How one man is helping smaller operators fight back against the pizza delivery giants.
Do you know about our ability to extend the shelf life of pita from 10 to 21 days? Or that, every day, our expert technical team solves bakery formulation challenges at our Baking Centers around the country? Did you know that Lesaffre has eliminated the need for susceptor boards from microwaveable pizzas and flatbreads?
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You may not know Lesaffre for the baking challenges we’ve helped customers overcome — but you’ve likely enjoyed the result in the form of a bread, soft pretzel, snack cake, pizza, donut, or other baked delight.
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What’s your declaration of independence?
for
love of
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ON THE COVER
Andrew Simmons is helping independent restaurateurs across the country go headto-head with both the big pizza chains and the thirdparty delivery giants. (Cover photo by Heather Winters)
By Rick Hynum
As California’s tomato growers face a record drought and higher farming costs, it could have a ripple effect in the pizza industry.
PMQ.com/tomato-sauce-prices
Using bakers percent allows you to quickly pinpoint any discrepancies in your dough formulation with a simple mathematical equation.
PMQ.com/what-exactly-is-bakers-percent
Crust-Busters: Papa Johns Goes No-Dough With Papa Bowls
The chain says its new Papa Bowls, available in three varieties, offer “everything you love about Papa Johns’ pizza without the crust.”
PMQ.com/papa-bowls
The National Restaurant Association says the law could push up supplier costs thanks to the new Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax.
PMQ.com/inflation-reduction-actrestaurants
Domino’s Closes All of Its Stores in Italy
The world’s No. 1 pizza chain lost its big advantage when the pandemic hit and Italian restaurateurs decided to give delivery a try.
PMQ.com/dominos-in-italy
According to Michael Lindsey, co-owner of Old Hag’s Pizza and Pasta, an 18% fee lets him offer employees a competitive wage and benefits.
PMQ.com/old-hags
A Publication of PMQ, Inc. 662-234-5481
Volume 26, Issue 8 October 2022 ISSN 1937-5263
PUBLISHER
Steve Green, sg@pmq.com ext. 123
Linda Green, linda.pmq@gmail.com ext. 121
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Rick Hynum, rick@pmq.com
Eric Summers, eric@pmq.com
SENIOR COPY EDITOR
Tracy Morin, tracy@pmq.com
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
Blake Harris, blake@pmq.com ext. 136
TEST CHEF/USPT COORDINATOR
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REPORTER
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FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER
David Fischer, david@pmq.com
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Shawn Truss, shawn@pmq.com
SALES DIRECTOR
Linda Green, linda.pmq@gmail.com ext. 121
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Tom Boyles, tom@pmq.com ext. 122
SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Jerry Moschella, jerry@pmq.com ext. 137
SALES ASSISTANT Brandy Pinion, brandy@pmq.com ext. 127
INTERNATIONAL PIZZA MARKET
Italy: Enrico Fama Fama.Enrico@gmail.com
Russia: Vladimir Davydov Vladimir@pmq.com
China: Yvonne Liu Yvonne@pmq.com
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November 9-10
PMQ is a proud sponsor of this exciting new event taking place at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Designed to better serve the East Coast and the South, the Pizza Tomorrow Summit brings together pizza operators, suppliers, products and new initiatives, along with a cutting-edge education program. And don’t miss the U.S. Pizza Team’s 2022 Galbani Pizza Cup! Learn more at pizzatomorrow.com.
October 1-2 (Austin, TX) and October 8-9 (Dallas, TX)
The Great American Restaurant Expo is coming to two Texas locations this month: the Palmer Event Center in Austin and the Fort Worth Convention Center in Fort Worth. Along with new industry products spotlighted in the exhibit hall, the expos will provide educational seminars on topics like technology, financing and consumer insights. Learn more at restaurantexpousa.com.
The Specialty Food Association’s Winter Fancy Food Show returns to Las Vegas in January. It’s the largest B2B specialty food industry event in the western U.S. It will offer three days of networking, trendspotting, education and, of course, sampling the latest specialty food and beverages in more than 40 product categories.
Learn more at specialtyfood.com.
Discover all of the events impacting the pizza industry this year at PMQ.com/calendar Hosting an event? Send your submissions to editor@pmq.com.
Challenge your team to get wildly creative—both in the kitchen and in your marketing—as you celebrate this most sacred of months. Recipe contests, kids-eat-free deals, pizza making classes, and fundraisers are great. But try thinking a little weirder, and clue the news media in on your plans—they’ll be looking for pizza-related stories!
Some customers are fully committed to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Many others are veggie-curious. Make your own commitment to them by adding more vegetarian and vegan items to your menu this month, and don’t be shy about promoting them.
Pasta is the ultimate comfort food in stressful times. Showcase your pasta entrées on social media with gorgeous photos—and keep the vegetarians and vegans in mind, too.
World Vegetarian Day
Saturday, October 1
International Beer and Pizza Day Sunday, October 9
National Sausage Pizza Day Tuesday, October 11
National Dessert Day Friday, October 14
National Pasta Day Monday, October 17
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There’s a lot to do at Noble Pie Parlor in Reno, Nevada, besides eating pizza. In an innovative new promo held August 31, customers had the chance to win free food for a year if they did it all in a single evening. At the company’s Midtown location, owner Ryan Goldhammer and his team created a list of “100 Things to Do at Noble Pie Parlor Before You Die.” The first person to complete the list received $50 in food for 52 weeks, while second place earned $20 in food per week and third place won $10 in food per week. The first 44 tasks could be completed in any order but had to be finished before moving on. The same rule applied to tasks 45 through 80, while competitors were required to complete the last 20 tasks in sequential order. “Whether it’s making a new dog friend on our patio, buying a round for the bar or finishing eating challenges, this list is comprehensive of the friendly, inclusive atmosphere” at Noble Pie, Goldhammer said. “We know we have loyal customers, and this is one way we can honor their energy while saying thank you to some of our serious patrons.”
Packed with meat, veggies, sauce and plenty of crunch, the trapizzino is a Roman street food reinvented for New Yorkers on the go. And Stefano Callegari, owner of a Lower East Side eatery that’s also called Trapizzino, has built his entire business around it. Callegari merged the traditional tramezzino—a triangular sandwich that’s popular throughout Italy—with his own tangy, crispy sourdough to create a handheld meal you can gobble down on the run without feeling that junk-food guilt. The trapizzino comes in seven varieties. The Polpetta al Sugo, for example, features an Italian beef meatball with tomato sauce, while the Coda alla Vaccinara is stuffed with braised oxtail, and the Doppia Panna boasts stracciatella di burrata and Cantabrian anchovies. Callegari is the culinary mastermind behind Roman restaurants like Sforno, 00100—where he invented the trapizzino—and Tonda. “It’s very common in Rome to stuff focaccia, to make sandwiches with ham and cheese, salami, whatever,” Callegari told Rome-based food writer Katie Parla. “I thought, if I want to do the same—but with sauce, like all of our traditional dishes—what could I do? I then realized I could use the corner of the pizza like a pocket. This is a modern shape for a traditional food.”
Noble Pie Parlor serves up plenty of personality with its pizza.
Oingo Bingo is a popular Thursday night promo held on Thursday nights at Noble Pie.
The trapizzino was inspired by the tramezzino, a triangular sandwich that’s popular throughout Italy.
Just how large is the largest pizza at Taranto’s Pizzeria, a woman-owned pizza shop that’s been operating for 22 years in Lewis Center, Ohio? They don’t call it the Tarantosaurus for nothing. The 29” pie is said to be the equivalent of four large pizzas and can be loaded with all of the toppings you want. But most customers go for a simple three-cheese blend and pepperoni for $55 (there’s a $5 charge for each additional topping). Owner Debbie Taranto developed the monster-size pie to cater to parties and large groups—it can serve 15 to 20 people. It also helps differentiate her menu from other area pizza shops. A customer contest yielded the memorable Tarantosaurus name, and customers also voted in April to add a new pizza to the menu: The Salmon and Pickle Deluxe. The dough is brushed with a light artesian fish oil. A heavy dose of thick mayonnaise serves as the sauce, and the pie is topped with crunchy bits of salmonflavored pepperoni—not actual salmon!—and a full layer of aged butter pickles.
Pizzeria Uno introduced the world to deep-dish pizza. Now the iconic Chicago brand is making inroads in the lodging industry after opening a location in a Delta hotel in Schiller Park, Illinois, on August 26. The new Pizzeria Uno restaurant replaced the hotel’s unbranded eatery and is one of several hotel conversions this year, the company said. The business model offers hotel owners a chance to make more money on their food-and-beverage program, thanks to five revenue streams: increased revenue from dine-in for hotel guests; takeout for hotel guests; takeout and/or delivery sales from the local community; dine-in revenue from locals who typically wouldn’t eat at a hotel restaurant; and the potential addition of group sales. Since hotel operators already have the kitchen and most of the equipment in place, conversion costs are minimized. Pizzeria Uno hotel conversions have also opened in Detroit and northern Indiana, while others are currently being built out and more are in the pipeline, the company said.
Debbie Taranto shows off a new branded T-shirt that was given away in a “Six Days of Pizza & Beer” promotion.
The menu at the Delta hotel location promotes Pizzeria Uno as the originator of deepdish pizza.
The Tarantosaurus is the equivalent of four large pizzas and a favorite for parties and large groups.
This Pizzeria Uno restaurant opened in late August in a hotel in Schiller Park, Illinois, near Chicago.
16 oz. Pizza dough (enough for a rectangular pan, approximately 12” x 18”)
2 14.5-oz. cans Italian peeled tomatoes, drained and sliced
14 oz. Galbani® Premio Mozzarella, shredded
3 oz. Président® Feta, crumbled 20 slices Pepperoni
2 oz. Italian seasoning
3 oz. Galbani Shaved Parmesan
Leave the dough to rest at room temperature for 1 hour prior to cooking. Preheat the oven to 500°F.
Oil a rectangular pan. Lightly dust the work surface with flour and stretch dough. Place the dough in the pan and stretch to the edges. Spread the mozzarella over pizza, then add the crumbled feta. Place the tomatoes on top of the cheese. Place pepperoni on the pizza, then add Italian seasoning to taste.
Place the pizza in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, rotating halfway through baking. Remove the pizza from the oven and finish with shaved Parmesan.
About the Pizza:
Just in time for National Pizza Month, master pizzaiolo chef Billy Manzo has a pie to serve all October long. The combination of Président® Feta and Galbani Premio Mozzarella makes for an incredibly authentic and irresistible flavor. Plus, this top-ofthe-line mozzarella is known for premium quality, exceptional value, and a taste that will keep your customers coming back for more.
Sponsored by:
Collaborating with your vendors and community members—including other local businesses and even your customers—will get you through tough economic times.
BY BILLY MANZO JR.There’s so much talk lately about the economy sliding into a recession and ways in which pizzeria owners can not only survive but thrive. For me, it all comes down to one word: collaboration. The relationships we build with our vendors and everyone in our community will get us through the tough times.
I got my start in retail through a collaboration. In 2007, I was running a wholesale business. I was making dough and pizza shells in a 2,000-squarefoot manufacturing plant near Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI), the local prison here in Rhode Island. A bunch of my friends were guards at ACI, and they found out I had a plant across the street with a little test kitchen, where different buyers could come and taste my product.
“Dude,” they told me, “your pizza is unbelievable. Can you make us a couple of pies?”
I always had a tray of about 10 dough balls in the walk-in, so why not? I did it and thought that would be that. Then more orders started coming in—and they were getting bigger. One day, an ACI guy knocked on my door and said, “For lunch tomorrow, can you please make 10 pies for us?” Now I was selling 10 pies a day at 20 bucks apiece, but I was making 10 bucks in profit on each pie and pocketing $100 every day. Not bad.
One day, this girl came in. “I gotta order a pizza from you,” she said in a sharp Providence accent. “If I go visit my man today and don’t bring him one
of your pizzas….You don’t understand, all the prisoners love your pizza!”
“Prisoners?” It turned out that the guards sometimes offered their pizza leftovers to the inmates, who jumped at the chance to have my pizza. (They didn’t get this kind of quality on the chow line.) And that’s when I started thinking about doing retail.
I may not be serving lunch to the ACI crowd anymore, but I’m always looking around for new ways to work with my vendors and my community. You should, too.
I’m a huge collaborator with local farms—the guy who grows lettuce, peppers and tomatoes. For me, it all starts with what’s on the plate. All of these people have contacts, a consumer base, people who come to them. If you start building that collaboration, you can bring the consumer from the farm to the pizzeria and vice versa.
How do you start? Just go and introduce yourself. More often than not, that farmer will say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve tried your product. I buy it for my kids
Billy Manzo (left) teaches pizza making classes to locals to forge meaningful connections in his community.
To collaborate with hometown businesses, start by introducing yourself to local growers.
ADOBE STOCK
BILLY MANZO
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HS1037
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once in a while.” But you can transition that relationship from an occasional sale to a point where the farmer says, “Listen, I’ve got a case of tomatoes that didn’t sell. You’re going to cook them in the oven, so you want them for half-price? Or do you just want ’em?”
Or the farmer might say, “We’ve got a gig going on. Do you want to come and make some pizza at the farm?” Next thing you know, you’ve got a little side hustle going on. You can do this with the local butcher or cheese maker too. Remember, just because you use one cheese doesn’t mean you can’t talk to a local cheese guy (or gal) and come up with a special—just between you and him—as an appetizer or a pizza.
Or how about the guy who sharpens your knives? Our guy charges me 10 bucks every other week. One time, he came in and was having something to eat—whenever vendors walk into my place, they’re going to eat—and he said, “Listen, are you looking for another location?”
I said, “Well, I’m always looking.”
“I shouldn’t do this, but you’re cool, and I might know of a place,” he said. Because of that relationship and respect, he pointed me in a direction that I never would have heard of. Then the relationship went further. One day I asked him, “If I did a YouTube video and you talked about the importance of a sharp knife and what it could do, would you be up for that?”
So we made a video together—something really quick and fun in my kitchen about his company and the importance of sharpening your knives. He had 15,000 people watching him on social media, got a bunch of jobs out of it, and, for four or five months, he sharpened my knives for nothing.
That’s collaboration.
Collaborating With the Community Vendors aren’t your only potential collaborators. Just about everyone is. When I’m out running an errand in my community, I always bring my business cards with me—two 12” pizzas. Why? Because when people see the Federal Hill Pizza logo on my shirt, my hat or my car, they always joke around with me: “Hey, you didn’t bring any pizza?” It happens everywhere.
It happened so much at my local car wash that, when I get my car washed every month now, I bring those guys two 12” pizzas. What happened as a result? 1) They got a kick out of it, of course. 2) They started ordering lunch from me. 3) One day, the car wash owner found out what I was doing and said, “Hey, I have an idea. How about every time we wash a car, we put a coupon for your pizzeria on the windshield?” That’s as many as 400 coupons, or 400 potential new customers, in a day!
Another idea: We had local school kids come in for a month and draw pictures on our plain pizza boxes. Crayons on the table. Smiles on their faces. The kids’ parents were sharing those boxes all over social media. So think about a collaboration between your business and local families. Some of these kids are great designers! (You can even collaborate with an art school, if you like.)
Or how about just remembering your customers’ names and birthdays? If you go to The Capital Grille, chances are the hostess or the waiter won’t know your name, your kid’s birthday or anything about your family. But you should. Store your customer’s info in your POS, including their kids’ birthdays: “Hey, Mike, it’s your birthday! Pizza’s on us!” That’s a boat many of us miss in our industry.
We had local school kids come in for a month and draw pictures on our plain pizza boxes. Crayons on the table. Smiles on their faces. The kids’ parents were sharing those boxes all over social media.
“But, wait, Billy,” you might say. “How is this considered collaboration?” 1) The birthday kid probably has lots of friends who eat pizza, and they’re likely to come in with their families for their birthday. 2) You can post about each birthday on social media—with the parents’ permission, of course—and get free publicity. 3) That kid will always remember you did something special for him. One of the kids I gave a free pizza to became a local weatherman. Now, once in a while, he’ll mention on the air that he’s going to dinner at Federal Hill Pizza—all because I was cool with him and his parents. You never know where these people are going to end up!
In a recent social media post, we asked our customers to build their own pizza. We got about 50 entries, picked one, and, for two weeks, we ran that pizza as a special under the name of the pizza designer: Bob Smith’s Pizza, Grandma Betsy’s Pizza, Murphy’s Law Office Pizza. Whatever they want to name it. For two weeks, people called and said, “I want to try the Murphy’s Law Office Pizza!” It was a lot of fun—and great publicity for
outside-the-box thinking is a collaboration, but everybody out there has contacts and connections.
Listen, there’s a misconception that the time to do this stuff is when the money’s rolling in. Wrong. It’s when times are tough, like now, that you’ve got to work those connections. Lately, I’ve been reading about pizzeria operators thinking of opening multiple units or wanting to expand. That’s insanity right now. We need to batten down the hatches with our one or two locations and pound away at our vendor and consumer connections.
This is the time when you need people—you need to be there for them as much as, hopefully, they’ll be there for you. Become one with the farmers, the company that makes the boxes, the family that handles your linens. Get involved with everybody around you. It’s crucial that, in a bad economy, you make your foundation even stronger.
Billy Manzo Jr. is a veteran restaurant operator and the owner/chef of Federal Hill
When I’m out running an errand in my community, I always bring my business cards with me—two 12” pizzas.
Andrew Simmons is the owner of both a single-unit independent restaurant— Mamma Ramona’s—and a restaurant delivery service (RDS) called OrangeCrate.
Andrew Simmons aims to bring independent pizzerias and independent restaurant delivery services together as partners to take on the giants.
BY RICK HYNUMAndrew Simmons is hardly a pipsqueak, but as a pizzeria operator with just one store—Mamma Ramona’s in Ramona, California—he’s what you might call one of the “little guys.” Yet he has zero fear of giants. In fact, he’s helping independent restaurateurs across the country go head-to-head with both the big pizza chains and the top third-party delivery companies. His vision: Independents can take back control of pizza delivery and send DoorDash and Uber Eats packing without ever breaking their stride. And it starts by forging a true partnership with a local restaurant delivery service (RDS) that cares as much about your brand as you do.
In addition to Mamma Ramona’s, Simmons runs his own RDS called OrangeCrate. He’s also president of the Restaurant Marketing Delivery Association (RMDA), a nationwide organization of locally owned delivery providers that play David to all those third-party Goliaths, armed with hot bags instead of slingshots and working closely with smaller pizzeria owners who want personalized and dependable service.
What exactly does the RMDA do? “We work to level the playing field against DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub—all of these very well-funded companies,” Simmons explains. “We help put the little independent delivery services on a more equal footing. The power of our organization is that we have 700 independent local companies that don’t want to be part of one big company. We have worked to tie them all together
Source: Datassential
with a single API…so the orders flow in, we push the orders out to everybody’s individual platforms, and those local companies take local ownership of those deliveries [for local pizzerias]. If something goes wrong, somebody local can help that customer. These companies care about the product. They carry the professional delivery bags and the insurance required to do those local deliveries.”
Best of all, the restaurateur doesn’t have to be tech-savvy, as the RMDA’s service can be integrated into most
any restaurant POS system, Simmons says. “We just need to know what POS you’re using, and we take care of the integration. If you’re not on a POS system or still use a cash register, we can provide a tablet. Even if you’re not WiFi-connected, we can still call or fax an order in. There’s a lot of different ways we can make it happen for you, whether or not you’re technologically gifted.”
That’s it in a nutshell. And, yes, when you think about it, as a delivery provider, Simmons isn’t really a “little
1 in 10 consumers get food delivered via third-party delivery apps. 1 in 10 consumers also get food delivered via restaurant apps or the restaurant itself.As president of the Restaurant Marketing Delivery Association, Andrew Simmons wants to help independent restaurateurs take back control of their food delivery.
guy.” Although he owns just one pizzeria, OrangeCrate currently delivers for more than 2,500 restaurants in 40-plus cities. Even so, as president of the RMDA, he’s leading a movement for the little guys. He wants to see independent pizzeria operators and independent RDS companies alike thrive on their own terms—simply by working together.
For franchisees of Pizza Hut, Papa Johns and Little Caesars, third-party delivery platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats are now a must-have, especially as the labor shortage continues. Smaller chains and multiunit operators in large metro areas work with the big third-party companies, too. But these corporate giants aren’t for everybody, especially smaller pizzerias that can’t afford the commissions and fees. So how can independent pizza shops keep up when drivers are getting harder
Source: Sense360
to find, even as demand for delivery remains high?
Why not partner with another little guy that specializes in local food delivery? They’re out there, and they’re ready to work with you. You just need to sit down with them and cut a deal.
According to the RMDA, its network of RDS providers do more than $500 million in combined sales annually in about 700 cities nationwide and comprise the fourth-largest delivery fleet in the country. The RMDA is also developing the LocalDelivery.org website and app, which will let customers find local pizzerias and other restaurants that work with local RDS businesses in their hometown.
Before he founded OrangeCrate in 2015 and bought Mamma Ramona’s (previously called Mamma Rosa’s) in late 2018, Simmons delivered pies for Domino’s. He even developed his own app that provided delivery drivers with the kind of info about their customers that you can’t get from a map—the color of the house, unique features, the presence of mean dogs, even how well the customers tipped.
According to Simmons, that app didn’t go over well with Domino’s corporate office. “That was the impetus for me to leave Domino’s and start doing delivery for other companies.”
With OrangeCrate, he says he initially signed up more than two dozen local eateries in Ramona—not just pizzerias
42% of consumers say they want to see more delivery- and takeout-only restaurants.HEATHER WINTERS Restaurateurs don’t need to be technologically savvy to partner with a local delivery service.
Close your eyes.
What do you see your “best life” looking like?
Chase that!
Go for that!
Create that!
Sacrifice for that!
Get uncomfortable!
Work for that!
Write it down!
Pray about it!
Work for it!
Tell your family about it!
See yourself living it! Stop going through the motions!
Our “best life” will require change and sacrifice. It WILL require ACTION.
Get Ready For It!
To learn more about Perfect Crust’s pizza liners and other products, visit perfectcrust.com or email Eric Bam at Eric@perfectcrust.com
A Boston native now living in Tulsa, OK, Eric Bam is VP of sales and marketing for Perfect Crust, with 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry. A powerful force in the workplace, Bam uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. He has three children and loves helping the men and women of the pizza industry grow their businesses.
In many cases, a single tablet is all you need to start working with a local delivery service.
— Andrew Simmons, owner, OrangeCrate, and president, RMDA
but all kinds of restaurants that normally couldn’t offer delivery. When OrangeCrate expanded to Flint, Michigan, he inked a deal with a 21-unit franchise pizza company. “And we just killed it in terms of orders,” he says. “We outsold DoorDash by about six to one.”
But DoorDash eventually snatched the contract away, Simmons says. “We got booted.”
So it’s clear why Simmons enjoys taking on the giants. Since becoming president of the RMDA, which has actually been around for about 20 years, he has made it his mission to help independent restaurateurs and local RDS providers partner up. And the need is real, he says. “We’ve been talking to a lot of smaller mom-andpops as well as national [brands] that want to replace one of the big three [third-party delivery providers] and offer a more personal touch in their orders,” he says.
For an independent restaurateur, Simmons says, “It starts with having a one-on-one conversation and relationship with that RDS. We’re going to help you figure out the best way to make deliveries. Do you want to be listed on our marketplace, or are we only taking orders from yours? How do those orders get pushed into your system’s back end? It’s an ongoing process, and we’re helping you every step of the way.”
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Most importantly, commissions are negotiable. “We’re flexible on what we charge, based on what you can afford and what works for both of us,” Simmons adds. “It’s a true partnership.”
OrangeCrate, for example, works with the pizzeria operator to hammer out a mutually beneficial deal. “We make our money on commissions from the restaurant or the customer, depending on what the restaurant wants to do,” Simmons says. “Our typical commission is 15% and gets added to the cost of the order. Restaurants like that model, because it means they don’t need to take a loss for providing the food [for delivery].”
A major third-party delivery company might make you cough up 25% or 35% on every order. “And you just have to make it work,” Simmons says. A local RDS provider will likely cut you a better deal. “We’re looking for ways to help you grow your business and extend your
brand. We talk about how that food is delivered, how to deal with customers and solve their issues. It’s all about a relationship. In the end, we present your brand to the customers. So how do you want that to look? If you care about how your brand is presented, you want to work with a local delivery company.”
One of the RMDA’s members is Fetcht, a restaurant delivery provider in Oxford, Mississippi, home to the University of Mississippi and, incidentally, PMQ. As a small but mighty college town and regional mecca for SEC sports, Oxford has a thriving restaurant sector.
After paying his dues for decades in corporate America, Kent Breckinridge launched Fetcht with his son, DeYampert, to help connect more of those restaurants—pizzerias, Mexican shops and every type in between—to their customers through delivery.
And the restaurants don’t pay Breckinridge a single thin dime if they work exclusively with Fetcht, he says. It’s the customers who pay for the luxury of food delivered to their doorstep. “Why do you need to be charged anything to be able to accept orders?” he says. “We do it differently. I don’t have a bunch of shareholders that I’m responsible for…. This affords us to run lean.”
“If you’ve got solid internet that I can hook a tablet up to and you give me a good menu, we’ll handle it all.”
— Kent Breckinridge, FetchtKent Breckinridge (left) and his son, DeYampert, run their own restaurant delivery service, Fetcht, in Oxford, Mississippi. BLAKE HARRIS Kent Breckingridge, co-owner of Fetcht, details the many advantages of partnering with a local restaurant delivery service provider. Watch the video at PMQ.com/fetcht.
Fetcht uses a “complicated matrix” for pricing its deliveries, marking up the menu “slightly,” Breckinridge says, and then charging the customer a service fee, which varies based on mileage from the individual restaurant to the customer’s doorstep. The base fee is $3.99, starting from the restaurant’s location, he explains, “and then, as we move out into a different radius, there’s a bump. So the farther away from a restaurant you are, you’re going to pay a little bit more [as the customer].”
Again, the restaurateur doesn’t need to be a tech wizard. “I need you to give me a good menu, and I need you to have internet,” Breckinridge says. “There you go. If you’ve got solid internet that I can hook a tablet up to and you give me a good menu, we’ll handle it all. When we’re ready, we’ll set [the tablet] up, teach you how to use it, and we’re off to the races.”
An individual restaurant might not want to offer delivery for every item on the menu, and that’s OK, Breckinridge notes. “The restaurants are in control. They can tell us what they want on their menus and what they don’t. They can change it, or they can send it to me to change.”
Even better, he adds, “We answer our phones. With third-party conglomerates, if the driver has a problem with an order or there’s a mistake, they don’t have anybody to call. If the customer or restaurant needs to change an order, there’s nobody to call. We have a team of dispatchers, and we answer the phone.”
Fetcht’s website and app are loaded with menus from virtually every restaurant in Oxford, including most fast-food operations. Not all of them are Fetcht’s delivery partners—in the case of a “non-participating restaurant,” like an Arby’s or Captain D’s, the customer can still place and pay for an order through Fetcht; a Fetcht team member then places the order directly with that restaurant, and the driver picks it up, pays with a prepaid credit card and delivers it to the customer.
Partnering with a local RDS means you know who’s accountable—and who to call—when a delivery gets botched. And both parties have a vested interest in fixing problems. “If the restaurant messes up, then we look bad,” Breckinridge says. “If we mess up, the restaurant looks bad. We’re extensions of each other’s teams.”
Additionally, pizzerias can use a hybrid model, combining in-house delivery with RDS delivery. For example, the pizzeria might want to use in-house drivers for larger orders that will get bigger tips.
And once LocalDelivery.org, the RMDA’s online marketplace, goes live—expected by November 1—those customers who prefer to spend their money locally will be able to find restaurants that work with local RDS providers in their hometowns. “That will be our national marketplace, listing every local restaurant that works with a local RDS,” Simmons says. “There are plenty of companies that tout that they support local but push those deliveries to DoorDash. This is an opportunity for consumers to support those restaurants that truly support local communities.”
Simmons expects to launch LocalDelivery.org with 50,000 to 60,000 restaurants listed soon. Since RMDA is an association for RDS providers only, restaurants don’t need to be members, Simmons says. “They just need to be working with an RMDA independent delivery company for delivery.”
But partnering with a local RDS could be a game changer for your pizzeria if delivery has been giving you fits. As an RDS provider, Breckingridge says, “My job is to help you get more orders. Your job, as the restaurateur, is to prepare the food and have it packaged hot and fresh when we get there. Then we deliver it. And while you’re telling people all about your great food, tell them about us.”
Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor in chief.
“We work to level the playing field against DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub….We help put the little independent delivery services on a more equal footing.”
— Andrew Simmons, owner, OrangeCrate, and president, RMDA
Toppers reviewed more than 10 different cheeses before partnering with an expert vegan chef to pick the perfect cheese for its ovens.
With so many new plant-based cheeses on the market, no dairy-free customer has to go without this key element of gooey goodness on their pies.
BY TRACY MORINLike most vegan food categories, the growth, diversity and quality of dairy-free cheeses in recent years has been simply astounding. With ever more demand driving ever more innovation from manufacturers, vegan pizzas no longer need to be presented as cheeseless versions that pale in comparison to the “real thing.”
We checked in with operators across the country—from catering and take-and-bake operations to traditional independents and chains—to get their take on how vegan cheeses are working wonders across their menu.
TOPPERSWe purchase our vegan cheese: Miyoko’s Creamery Organic Cashew Milk Mozzarella, which is like fresh mozzarella, and Violife Just Like Parmesan. Parmesan, mozzarella and cheddar are great for omelets and sandwiches, and we use it just like you would use any cheese. We don’t charge extra—the profit margin is slightly less, but we use a lot of cheese on our pizzas—and the customer response has been positive. I think they appreciate us keeping their eating habits in mind. And it’s not just vegetarians who eat our vegan dishes; sometimes the customer just wants to eat cleaner or plant-based. I’d recommend tasting different cheeses, seeing how they melt and work with your dishes. You will be surprised to see what’s out there!
The co-founder of Pleese Foods reached out to me because he heard that we’re the top-rated pizzeria in our neighborhood, and he wanted authentic New York pizza for an event he was hosting. We had gotten multiple requests for vegan cheese
before that, but nothing impressed me until I saw Pleese melt and tasted it on my pizza. I became the first pizzeria in the world to carry it regularly on my menu. I started ordering 20 pounds of it each month, and now I can go through that amount in a day. Many of my regular customers order only vegan slices now!
For best results when cooking, I use a thin layer of sauce and top off the cheese with olive oil before placing in the oven. My ovens can reach 600°F, and I use a screen under the crust, so the cheese and dough bake in about eight to 10 minutes. We charge a premium—$3 per slice, $6 per pie—so the slices are more profitable, especially with added toppings. We were recently ranked in the top five vegan pizzerias in NYC!
Chef Louis Bayla and Brian Bistroy Table and Banter, Berkeley, NJ“It’s not just vegetarians who eat our vegan dishes; sometimes the customer just wants to eat cleaner or plant-based.”
— Chef Louis Bayla and Brian Bistroy, Table and BanterVito’s Slices and Ices has become a top-rated veganfriendly pizzeria since adding vegan cheese to the menu. PLEESE FOODS
Carron Harris, Senior Director of Culinary Papa Murphy’s, Vancouver, WA (1,250 U.S. locations, plus locations in Canada and the United Arab Emirates)
We tried eight different brands of dairy-free cheese, evaluating them on taste, appearance, meltability, texture and ease of use for operators. We also had to consider distribution across the U.S. and cost-effectiveness. We use Violife Just Like Mozzarella Shreds in our UAE stores, so having a global presence was a bonus. It also scored the best among our tasters in all of the categories. Currently, the cheese is on the menu on pizzas but can be subbed on a salad as well.
The mozzarella comes ready for operators to use and looks much different than our current whole-milk mozzarella, which is shredded in-house. This helps keep confusion at a minimum for the crew. Employees follow the usual steps to make a pizza, and the cheese comes in a reasonable-size package to prevent waste, which helps profitability. Dairy-free cheese definitely costs more to purchase, and we pass that along to consumers: Our franchisees charge between $2 to $3 more for a pizza with
dairy-free cheese to maintain profit margins. But customer response has been overwhelmingly positive! Families are so excited that they can get a dairy-free pizza for their lactoseintolerant kids. It allows the whole family to enjoy our pizzas.
There are so many vegan cheese options today, all with different taste profiles, visuals and melts. We reviewed more than 10 different cheeses before finally partnering with an expert vegan chef who helped us identify the perfect cheese for taste and melt in our ovens. We stock one dairy-free/vegan cheese made by Follow Your Heart. We use this cheese on our build-your-own recipes, vegan house pizza recipes and our Veganstix (the dairy-free version of cheesy Topperstix).
With any food product, there are storage and shelf-life procedures to keep in mind, but dairy-free cheese doesn’t require anything out of the norm. However, dairy-free mozzarella is much more expensive than mainstream mozzarella and even other niche cheeses, so we have to upcharge for it. As it continues to grow in popularity and our usage climbs, we’ll be able to purchase it at a lower cost and, in turn, pass those savings onto our customers.
“Our franchisees charge between $2 to $3 more for a pizza with dairy-free cheese to maintain profit margins. But customer response has been overwhelmingly positive!”
— Carron Harris, Papa Murphy’sToppers Veganstix, the dairy-free version of Topperstix, allows even vegan and lactose-free customers to enjoy cheesy breadsticks. Adding nondairy cheese at Papa Murphy’s has allowed the take-and-bake chain to cater to lactose-intolerant customers. TOPPERS
Still, the customer response since we added vegan cheeses has been phenomenal. We started receiving incredible customer feedback for our vegan recipes immediately upon rollout two years ago. The feedback has continued ever since, and it’s normal to see Google reviews every week mentioning the love of our plant-powered products. They are a small but mighty and boisterous customer group that we love to serve.
If you’re looking to add vegan cheeses to the menu, be picky. Don’t rush the process. Find one you really love and that works with your other products. Don’t just add it to your menu as an option, but really incorporate recipes that you know (through research) that vegan customers are going to love.
Having worked in and owned successful restaurants for more than 25 years, I know how important it is to use quality ingredients, and Neo Pizza is known for its artisan pizzas. When we were looking for a vegan cheese, we needed one that would help us bring our signature creations to life and chose Vitalite plant-based, vegan-certified, dairy-free mozzarellastyle shreds from Saputo Dairy USA. We have been impressed
with the product’s ability to help us to deliver the great taste, texture, melting performance and visual appeal our customers expect. With more people following a vegan or flexitarian approach to eating, it’s a must to have vegan options on the menu today.
The biggest thing to know about working with vegan cheese is to understand that it’s not always a one-to-one replacement for dairy cheese. Before using it as a topping on a pizza, experiment with it to ensure you understand its characteristics. We like to recommend adding toppings with different textures and interesting flavors to create a delicious artisan vegan pizza. One great thing about our plantbased cheese is that it does well with some rest time before
— Leho Poldmae, Neo Pizza + Taphouse“The biggest thing to know about working with vegan cheese is to understand that it’s not always a one-to-one replacement for dairy cheese.”
consumption, which gives us a bit more flexibility in service. From a cooking standpoint, we’ve found that it melts best under high heat, which is ideal for the pizza ovens we use. But we’d recommend experimenting with textures, temperatures and flavors when first adding a vegan cheese to the menu. Vegan cheese pairs well with pickled items and vegetables, so creating menu options that bring out some of those flavors are ideal.
We charge an additional $2 for vegan cheese, sausage or pepperoni on our 10” pizzas and $4 on our 14” pizzas. We’ve had a great response from customers since we’ve added vegan cheese and vegan meat substitutes to our menus. Vegan, flexitarian or dairyintolerant customers appreciate being able to enjoy our artisan pizzas—they feel more valued when they come to your restaurant and have a few menu items to choose from.
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s senior copy editor and the editor of PizzaVegan.com.
CHELSEA KYLE, VITALITE
Neo Pizza found that its vegan cheese benefits from some rest time after emerging from the oven.
THE PIZZA TOMORROW
Industry giants, entertainment, and more.
“The east coast was in need of a fresh, new Pizza Event. Orlando was the perfect location for its ease of accessibility, its focus on family fun, and of course, great yearround weather. We wanted to create more of an experience than just an everyday tradeshow, and we’ve accomplished that. We’ve lined up some great educational content, top flight competitions, and so much more. Our attendees will have a blast.”
Founded in 1995, Bellissimo Foods is the nation’s leading provider of Italian & Mediterranean food service products to independent pizzerias & Italian restaurants. Bellissimo offers restaurateurs a full line of authentic ingredients that exceed everyday menu and business needs. Their comprehensive product line spans from appetizers to cheeses, flour, meats, sauces and unique specialty items. With over 25 years experience and extensive product knowledge, they are able to source top quality domestic and international products at a value that enables you to be competitive.
Sysco is the global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food products to restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other customers who prepare meals away from home. Its family of products also includes equipment and supplies for the foodservice and hospitality industries. With more than 71,000 associates, the company operates 333 distribution facilities worldwide and serves more than 700,000 customer locations.
Grande’s five cheese production facilities in Wisconsin incorporate the best of traditional, Italian cheese-making techniques, monitored by the latest technolo gies. Grande does not just meet – they exceed –the highest standards of milk production in the nation. Grande tests their products at every step, ensuring the qual ity of our cheeses, from farm to table.
Customers are increasingly conscious of what they eat, and their impressions impact your success. Performance is committed to helping businesses exceed rising expectations by keeping our customers connected. From their seasoned chefs and experienced drivers to our culinary experts, Performance is here to help enhance the overall dining experience and drive profit.
Since 1882, Galbani cheeses have been inspiring chefs across the globe. Galbani cheesemakers use timetested expertise to create an exceptional portfolio made in the Old World tradition. From Premio Mozzarella and Fresh Mozzarella to Italian specialties, their commitment to quality and authenticity has made Galbani Italy’s #1 cheese brand.
Fiero Group represents the most respected Italian wood fired cooking companies in North America. As the exclusive distributor for storied brands such as Pavesi (since 1969), Acunto (since 1892), and Castelli (since 1966); Fiero stocks, builds and services product lines with a combined existence of over 250 years of company product development.
For 125 years, Gordon Foodservice has delivered the excellence, expertise, and quality products their customers need to design successful food operations and experiences. Gordon has grown to become the largest familyoperated broadline food distribution company in North America by upholding the same business approach
he pizza industry is rooted in family and bringing people together.That’s why we’re hosting our inaugural summit in sunny Orlando, Florida! Bring the whole family – There’s plenty for them to do while you’re at the show networking and learning what’s next in the industry.
Whether it’s a trip for families, couples, work or pleasure, Orlando is the perfect destination thanks to wondrous diversity that ensures an unforgettable visit filled with unique experiences for every traveller. In short, you’ll never run out of things to do in Orlando — and you’ll make a lifetime of cherished memories while you’re at it!
For instance, if thrill-seeking is your style, you won’t be able to get enough of the open-air theme parks, expansive water parks and amazing attractions. There’s a lot more for you to discover, though, including dining, shopping, ecotourism and other things you won’t want to miss. So, get out and explore it all — there’s no wrong way to experience Orlando!
What else do you demand from a perfect vacation? World-class shopping? Acclaimed arts and culture? Engaging history museums? Luxurious spas? We have them. Or, head to the great outdoors for unbeatable ecotourism adventures and one-of-a-kind opportunities to watch and play sports, including more than 150 golf courses and the United States Tennis Association National Campus.
The only question is: What do you want to experience first?
Our venue is a short 20 minute drive from the airport, the convention center is within walking distance of most of our hotels, and is in the heart of International Drive and some of the best restaurants in Orlando!
The award-winning Orange County Convention Center provides approximately $3 billion in economic impact to Central Florida annually. In recent years, the Convention Center has averaged nearly 200 events, including 115 conventions and tradeshows that attract more than 1.5 million attendees to the region each year.
The Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) is proud to be known as “The Center of Hospitality.” This symbolizes outstanding service to clients and
community, motivating their desire to return and enhancing the community’s reputation for excellence.
A native of Providence, RI. Chef Billy Manzo grew up in the kitchens of his Italian and Armenian family. There, as a child, he was absorbing the sights, sounds and most impor tantly smells of traditional Italian and Armenian cooking. Passed down through the generations he brings that energy and the joy of food into today’s fast paced world. For Chef Billy Food = Happy.
David Scott Peters is an author, restaurant coach and speaker who coaches restaurant operators how to stop being prisoners of their businesses and to finally reach financial freedom. His first book, Restaurant Prosperity Formula: What Successful Restaurateurs Do, teaches the systems and traits restaurant owners must develop to run a profitable restaurant. Thousands of restaurants have worked with Peters to transform their businesses.
Rev is a New York City restaurant owner and knows exactly how hard it is to operate and brand a hospitality business. He is a hospitality mar keting consultant, customer and technology evangelist at Branded Strategic Hospitality, with more than 20 years experience in B2B digital marketing and business development, specializing in hospitality marketing, content, local SEO, reputation manage ment and influencer marketing. He helps technology companies, brands and restaurants to acquire and retain customers.
In 1997, Steve and his partner, Linda, began a quarterly publication but as demand and interest grew, PMQ Pizza Magazine became a 10-time a year publication. The future of the pizza industry looks more promising and profitable than ever! Steve explores how the pizza industry can and will benefit from innovative technologies, robotics and collaborations among independent pizzeria operators.
“Rev” Ciancio Steve Green
Hosted by pizza geeks for pizza geeks, the first-ever Pizza Tomorrow Summit highlights what’s new and what’s next in our ever-evolving industry.
Now that the pandemic is (mostly) behind us and things are back to (mostly) normal, where do we go from here? If you’re looking to create a strategic roadmap to the future, the Pizza Tomorrow Summit, taking place November 9 through 10 in Orlando, is the place to start. Hosted by pizza geeks for pizza geeks, it will feature hundreds of exhibitors with a wide range of products, including leaders like Grande, Sysco, Bellissimo, Liguria Foods, BelGioioso, AM Manufacturing, HungerRush, Fiero and more. And you’ll learn from some of the pizza world’s most accomplished experts and consultants in education sessions that run the gamut from dealing with labor issues to managing food costs, the vegan movement and marketing your pizzeria for maximum success. Here’s a look at some of the speakers and topics lined up for this important pizza industry event!
Peters is an author, restaurant coach and speaker who coaches restaurant operators on how to stop being prisoners of their businesses and find financial freedom. His first book, Restaurant Prosperity Formula: What Successful Restaurateurs Do, teaches the systems and traits restaurant owners must develop to run a profitable restaurant. Thousands of restaurants have worked with Peters to transform their business.
Labor tends to be the largest expense in a restaurant—after an empty chair. It’s also one of the most important expenses, because a good team delivers great customer service, appropriate ticket times and incredible food while fulfilling your promises.
Peters will teach restaurant owners the three deadly labor mistakes and how to avoid them. You’ll learn how to successfully budget for labor; how to identify your
sales efficiency by position and quickly identify shifts where you are overstaffed; how to track to control labor costs; and how to avoid over-staffing.
Topic: Your Pizzeria Is NOT Average, So Stop Using a National Average Food Cost to Run It
Running a profitable pizzeria is hard enough. Running it using the wrong numbers is just plain dangerous. Too often, pizzeria owners or managers compare their food costs to the “average” restaurant’s. But your business is not average, and what works for one pizzeria may not work for yours. Peters will teach you how to set your specific operation’s food-cost target. He’ll also teach you how to measure to see if your team is doing a good job and if you are on pace to make the money you deserve. And you’ll learn about the importance of budgeting; how to calculate your actual food cost; why using a costing card is imperative in calculating your ideal food cost; and why using your budgeted, actual and ideal food costs are critical to your success.
Koons has been in the pizza industry for 14 years. After starting as a delivery driver, he worked his way up Purgatory Pizza to become an owner in 2016. There, he rebuilt the branding and culture and expanded the vegan menu exponentially. In 2022, Alex opened up the first Hot Tongue, an all-vegan pizza shop. He’s also a consultant who stresses putting people first and helps chefs and owners expand their vegan offerings.
Topic: Don’t be Afraid, It’s Just Vegan!
Vegan: The word itself can make people cringe—or even jump a little. Alex will help you change that perception and rewire what “vegan” means to you personally and professionally. You just have to stop looking at the vegan market as alien, weird or “just a trend.” If you tap into the same passion that you put into everything else, there should be no issues creating your own best version of “vegan.” Alex says, “I don’t make vegan food. I make food that happens to be vegan.” He’ll show you how to make the best damn pizza that happens to be vegan.
As The Lease Coach, Willerton negotiates lease deals for pizza operators and restaurateurs. He’s an industry leader and go-to expert who, for almost 30 years, has worked exclusively for tenants. With offices in Orlando, New York, Dallas and Los Angeles, he has successfully negotiated and consulted on over 3,000 projects for tenants throughout the country. He’s also a professional speaker frequently appearing at events and conferences around the country and the author of Negotiating Commercial Leases and Renewals for Dummies
This is a must-attend session for both existing tenants facing a lease renewal negotiation as well as startup pizzeria entrepreneurs. You’ll learn the 13 costly mistakes tenants make in the leasing process; how to negotiate a lease renewal rent reduction; how to persuade the landlord to forgive rent arrears due to the pandemic; and how to negotiate for free rent, tenant allowance money and deposits and eliminate personal guarantees, even on renewal deals. You’ll also learn why tenants should almost never exercise their renewal option, plus how to manage the relationship with real estate agents and landlords. Every attendee will receive a free copy of Negotiating Commercial Leases and Renewals for Dummies.
Manzo, one of only three Certified Master Pizzaioli in the U.S., is a restaurateur, a frozen pizza entrepreneur and a consultant who believes excellence does not tolerate compromise. Only a master can create a masterpiece!
Topic: From a Cigar Shop to a Multiunit Pizzeria Operator to Launching a Global Brand: Billy Manzo’s Pizza Success Story
Interviewed by Bruce Irving of Smart Pizza Marketing, Manzo tells his story, from watching his aunts cook in their backyard in Providence, Rhode Island, through his journey as an operator of multiple pizzerias, being “discovered,” and, ultimately, the announcement of his newest venture, Billy Manzo Pizza, poised to hit retail stores this fall.
Oikle is the owner and founder of RunningRestaurants. com, a comprehensive website for restaurant owners and managers filled with marketing, operations, service, people and tech tips to help restaurants profit and succeed.
Oikle offers a quick, fast-paced overview of some of the best insights and advice from tech entrepreneurs and pizza operators from the Running Restaurants podcast. He’ll share key
tips from a variety of expert guests he’s interviewed on his podcast.
Ciancio is a New York City restaurant owner and knows how hard it is to operate and brand a hospitality business. A hospitality marketing consultant and customer and technology evangelist at Branded Strategic Hospitality, he has more than 20 years of experience in B2B digital marketing and business development, specializing in hospitality marketing, content, local SEO, reputation management and influencer marketing. He helps technology companies, brands and restaurants acquire and retain customers.
Discover how to increase guest acquisition and retention by providing a seamless customer journey with tech automation that’s easy to use and affordable—and doesn’t require a team of marketing gurus to operate. Most restaurant and bar owners are satisfied to be average…but not you! You’re here to play your A game. And the boss move is marketing—the kind of smart marketing that will increase sales and traffic without wasting countless hours or dollars on marketing that sucks. He’ll show you a perfect system and the tools you need to create a perfect marketing machine that will have you rolling in
new guests and get current guests to happily spend more.
Do you find yourself getting stuck in your marketing and wondering how to increase new guest acquisition or guest frequency and spend? Do you know how your marketing works but wish you had a better way to measure it? Are you curious about what kind of tech or software might help you to work faster, smarter and get better results? Join us for a panel discussion where you can get these questions—and more—answered once and for all from three successful restaurant leaders.
Beaudoin is a 25-year veteran restaurateur who created multiple successful concepts, most notably in pizza. He now sells online courses and a gamechanging staff training app to help other restaurateurs systemize their operation, train staff and maximize profit. He’s the host of the weekly Restaurant Rockstars Podcast, a two-time author and personal restaurant coach.
Beaudoin provides immediately actionable steps to help you systemize your operation; get the most from your team; solve labor challenges; recognize and empower future leaders in your
business; deliver true hospitality; and double sales and maximize profits.
Beaudoin teaches the mission-critical financial system necessary to optimize your business. What does inventory really mean? What are the dangers of waste, spoilage and theft? How do you calculate prime cost and the food and beverage costing formula? How can you stop labor cost abuses? You’ll also learn about menu costing for maximum profit, the perils of not knowing contribution margin, how to immediately increase menu profit, and why daily “break-even” is so important.
Steve and Linda Green are former Domino’s franchise operators and the publishers of PMQ Pizza Media.
Steve and Linda weren’t born into the publication business. Their journey began several decades ago, owning a single pizza franchise, and took them down a path that led them to expanded roles, greater opportunities, and a little newsletter that ultimately became PMQ. Interviewed by Pizza Tomorrow Summit founder Glenn Celentano, they’ll share the story of how PMQ has served the pizza industry for 25 years.
Shane Murphy is the co-founder and CEO of Boostly, the leading text marketing and feedback company in the restaurant industry.
Prior to that, Shane was on the executive team for Jolt, a worldwide restaurant operations software company. He is one of the industry’s leading experts on text marketing.
In this session, Murphy will cover why text marketing is so effective, industry stats related to text marketing, and the dos and don’ts you should be aware of. You will walk away with a playbook to build an engaged audience and a profitable marketing engine through SMS.
Master pizzaiolo Leo Spizzirri has been fielding more inquiries about take-and-bake pizzas since the pandemic.
In a post-pandemic world, takeand-bake is definitely in demand. Master pizzaiolo and consultant Leo Spizzirri shares his top tips for making it work at your operation.
BY LEO SPIZZIRRI WITH TRACY MORIN
Leo Spizzirri, maestro pizzaiolo, consultant and founder of Spizzirri Media in Chicago, has noted an increase in the trend of take-and-bake in the pandemic years. “We definitely saw an uptick, alongside things like family meals, curbside takeout, and other value-added services to our customers who normally would have been eating in our dining rooms,” Spizzirri says. “A lot of operators started to inquire: How do I make my pizza so that it can be baked at somebody’s house and enjoyed the same way that it was in my restaurant?”
LEO SPIZZIRRI MEDIA LEOEnter the convenience of take-andbake—a great way to entice your customers to choose your pizzeria over another takeout or delivery operation (or over the grocery store’s frozen pizza aisle). It’s also a great way for pies to hit the table hot and fresh, serving a family for an affordable price with zero fuss. But, if you’re thinking of adding this service, Spizzirri details several points to keep in mind:
1Formulation considerations.
There are two main methods operators use for take-and-bake pizzas. First, you can choose topping a par-baked crust. Often, our current formulations can be used to make a parbaked pizza, but there are intricacies in how long that crust needs to be parbaked for. You need the structure to be baked through enough so that, by the time the consumer gets the pizza back home and sticks it in the oven, it’s not collapsing on itself or looking gummy or rubbery in the middle.
On the other hand, you don’t want to cook the pizza base too much, because then, by the time the consumer bakes it until the cheese and toppings are done, the base is too dark. So we must find the
We must find the perfect time and temperature needed to create the par-bake. That way, when we write the final baking instructions for the consumer…those bake times are perfect.
perfect time and temperature needed to create the par-bake. That way, when we write the final baking instructions for the consumer—who’s going to take this pizza home and finish it in their oven—those bake times are perfect: The pizza gets nice and crispy on the bottom, with the toppings and the crust baked correctly.
Then there’s the other method: Put a disc of raw dough in a pan, top it with sauce, cheese and toppings, wrap it, then freeze it. When the consumer gets home, now it’s like they’re baking a pizza from scratch. But anytime we freeze pizza dough, we always want to use fresh yeast and not dry yeast. Since fresh yeast is made of about 80% water, it’s kind of insulating and protecting the yeast cells during the freezing process. There are different conversion methods for switching to fresh yeast, depending on the style of pizza you make, but in
general, if you’re going to make any kind of frozen dough, the preference is to use fresh yeast.
2Customer instructions. When you make the commitment to start doing take-and-bake pizza, it’ll be a version of the pizza that you sell in your restaurant, but it’s now going to be left to the consumer to finish. The great thing about doing a par-baked crust is that it’s almost an insurance policy that the pizza is going to turn out well— you’ve done most of the heavy lifting.
Also, since the crust on a par-bake is already set, the consumer doesn’t need an oven that goes up to 550°, 600° or hotter. Most home ovens go to about 500°, depending on the brand. So if they want a crispier crust, they can place the pizza directly on the rack of the oven, since the par-baked crust holds the toppings. Otherwise, the instructions
ADOBE STOCK
may be: Place the pizza on a sheet pan or a cookie sheet and cook at 500°.
Experiment at your own house, in your own home oven. How long did it take, at 500°, to finish this pizza properly? Most of the time, if it’s a single-topping pizza, like cheese or pepperoni, you’re sticking that parbaked pizza into the oven for another eight to 10 minutes. Remember that everybody’s oven is not 500°, so we always want to give a range of time: eight to 10 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes, etc.
3Style points. Some styles work especially well for take-and-bake: Chicago thin-crust, tavern-style, deepdish or stuffed pizzas, even a Detroitstyle or pan pizza. (You can even get disposable pans so the consumer is baking in the same pan they received it in.) Our New York-style round pie works really well, because it cooks in that home-oven range of 500°.
When you talk about wood-fired or Neapolitan-style pizza, normally the pizzeria is making, say, a Margherita pizza from scratch, sticking it into the oven, and starting to bake. The Margherita is almost all the way done, and the consumer just finishes it in the oven, just to crisp it up and remelt the
cheese. If you aren’t doing a par-baked crust with raw sauce and raw cheese, the Neapolitan pizza can be done.
But, normally, we’re not going to be topping with sauce right on top of the pizza. Instead, we’d create a disc of dough and do some kind of docking in the center so the crust doesn’t puff up like a pita. Once that base comes out of the oven, we allow it to cool thoroughly before we do anything else to it. Then it can be topped with sauce, mozzarella and everything else.
At that point, these pizzas, no matter what style, once they’re topped, will usually go back into the freezer in a single layer so that they’re frozen solid. Then they’re wrapped or put into the final container for the customer to take home.
4 Customer and employee convenience. Take-and-bake pies are about customer convenience.
Some operators will invest the money and put out a merchandiser—maybe a refrigerator or freezer unit so that people see it when they come into the restaurant and try one.
But the labor part of the process can happen at any point. The take-andbake pizza doesn’t have to be made per order—it can be made in the morning with all the rest of your prep work, between lunch and dinner, or even at the end of the night, before you close. So I like having the ability to plug and play: Figure out how many pizzas you need to build, and do it outside of your regular flow of business. And if it’s a frozen product, then you can keep them all stored in the freezer and just keep refilling your inventory.
5
Quality control. Is your takeand-bake pizza going to be the same quality as the one you have in your restaurant? If you’re a regular pizzeria that wants to create an additional take-and-bake offering, it really comes down to not compromising the quality of the pizza that you make every day. If somebody’s trying my take-and-bake product, I don’t want them to have a lesser experience that’s going to tarnish the reputation of my regular brand. So before you jump into it, do the proper testing on your own, making sure that those bases and toppings are perfect. I think that the most important thing is that the experience for the consumer has to be the same as—or better than— what they receive in the restaurant.
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s senior copy editor and the editor of PizzaVegan.com.
Anytime we freeze pizza dough, we always want to use fresh yeast and not dry yeast. Since fresh yeast is made of about 80% water, it’s insulating and protecting the yeast cells during the freezing process.
Join us as an active participant or witness the progress of other similar partners.
With so many new and promising pizza marketing technologies and services now available to independent pizza operators, it’s simply impossible to learn about, evaluate and manage them all. That’s why PMQ and Virtual Dining concepts would like to invite you to be part of an in-realtime Pizza Marketing Experiment.
You may register as an active participant, or you may choose to learn from the progress of other brand partners that have similar equipment and demographic profiles.
Kelly Grogan, VP Sales-Virtual Dining Concepts
Drive foot traffic and sales to your pizza restaurant through geofencing with RestaurantGeofencing.com. They specialize in equipping restaurant advertising with advanced location-based advertising for maximum results. Their campaigns help clients generate new and return customers; show ads via streaming TV, mobile apps and browsers; attract customers from other pizza restaurants and competitors; find new employees; and more. The best part? It’s totally trackable, with measurable results at your fingertips. Their transparent reporting lets you gauge conversions to quickly measure the efficacy of your investment. Geofence marketing captures the attention of mobile-first customers. Affordable pricing packages make geofencing feasible for any budget without the need for long-term commitments. restaurantgeofencing.com
PMQ staffers checked out the largest restaurant trade show of the year and reported back on their favorite products and services.
We saw a lot of plant-based products this year, but a few stood out for flavor and texture, and this is one of them. Daring offers its Plant Chicken for chicken lovers. A true swap for chicken in any dish, Daring sizzles, tears and shreds just like the real thing. With a short, simple list of only six gluten-free and non-GMO ingredients, Daring is also a swap your diners can feel good about. Whether you’re using Daring as a pizza topping or as an alternative to boneless wings, this product is the perfect addition to any menu. Original and Breaded Plant Chicken Pieces are available. For a free sample, email foodservice-pmq@daring.com. servedaring.com
You can consolidate all of those delivery apps into one platform for effortless fulfillment and utilize the Orders.co Master Menu suite for one-and-done updates. Orders.co offers a simple way to tackle online ordering and is equipped with all the tools pizzerias need to save time, reduce errors and increase online revenue. Launch a commissionfree, Google-optimized ordering website and sell directly to your customers. All websites come with the option to use Orders.co’s delivery fulfillment partners without needing in-house staff. Complete with a reporting suite to review sales, platform performance and top-selling items, it’s all available for one monthly fee. 855-500-1070, orders.co
Fiero Forni has generations of experience fabricating high-quality, high-performance Italian ovens designed to deliver true artisan-style pizza. Restaurateurs can choose from mobile and rotating floor models and traditional wood-fired, gas-fired or electric fuel types. Fiero’s robust selection of Italian pizza ovens includes diverse designs and pizza-baking styles with countless customizable options to choose from. Fiero Dough offers the latest, most innovative technology in dough tools to increase productivity and consistency anywhere that artisan-quality dough is valued. 844-683-6462, fierogroup.com
Tom Boyles, Account Executive
I love this oneperson vehicle from ElectraMeccanica. It’s stable, safe and insurable. The car is priced at $18,500, and it comes with a perfect triangular spot for a pizzaslice graphic or logo. Watch the video on their website to see the car in action. emvauto.com
Two of the busiest booths at this year’s show were Chowly (chowly.com) and ItsACheckmate (itsacheckmate.com). Both companies offer go-to solutions for technology integrations with third-party platforms like DoorDash. If you want all your orders to go directly into your POS system, these companies can help.
To meet the demand for contactless carryout orders, pickup lockers were introduced by many new and old companies this year, including Hatco (hatcocorp.com), Middleby (middleby.com), Apex Order Pickup Solutions (apexorderpickup.com) and ONDO from RPI Industries (rpiindustries.com).
59% of plant-based diners noted whether a restaurant carries meatless alternatives impacts where they choose to eat.
Meet Daring, the only Plant Chicken made with the chicken lover in mind. Daring Plant Chicken tastes, tears, and shreds just like the real thing. With only 6 ingredients, it’s also a plant-based swap diners can feel good about.
Congratulations to all culinary and acrobatic competitors of the ’22 Chicago U.S. Pizza Cup & Pizza Acrobatic Trials. With locals and outsiders alike showing up to prove they have the best Chicago-style pizza skills and enough acrobatic agility to represent the USA in international competition in 2023, the pizza hit the pans and the flour hit the floor in this exhilarating national competition.
Deep Dish:
1st Place - Lenny Rago, Panino’s Pizzeria, Evanston, IL
2nd Place - Chloe Czerwinsky, Uncle Jerry’s Pizza Company, Cary, IL
3rd Place - Miguel Gonzalez, Moretti Ristorante Pizzeria, Chicago, IL
Tavern Style:
1st Place - Lenny Rago
2nd Place - RC Gallegos, RC’S NYC Pizza & Pasta, Houston, TX
3rd Place - Giovanni Labbate, Tievoli Pizza Bar, Palatine, IL
1st Place - Lenny Rago
2nd Place - RC Gallegos
3rd Place - Miguel Gonzalez
(First place prize: trip to compete in Orlando to win international trip)
1st Place - McKenna Carney, The Nona
Slice House, Safety Harbor, FL
2nd Place - Kevin Knott, The Nona Slice House
3rd Place - Matt Hickey, Pizzeria Davide, Pittsburgh, PA
Largest Dough Stretch:
1st Place - Josh Owens, Mad Mushroom, Lafayette, IN (30.81”)
2nd Place - McKenna Carney (28.88”)
3rd Place - Kevin Knott (26.75”)
1st Place - David Whisker, B.C. Pizza, Boyne City, MI (0:48.00s)
2nd Place - Kevin Knott (0:54.22s)
3rd Place - Josh Owens (0:59.85s)
PizzaMaster, Grain Craft, Dutchess
Bakers, The Baker’s Board: Perfect Peel, Somerset and Incredible Bags!
For more information about the U.S. Pizza Team and the ’22 Chicago U.S. Pizza Cup & Pizza Acrobatic Trials, email brian@pmq.com or visit uspizzateam.com
The U.S. Pizza Team, Galbani Professionale US and the Pizza Tomorrow Summit will proudly host the 2022 Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup & Pizza Acrobatic Trials, November 9-10, at the Orange County Convention Center.
Pizzaioli from across the continental U.S. and beyond will compete at the Pizza Tomorrow Summit for the title of Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup Champion and a chance to compete internationally. With trips on the line for both culinary AND acrobatics categories, make sure you register today and claim your chance to represent American pizza on the world stage!
Register today at uspizzateam.com/22GalbaniCup or email brian@pmq.com for more information.
The winner of the Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup will be named the 2022-23 Galbani Platinum Member and will be awarded a trip to compete in the World Pizza Championship, held April 18-20, 2023, in Parma, Italy.
We are excited to welcome back Smithfield Culinary as a Gold+ Sponsor of the U.S. Pizza Team!
Smithfield’s Margherita brand offers Italian meats with distinctive tastes your guests will savor at every meal! Just as you put thoughtful care into every item on your menu, Margherita puts the same care into their selection of the finest Italian meats, from dried, cured prosciutto and hard salamis to capicola and pepperoni!
Learn more at SmithfieldCulinary.com/Margherita!
Stella’s Gourmet 8” Pizza Desserts are the perfect addons for your pizzeria. Fully baked, frozen and ready for a quick heat-and-serve, they’re simple and delicious while saving money on labor and waste. The array of flavors (Chocolate Chip made with Hershey’s, Chewy Gooey Chocolate Chunk, Candy Cookie made with M&Ms, and Double Chocolate Brownie made with Hershey’s) will please every sweet tooth!
866-383-2444, STELLASGOURMET.COM
The Soul Sausage Italiano is a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free sausage designed with the pizza maker in mind. Full of authentic Italian flavors of fennel, chili flake, onion, garlic and fresh herbs, it’s perfect crumbled raw on top of your existing menu selection and baked in the oven. The only issue you will have: plant-based customers screaming that they got real sausage on their pizza instead of vegan! 949-212-0281, THESOULPATTY.COM
Pizza Ranch, a leading pizza chain in the Midwest, is deploying Revel Enterprise chain-wide to drive increased revenue across all of its ordering channels and better manage its hybrid business model. Revel Enterprise is a leading cloud platform for pizzerias with multiple enterprise applications, such as an end-to-end POS, integrated payment processing, kitchen management, delivery and more.
REVELSYSTEMS.COM/ENTERPRISE
The PizzaBoxSpatula is a patented, foldable serving utensil currently made from corrugated material. The spatula lies flat and becomes three-dimensional when the customer makes one simple fold in the handle. Lightweight, sturdy and portable, it can be used for serving and cutting cheese and fits in your pizza box or on the side. It’s customizable with your coupons, promotions or other messaging. A free sample is available. 415-233-9033, PIZZABOXSPATULA.COM
Globe Food Equipment is launching the GSCS cheese shredder, a fresh, fast and efficient solution for your pizza cheese needs. This unit is designed to shred up to 65 pounds of cheese in one minute. Shredding cheese on-site means better taste and a consistent, gooey melt with no additives needed. Hand-built in the USA and optimized for ultimate yield, the GSCS is backed by a one-year parts-and-labor warranty.
With the ongoing labor issues, PizzaCloud has been busy turning up call centers for pizza restaurants. From small to large chains (five to hundreds of locations), they can assist you with a live human call center or a “virtual” call center (i.e., “the robot overlords are selling us pizza”). These A.I. digital assistants have come a long way in just the last 18 months. Orders appear in your POS system just like web orders.
866-511-5521, PIZZACLOUD.NET
WonkyWare drinkware is so tough that you can stand on it, squeeze it or drop it and it won’t crack, chip or shatter. No matter what you throw at it, WonkyWare can take it and maintain its glass-like appearance. Tough enough for any environment, it stays clear through repeated washings and is so impressive that you will be proud to display your logo on it. WonkyWare is 100% designed and manufactured in the USA.
WONKYWARE.COM
Watch the video at PMQ.com/wonkyware
Fastek uses sensor technology to automate manual tasks, creating safer, smarter and greener restaurants. Fastek’s IoT sensors monitor, track and report on critical physical functions of an operation, offering real-time, actionable data with best-in-class remediation to reduce and/or prevent downtime due to equipment failure. With Fastek, you can repair equipment instead of replacing it and reduce food inventory loss due to equipment failure.
GETFASTEK.COM
Watch the video at PMQ.com/fastek
The RPIA Group has helped bakers flourish for 20-plus years. The RPIA now invites its pizza brothers and sisters to join in its new program and save money on products and equipment through discounts and rebates from hundreds of companies. Each year, the RPIA sends more than $1 million to its members collectively. Keep more of what you earn—and more of what you make—by joining their program.
GPRSAVES.COM/RPIA, RETAILBAKERS.COM
Watch the video at PMQ.com/therpiagroup
Using fallen leaves as its raw material, Patra EcoDinnerware is one of the few companies to use 100% renewable resources. No trees are ever cut. After disposal, the dinnerware naturally biodegrades within three to six weeks, and you can compost it in your backyard. Water is used to clean the leaves, and heat and steam is used to shape them into elegant dinnerware with no chemicals, dyes or wax used in the entire process.
PATRALIVING.COM
Watch the video at PMQ.com/patra
PIZZA
PIZZA
Mike Fiorentino, an Italian immigrant, was not afraid of hard work upon arriving in the United States. After serving in the U.S. Army, he landed a job at IBM. But his real dream was opening a pizzeria—and that goal materialized in 1972 when he established the 400-squarefoot Broadway Pizza in White Plains, New York. Unfortunately, the business was not an immediate success. “He was at the point, in the first year or two, where he was actually going to close the shop,” explains his son, Michael, current co-owner with Rudy Sainovic (who worked at the pizzeria for 25 years before becoming a business partner). “He never quit his job at IBM—he was doing both.”
Luckily, the pizzeria did eventually hit its stride. Broadway Pizza was one of the first in Westchester County to offer delivery, and Mike expanded to a second storefront in 1982 (later buying the property in 1997) to more than triple his modest space. In 1985, he opened a second location in Armonk, and a third followed in Katonah in 1996 (both are still standing today, though sold by Mike as he transitioned to retirement in the 2000s). His family, including wife Gina, brother Ralph, daughters Monica and Daniela, and Michael, all pitched in to make the family-run business a success. Amazingly, Michael, like his father, also currently maintains a second job, as a full-time firefighter.
After 50 years in business, customers and employees have also become family—sometimes literally. “My dad told me to always
BY TRACY MORINbe nice, that the No. 1 thing is to treat customers like family and be patient,” Michael says. “So many of the local kids here grew up working for my father, and now there are three generations of families that have been coming in. My dad made close friends who started off as customers. I met my wife working there, and my two sisters met both of their husbands there, too.”
Today, that personal touch, a dedication to maintaining food quality in the face of rising costs, a sprinkling of social media activity, and committed community involvement serve as the main marketing tactics for this White Plains institution. Creative specialty pies like the best-selling Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, a thirdparty presence on Slice and Grubhub, and solid catering business also help keep the pizzeria thriving. “Next, I’d like to expand the business,” Michael says. “We have more space in our backyard, so I’d love to build a bigger store, with a bigger, more modern kitchen. And my dad has eight grandkids, from ages five to 21, so we’re definitely breeding them for the next generation!”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s senior copy editor and the editor of PizzaVegan.com.
An Italian immigrant, and now his son, juggle full-time jobs and pizzeria ownership, building an American-dream story through three generations and counting.PIZZA HALL OF FAME Has pizzeria been in business years longer? Founder Michael Fiorentino poses with the family; his son, Mike, teaches his kids pizza making; Michael mans the shop with his two daughters in 1985; Michael and his brother, Ralph, hang with the White Plains soccer team in 1993; Michael tosses dough, circa ’82.
How
To reach an intended outcome, the journey there has to be flawless.
Tradition and Craftsmanship At Caputo, we partner closely with you to understand your specific cheese needs. Let us provide you with deliciously unique ideas and insights to build your business. Backed by years of cheese-making experience, our craftsmen create the perfect customized solutions that deliver exceptional eating experiences to your customers. Discover our distinctive difference; call 708-450-0074.
