-only pizza bagels made in partnership with a local bagel shop.

The Servant’s Heart

With a title like “chief happiness officer,” Tom Sacco (also CEO and president) of Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream, based in Davenport, Iowa, knows a thing or two about satisfying guests. He explains his key principle, the servant’s heart, and why it works across his company’s dozens of locations.

For team members and franchise owners, we look for individuals who lead with a servant’s heart. What does that mean? It means that we will walk a senior citizen to their car after dining with us. We’ll help a mom with a child carry her diaper bag out to her car. We will go pick up a fellow team member if they don’t have a ride to work. We’ll offer beverages and pizza to our vendor drivers on hot days.

We want to be pillars in our community by giving back to those with needs, serious illnesses, disabilities,

HAPPY JOE’S PIZZA & ICE CREAM

“Servant leadership skills offer a huge advantage in growing sales, building brand fans and coaching younger team members.”

Tom Sacco, Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream

personal tragedies or financial hardships, whether they’re team members, guests, vendors or strangers. When we’ve disappointed a guest, we go out of our way to show and assure them that we will fix the issue—with the most positive attitude and with a servant’s heart.

Servant leadership skills offer a huge advantage in growing sales, building brand fans and coaching younger team members. You don’t have to spend advertising and marketing dollars to convince your guests, because you give something even more valuable, more respected and highly trusted. You give them your heart, and you put others’ needs, services and pleasures before your own.

Being a servant leader is a full-time commitment; the sincerity of purpose can’t be turned on and turned off. Rather, it takes a 24/7/365 commitment to truly take hold, become a part of you and be effective over the long term. I never force the philosophy. But for those who can change their lifestyle to accommodate the fundamental principles of servant leadership, I can personally and professionally attest to the efficacy and rewards you will be gifted because of the impact you have on others.

We address the omnipresent challenge of false reviews and negative experiences on social media with a proactive approach. Customers sharing positive feedback on third-party sites receive a $5-off coupon, fostering engagement and mitigating potential damage to our online image.

Our holistic approach to customer satisfaction, coupled with strategic initiatives and a keen focus on continuous improvement, has positioned our company for success in an ever-evolving market.

Secret Menu Success

With more than 535 stores in 21 states, Hungry Howie’s, based in Madison Heights, Michigan, takes a “surprise and delight” approach to guest satisfaction. Jeff Rinke, vice president of marketing and product development, details its runawaysuccess secret menu.

To celebrate Hungry Howie’s 50th anniversary, the brand announced the August 2023 launch of its Secret Menu: a variety of new, customized pizza offerings

Listening Skills

Coppell, Texas-based Cicis Pizza, with nearly 300 restaurants in 30-plus states, recently launched Cicis Listens, a platform that collects guest feedback and allows operators to solve issues in real time. Whitney Cartmill, director of customer experience, explains the program.

available exclusively through a QR code. Each item on the limited-time menu pays tribute to the brand’s history while offering a twist on its Flavored Crust roots.

To access the menu, customers are prompted to scan the QR codes displayed exclusively on Hungry Howie’s pizza boxes and in-store cash registers around the U.S. This interactive component unlocks the five Secret Menu pizza options in 3-D, along with fun “surprise and delight” features, and redirects customers to an online ordering page with their chosen items.

In August, Hungry Howie’s sold 49,334 pizzas from the Secret Menu across all stores systemwide, resulting in more than $515,000 in sales (1.42% of total sales). Additionally in August, the brand saw an increase in direct website sales traffic, gaining 5,200-plus new users and a user return rate of 19%. More than 5,000 unique QR code scans were tracked from August 1 to 31, driving the majority of traffic, while organic search was the most engaged source of traffic, with an engagement rate of more than 67%.

Our Secret Menu’s popularity also created an increase in social media engagement. A post of the Tie Dye pizza on Hungry Howie’s Instagram saw a 2,500% increase in likes, compared to recent posts. Overall, this initiative was not only successful for sales, but in terms of current and new customer interaction. Hungry Howie’s intends to continue and expand the menu in 2024.

We can’t improve our guests’ experience until we learn to see Cicis through their point of view. Collecting feedback, good and bad, helps the entire Cicis family— guests and team members. Cicis Listens is a strategy for collecting and circulating guest feedback, which allows us to serve guests better—in ways we may not see in a regular shift.

Our operators have the platform on their phones in the form of a mobile app. They are notified immediately of a negative guest experience score and are able to contact the guest via phone call. This allows our operators to hear from them in more detail and solve the issue with the guest. We are able to get ahead of potentially negative online reviews, and the real-time element allows for a quick resolution.

The results have been fantastic! Of course, there are areas for improvement, but we’re hearing stories of team members going above and beyond for guests, and they’re being mentioned specifically by name. We share this feedback with operators and store managers, who then share with the team member mentioned. Praise and recognition are contagious motivators. Not only are the specific team members receiving recognition, but other team members and operators are hearing examples of ways and ideas they can use to wow guests next time.

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s copy editor.

HUNGRY HOWIE’S

CICIS PIZZA

An Instagram post picturing the Tie Dye pizza from Hungry Howie’s skyrocketed likes by a whopping 2,500%.

The buffet-driven concept Cicis Pizza prioritizes collecting customer feedback and solving issues on the spot through its Cicis Listens program.

DANIEL SACCONE: CHEESE PIZZAS FOR THE WIN

For the owner of Saccone’s Pizza, less can truly be more in a pizza making competition, especially if you strike the right balance of high-quality ingredients.

BY BRIAN HERNANDEZ

LOADING DOWN A PIZZA WITH COUNTLESS TOPPINGS may create the appearance of value, but is your customer actually missing out on the whole pizza experience? U.S. Pizza Team (USPT) premiere member Daniel Saccone says yes, absolutely. The owner of Saccone’s Pizza in Leander, Texas, and a veteran competitor, Saccone has seen numerous fads come through the arena, all the while thinking his cheese pizza could beat those crazy creations. He was right.

Saccone has competed consistently over the past 19 years and officially became a competing member of the USPT at the U.S. Pizza Cup in 2018. Most recently, he has earned four first-place titles, including

Tandem Pizza Makers (with Saccone’s Pizza co-owner/ partner Jon Garland) and Best Pasta, and made it to the nontraditional semifinals at the Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup, held at last fall’s Pizza Tomorrow Summit in Orlando. There, he took second place with—you guessed it—a simple (but hardly plain) cheese pizza.

Also in 2023, Saccone gained USPT Premiere member status—and earned the team’s coveted black chef coat— by winning the America’s Best Cheese Slice competition in Atlantic City. Always using recipes pulled right from his menu, Saccone is a firm believer in competing with the ingredients you use every day.

The cheese pizza off the menu at Saccone’s Pizza & Subs took first place in the Best Cheese Slice competition in Atlantic City and made it to the semi-finals of the Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup.

Brian Hernandez: Tell us about your push to bring the America’s Best Cheese Slice competition into existence. Daniel Saccone: These events have gotten a lot more competitive, and, as the years go by, I think the competitors are better and better. It’s more nontraditional now. When you put seven different kind of mushrooms or six different pepperonis on it…it’s just really gotten to be a gourmet category. I always thought cheese levels that playing field, because everybody’s competing with the same thing. The only difference is their blend of cheese, their sauce, their dough. It’s still the same ingredients. Whereas if you’re doing the traditional category and somebody uses pepperoni, sausage or mushroom, it changes the playing field and becomes more [about] a flavor profile. The cheese pizza flavor profile is limited to the same ingredients for all the competitors. We all use different cheeses and tomatoes and mix our sauces differently, so it makes for a very unique category, even though it’s just cheese.

Hernandez: Isn’t that kind of like bringing a knife to a gunfight?

Saccone: When you have true traditional judges, they appreciate that small knife in the gunfight—the true traditionalism of a cheese pizza.

Hernandez: How can competitors stand out in a cheese-only event?

Hernandez: How long have you been advocating for a cheese-only event?

Saccone: I pushed hard for the last 15 years for this event, and I’m sure I probably pissed some people off, because I was so adamant. Luckily, the right people were listening and thinking the same thing. I think the showrunners managed that competition right. I mean, there were 60 competitors there.

Hernandez: You won with the cheese pizza on your menu. Did you change anything from your menu recipe for the competition pizza?

Saccone: Nothing. My ingredients are always right out of the walk-in at the shop. I’ve always just run to the store the night before and grabbed my ingredients for the competition.

Hernandez: Why did you choose to compete with a cheese pizza at the Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup in Orlando?

Saccone: Knowing this was an open category and a USPT event, I wanted to come support the team and show that [a cheese pizza] can stand up against the field….My best pie is cheese, so that’s what I brought.

Saccone: I believe in quality. That’s part of the equation, but it’s also a balance of everything. Measure your cheese. I always tell my employees it’s not about the cost. To me, it’s about consistency. And when you can put just the right amount of cheese on a pie…it’s that blend that comes together. It’s like any other recipe—trying to get that right balance of cheese, sauce and dough. I’ve always prided myself on the way we do our dough now. I switched to Italian flour. It doubled my flour cost, but I felt, after seeing the quality of the dough and flour in Europe, that I wanted to change. There’s a complex flavor in the dough, and that’s always important to me. I’ll give up a little bit of the firmness and the crust for that flavor, but it comes down to that balance. I think that’s what really makes it.

Hernandez: Does the rarity of a cheese pizza in competitions sway the judges?

Saccone: From my own judging experience, you’re seeing all these off-the-rails pizzas coming through. Crazy combinations with drizzles, garnishes…all the bells and whistles. Then, they get that one flavorful, well-executed traditional pie. I think that stands out, because you got away from all the extras.

Read the full interview article and watch the video at PMQ.com/saccone. For more information about the U.S. Pizza Team, contact bhernandez@wtwhmedia.com.

James Binner Sr., director of sales for Lactalis America Group, awards Saccone his peel at the 2023 Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup during the Pizza Tomorrow Summit in Orlando.

Mellow Mushroom

Near Atlanta’s Georgia Tech campus in 1974, three recent college graduates—Rocky Reeves, Mike Nicholson and Marc Weinstein—who shared a pizza passion (and several years of restaurant experience) joined forces to open Mellow Mushroom. “Paired with a post-grad mentality fueled by a hunger to create something new, they banded together,” recounts Anne Mejia, senior VP of brand development. “Very soon after opening, Mellow Mushroom had a cult following, with lines out the door.”

The vision was simple, but not easy to execute: Create a unique, memorable dining experience with one-of-a-kind decor at each location, hosted by “Shroom Crew” members who foster a friendly, come-as-youare vibe. Now, 50 years later, that cult following has only grown, with the brand (appropriately for its fungal namesake) spawning 163 locations in 17 states, slinging stone-baked pizzas amid trippy, hippie-tinged backdrops.

Since its first franchising in the early 1980s, the founding trio established relationships with local artists, who added unique murals and other artistic flourishes to restaurants and menus, ensuring no location feels cookie-cutter. Recently, Mellow Mushroom underwent a massive company-wide rebrand, with a refreshed logo and signage, newly designed menus, personalized website and user experiences, revamped retail items and uniforms, and a coming-soon counter-service prototype location in Atlanta.

BY TRACY MORIN

STAT E OFGEORGIA

STATEOF GE O RGIA

“There have been some big brand milestones over the years,” Mejia says. “The most recent changes have been driven by technology. We’ve seen a big uptick in off-premise sales, fueled by our own online ordering platform, third-party, and still a sizable amount of phone-in orders. Prepandemic, we moved from a deck oven to a conveyor oven, and that has allowed us to expand our business.”

While customers love thoughtful touches like dietary restriction-friendly menu items, craft beers, cocktails and mocktails, and psychedelic artwork, the brand is also beloved for its heart. Sustainability practices include ecofriendly, recycled-material pizza boxes with a negative carbon footprint and reusable steel kegs. Meanwhile, the brand selects a few national charities to partner with each year, while individual franchisees give back within their communities through prolific pizza donations.

Ultimately, Mellow Mushroom’s success comes down to maintaining its original mission—a winning combination of, Mejia says, “our focus on food quality, the people and the culture, the enduring popularity of pizza, and providing that Mellow Mushroom experience.”

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s copy editor.

Clockwise from left: Co-founder Marc Weinstein, shown here in the 1970s, started Mellow Mushroom with two fellow recent college grads; the original Spring Street location near Georgia Tech soon attracted a cult following; the brand’s stone-baked pizzas feature a sweet, soft crust made with single-source Appalachian spring water.