22 minute read
BUSINESS
TheMesaTribune.com | @EVTNow /EVTNow
Couple left corporate work to make pizza
BY MELODY BIRKETT
Tribune Contributor
Right before the pandemic hit, Nani and Harold Pickell decided they were done with corporate America.
He worked for Kroger/Frys Food Stores and Coca-Cola in the supply chain industry for many years and she had spent a decade in the travel, technology and marketing industry.
They were searching for new opportunities and after six months bought the Twisted Pies pizza restaurant near Val Vista Drive and Main Street in March 2020. “We’ve never owned a business,” explained Nani. “We never owned a restaurant and don’t have a business background. We were able to look at a few different places and this one popped up.”
“It was Harold’s dream to own a business and I followed along.” Nani and Harold Pickell gave up their corporate lives to own Twisted Pies pizzeria in Mesa. (Melody Birkett/Tribune Contributor)
“My dream was being able to call my own shots,” said Harold. “Second, I wanted to be able to give back to the community and do some good things. When we had a grand opening, our first thing was to donate to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. It was a no-brainer. Our daughter was a micropremie so we respect the NICUs (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and it was nice to give back that way.”
The couple’s two adult children, Tyson and Megan, also work at the restaurant. In addition, Pizza Master Evan Coon continued with the coiuple after ownership of Twisted Pies transferred to them. “He’s an amazing young man,” said Nani. “He does magic with these pizzas. He’s the one – with all of his patience and knowledge – who trained all of us.”
The original owners opened Twisted Pies in 2016. Nani said they decided to keep the same name. “We thought it was a great name. It’s a method of how we make pizza.”
While the couple kept the same menu
seeTWISTED page 17
McCarthy Building Companies had some holiday fun earlier this month as the installed the final beam atop the new Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert, affixing a little Christmas tree to the girder. (Courtesy McCarthy Building Companies)
Banner Gateway tower work reaches landmark
TRIBUNE NEWS STAFF
Workers building the new Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert hit a milestone recently, affixing the final girder to its steel skeleton on Higley Road.
McCarthy Building Companies topped the $243-million tower expansion project by placing the last beam on the five-story structure. The expansion essentially will double the medical center campus’ size, addressing what spokeswoman Stephanie Jarnagan called the “growing needs for women’s services and cancer care” through an expanded diagnostics and treatment area. The project also expands parking on the site. seeBANNERpage 16
THE MESA TRIBUNE | DECEMBER 26, 2021
Landsea Homes opens new Eastmark neighborhood
TRIBUNE NEWS STAFF
Landsea Homes is now selling houses in Greenpointe at Eastmark, a new neighborhood within the larger Eastmark master planned community.
Greenpointe at Eastmark comprises 124 finished lots with one and two-story single-family homes in four open-concept floor plans. The homes range from about 1,500 square feet to more than 1,850 square feet, with options for three to four bedrooms plus lofts. Introductory pricing begins at $389,990. “Readers of ‘Ranking Arizona’ voted Eastmark the No. 2 best master-planned community of 2021, and we’re pleased to contribute to the tradition of excellence with the introduction of Greenpointe at Eastmark,” said Todd Condon, vice president of sales and marketing for Landsea’s Arizona Division. “We’re looking forward to providing future residents with our modern High Performance Homes, innovative amenities, and nearby resources to meet all of their lifestyle needs.” The Chartreuse floor plan is one of several Landsea offers in its new Greenpointe at Eastmark neighborhood. At 1,853 square feet, it is priced from $419,990. (Landsea)
All houses feature the homebuilder’s High Performance Home features and LiveFlex options that allow residents to customize their space.
“Included is forward-thinking, smarthome technology that respects the planet, saves money, and provides top-of-the-line security. Reme Halo air purifiers clean the air and provide standard-setting indoor air quality,” the company said in a release.
The Eastmark community sprawls across 3,200 acres and integrates the new-home amenities with built-in parks, greenery, walking trails, the Mark community center and Steadfast Farm, a two-acre working farm with fresh produce, flowers and eggs for sale.
Landsea Homes is now one of Arizona’s largest and leading homebuilders after entering the Phoenix market three years ago.
The publicly traded homebuilder is based in Newport Beach, California, and has developed homes and communities in New York, Boston, New Jersey, Arizona, Florida, Texas and throughout California in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County.
It boasts a reputation “for creating inspired places that reflect modern living” with homes that “allow people to live where they want to live, how they want to live – in a home created especially for them.”
Its High Performance Homes models take advantage of the latest innovations with home automation technology supported by Apple.
Information: landseahomes.com. ■
BANNER from page 15
The tower, the second on the campus, is a 198,000-square-foot addition that will initially bring 109 new patient beds to the facility. It will also add 190 total beds once the shelled space is built. The project also includes a three-level, 112,000-squarefoot expansion to the diagnostics and treatment building with expanded emergency, surgery, imaging, cardiopulmonary and endoscopy departments. “Our commitment to serving the health care needs of our community is unwavering and we are pleased to be expanding to meet community growth and the increased demand as a destination center for women and infant services, cancer care and high-quality medical care,” said Lamont Yoder, CEO of Banner Gateway Medical Center and Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center.
“This topping-out ceremony marks an important milestone, as the project continues to move forward on time and on budget thanks to the entire McCarthy team.” Jarnagan said the expansion “addresses the capacity need for women and infant care, including labor, delivery, postpartum and a new neonatal intensive care unit for babies who need extra care.” It also provides more space for inpatient cancer care by Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as for surgical, emergency, endoscopy and imaging services. Also included is shelled space for future growth.
Two new surface parking lots will be constructed, adding approximately 492 new parking spaces for visitor and staff use, and approximately 40,000 squarefeet of additional renovation work is also planned within the existing medical center. “Our project team is very focused on keeping the expansion project on budget and on target with its aggressive schedule while effectively navigating the many hurdles created by the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues and escalation,” said Kurt Radtke, project director for McCarthy who is overseeing the Banner Gateway tower expansion project.
“Through collaboration, our integrated project team, which includes Banner, SmithGroup and our trade partners, have developed innovations and risk mitigation strategies resulting in over $9 million of value to the project. Our team continues to look at innovations, options and ideas to mitigate risk to the project during these challenging times.” Construction on the tower expansion began in February 2021 and will be completed in first quarter of 2023 with the campus renovation work completing in 2024. Banner expects to add more than 600 new jobs once the facility is opened. The project is being managed using a modified Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) with the owner, design team, general contractor and trade partners all colocating in a virtual “big room.”
Jarnagan said that allows for “design and construction strategies to be developed and enhanced through a robust system of collaboration, solution innovations and coordination strategies being brought to the project to ensure operational excellence and end-user efficiency.” Those cost- and time-saving measures on the Banner Gateway project include: Prefabrication of construction elements, including exterior skin, bathroom pods and mechanical and plumbing components; five separate design packages, allowing construction to start prior to design-phase completing; and simultaneously building expansions on three sides of the hospital. The architect on the project is SmithGroup with civil engineering led by Dibble Engineering and structural engineering led by PK Associates. Field Verified is serving as an exterior skin consultant. Major trade partners include AmFab Steel, MKB, AROK, Buesing Excavation, Delta Electric, Foothills Fire, KT Fab, Otis Elevators, Stafford Crane, SwissLog, TD Industries and Walters & Wolf.
McCarthy Building Companies completed the initial Banner Gateway Medical Center campus in 20 months
in 2007. ■
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and same recipes, they changes a few things, such as the brand of pepperoni and sweet sausage.
“At the end of the day, we’re really grateful for what the original owners developed,” Harold said, adding the restaurant has a great following. “They already had really good reviews on Yelp. And you can see where there’s some ebb and flow but over all, they had a very loyal following.”
“When we did a little bit of research, I thought, ‘Wow, they use so many fresh ingredients, premium products,’” said Nani. “We know nothing about pizza. So, we came in a couple of times and tried them out and thought, ‘Wow, they’re really good.’”
The couple continue the tradition of making everything fresh, including their own dough and sauces, and even slice pineapples every day. They go through a pound of basil every few days.
“I will put my dough up against anybody’s,” said Harold. “If you read through our reviews, that seems to be a general statement, ‘Wow, the crust and the pizza pie it’s on, it’s incredible.’”
Nani said, “We have one list of traditional pies that you can find about anywhere else and then we have the twisted pies that are solely the creations of Twisted Pies.”
Added Harold, “if someone comes in and requests a certain type of pizza, if we have the ingredients, we’ll make it.”
“We have a different way of cooking them and saucing them so people really love our wings,” he continued. “We also have calzones, pasta and salads. We have a lot of rave reviews about our antipasto salads and our Caprese salad. They’re just beautiful and a really well-put-together salad. We get tremendous feedback.”
The restaurant also serves “twisted muf-
fins,” which look like a cinnamon roll but are a combination of red or white sauce, mozzarella cheese and ham and pepperoni. At lunchtime, slices are sold but instead of a traditional triangle pizza slice, customers get half of a 12” pizza. “We could have done fewer hands-on, more profit, but that’s not what we were looking for,” Nani said. “My husband is a people person. He’s like the ambassador of the neighborhood. He Twisted Pies has original recipes for all the main ingredients of its pizzas. (Instagram) talks to everybody and knows everybody. It’s been such an experience with all of the people we have met since we’ve opened this place — the amazing and immense support from the local community.” That support helped the restaurant survive during the pandemic. “Of course, we thought we were crazy,” said Nani, about opening the restaurant at the start of the pandemic. “But it was the blessing in disguise.” Without the dine-in traffic, they had an excuse to remodel the whole dining room. They credit their customers for survival. “Great people that we have met through
17
our interactions with customers,” Harold said. “We’ve met incredible people with incredible backgrounds who have been hugely supportive and at the same time had some experience and loved the fact we jumped into this really cold pool and are trying to learn to swim and they think that’s the greatest thing ever.”
“You have to set yourself apart,” added Nani. “You’ve got a hundred pizza options. What we want and what we try to do is to serve you like you’re family. When you come in here, we want you to feel welcomed. We want you to have an incredible experience. We want to be able to speak with you and engage with you as if you were our family.”
The Pickells also credit their own families for their success.
“This business would not have taken off or even started without the support of our family,” said Nani. “I have sisters and a brother and they have families and grandchildren. Every single one of them has come in at one point to help out. We would not have been able to do it without them.”■
Twisted Pies
3929 E. Main St., Mesa; twistedpies.com; 480-699-8022
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Last State Restricted Silver Walking Liberty Bank Rolls go to Arizona residents
Arizona residents get first dibs on last remaining Bank Rolls loaded with U.S. Gov’t issued Silver Walking Liberties dating back to the early 1900’s some worth up to 100 times their face value for the next 2 days STATE DISTRIBUTION: A strict limit of 4 State Restricted Bank Rolls per AZ resident has been imposed
ARIZONA - “It’s a miracle these State Restricted Bank Rolls even exist. That’s why Hotline Operators are bracing for the flood of calls,” said Laura Lynne, U.S. Coin and Currency Director for the National Mint and Treasury.
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won’t be surprised if thousands of Arizona residents claim the maximum limit allowed of 4 Bank Rolls per resident before they’re all gone,” said Lynne.
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The only thing Arizona residents need to do is call the State Toll-Free Hotlines printed in today’s newspaper publication before the 2-day order deadline ends.
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The only thing readers of today’s newspaper publication need to do is make sure they are a resident of the state of Arizona and call the National Toll-Free Hotlines before the 2-day deadline ends midnight tomorrow. ■
HOW TO CLAIM THE LAST STATE RESTRICTED BANK ROLLS
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How do I get the State Restricted Walking Liberty Silver Bank Rolls:
Yes. These U.S. Gov’t issued Silver Walking Liberties were minted in the early 1900’s and will never be minted again. That makes them extremely collectible. The vast majority of half dollars minted after 1970 have no silver content at all and these Walking Liberties were one of the last silver coins minted for circulation. That’s why many of them now command hundreds in collector value so there’s no telling how much they could be worth in collector value someday.
How much are State Restricted Walking Liberty Silver Bank Rolls worth:
It’s impossible to say, but some of these U.S Gov’t issued Walking Liberties dating back to the early 1900’s are worth up to 100 times the face value and there are 15 in each Bank Roll so you better hurry if you want to get your hands on them. Collector values always fluctuate and there are never any guarantees. But we do know they are the only Arizona State Silver Bank Rolls known to exist and Walking Liberties are highly collectible so anyone lucky enough to get their hands on these Silver Bank Rolls should hold onto them because there’s no telling how much they could be worth in collector value someday.
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