Pizza Power 2025 Power
“I TRUSTED MY GUT”
In 2022, Josiah Bartlett faced a critical decision. After building his pop-up operation, Wizard Hat Pizza, into a local favorite in Prospect Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn, he was blindsided when Anything, the bar he operated out of, announced its own pizza concept. Although the owners offered him a job at the pizza place, Bartlett refused, unwilling to abandon Wizard Hat. “I knew that if I went that route, I’d be giving up on what I’d built,” Bartlett says. “And I wasn’t willing to do that.” With no funds for a new location, he found a lifeline: a nearby vacated bakery. The space lacked ventilation and equipment, but he made it work, using a simple outdoor chalkboard to attract customers. Wizard Hat’s buzz grew, aided by the organic word-of-mouth Bartlett always trusted. Known for its crispy crust and heavy use of fresh basil, the pizzeria thrived. Two years later, Anything’s pizza project had faltered, and Bartlett returned to the bar with more space to serve customers. Through hard work, great pizza and a bit of luck, Bartlett’s vision proved prescient. “I’m so glad I trusted my gut,” Bartlett said, “and spent the past couple of years growing Wizard Hat.”
ELEVATING THE BUSINESS OF PIZZA
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CONTENT
EDITOR IN CHIEF Rick Hynum rhynum@wtwhmedia.com
SENIOR EDITOR Charlie Pogacar cpogacar@wtwhmedia.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Tracy Morin tmorin@wtwhmedia.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR/USPT COORDINATOR Brian Hernandez bhernandez@wtwhmedia.com
VP, ASSOCIATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Allison Dean adean@wtwhmedia.com
VP, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Danny Klein dklein@wtwhmedia.com
ART & PRODUCTION
ART DIRECTOR Eric Summers esummers@wtwhmedia.com
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Tory Bartelt tbartelt@wtwhmedia.com
DIGITAL PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Blake Harris bharris@wtwhmedia.com
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Volume 28, Issue 10 December 2024 ISSN 1937-5263
CONTENT STUDIO
VICE PRESIDENT Peggy Carouthers pcarouthers@wtwhmedia.com
WRITER Ya’el McCloud ymccloud@wtwhmedia.com
WRITER
Olivia Schuster oschuster@wtwhmedia.com
SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
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PMQ PIZZA Issue 10 December 2024 (ISSN 1937-5263) is published monthly in January, March, April, May, June, August, September, October, November and December by WTWH Media, LLC, 1111 Superior Ave #2600, Cleveland, OH 44114-2560.
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December 2024
14
Paulie Gee’s Ricotta Be Kiddin’ Me
What happens when the legendary Paulie Gee mentors a young pizzaiolo like Derrick Tung? Pure magic—in the form of this calzone-inspired pie at Paulie Gee’s Logan Square.
17 The “Old Soul” Pizza of Youngstown
Brier Hill-style pizzerias perform a labor of love every day, carrying on their grandmas’ traditions and transporting die-hard fans in Youngstown, Ohio, back to their childhood.
40 Digital Intelligence
The owner of Little Italy Ristorante knows his customers are living in the digital age, and he’s happy to meet them there. He shares seven strategies to keep your business booming.
46
Nicholas Harper: A Matter of Trust
PMQ’s Pizza Power Forum taught this U.S. Pizza Team member some lessons he’ll never forget. It all starts with properly training—and having faith in—your employees.
Pizza Power 2025
Challenges abound, but the pizza industry keeps thriving because pizzeria operators keep rising to the occasion. Here’s how pizza pros learned to win in 2024—and what it will take to stay on top.
By RICK HYNUM, CHARLIE POGACAR and KEVIN MCINTYRE
OWNTOW N PIZZERIA
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PIZZA LOVERS WAITING FOR A TRAIN
WHEN JAY COSTAS OPENED SILVER BEACH PIZZA inside a historic train station in St. Joseph, Michigan, 19 years ago, the location itself was enough to set it apart from the competition. “People thought we were crazy, though,” Costas admits. “The station hadn’t had a successful restaurant tenant in three years, and the three that had been there before us all went out of business.” But Costas had another secret weapon: signature frozen schooners filled with cold draft beer as well as cocktails like Bloody Marys and Margaritas. “The schooners are essential—
they’re our identity,” Costa says. “But as we got busier, keeping enough schooners frozen became a challenge. We eventually invested around $20,000 in a blast freezer. When we added the Upper Deck, we installed another reach-in freezer specifically for schooners, and each bar has its own chest freezer.” Meanwhile, the Amtrak station remains active, with trains rolling through every day. “The tracks are just 14’ from our patio, which adds such a cool atmosphere,” Costas says, “especially for the kids who love watching the trains go by.”
The Silver Beach Bloody Mary, served in a frozen schooner, sells for $10 at Silver Beach Pizza.
SILVER BEACH
PIZZA
HUNTING FOR BAMBI & FRIENDS
Pizza Inn took a shot at Bambi—yes, that Bambi—in a limitedtime offer last fall, and many fans of the beloved Disney character weren’t amused. It was a bold move, launched at the beginning of hunting season, but the Bambi & Friends specialty pizza, topped with venison, boar and elk sausage, proved so successful, the chain brought it back in 2024 and let the haters hate. Pizza Inn says the pie sold out “within a short time” last year at the select locations where it was offered, while the promotional campaign—with billboards featuring an adorable fawn, a grinning boar and a hulking elk in a woodland setting—won a coveted Golden OBIE award for advertising excellence. Granted, it stirred up some controversy on social media in 2023, with many followers expressing their distaste and even outrage. But others appreciated the irreverent tone and message, indicating that Pizza Inn, a buffet concept with stores across the American South, knows its customer base. In a press release, the Dallas-based chain, owned by Rave Restaurant Group and led by CEO Brandon Solano, noted that the Bambi & Friends pizza was “perfect for the meat loving, hunting community.” It was available from October 18 through November 8 at select stores in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and North Carolina.
NOT MEANT FOR MERE MORTALS
Koby Wexler is “always cranking up the wow factor” at Death by Pizza in Delray Beach, Florida. That’s according to The Palm Beach Post, which touted a late October specialty pizza featuring the burnt ends from pastrami prepared at Boca Raton-based Beauregard’s Fine Meats & Butchery. Wexler collaborated with Beauregard’s owner Cameron Falls to create the LTO pie, which, The Palm Beach Post said, “might not be meant for mere mortals.” The pastrami is soaked in brine for seven days, punched up with house seasonings and smoked for eight to 12 hours to make sandwiches. When Falls couldn’t find a use for the flavorful burnt ends, Wexler, his friend, hit upon the answer: use them as toppings for a cheesesteak pizza. It features the pastrami burnt ends, Cooper sharp cheese, sautéed red onions, mozzarella, Pecorino, spicy brown mustard butter sauce and pastrami dust. Wexler started offering a monthly specialty pizza in March 2023 as “a way of presenting something different,” he said, offering his guests “things they’re familiar with but with small twists.”
DEATH BY PIZZA
Pizza Inn’s Bambi & Friends specialty pizza features venison, boar and elk sausage.
An advertising campaign for Bambi & Friends earned a coveted Golden OBIE award for advertising excellence last year.
PIZZA INN
Death by Pizza’s new specialty cheesesteak pizza, made in the Detroit style with a sourdough crust, earned regional coverage by The Palm Beach Post
IP Phone Service
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• No Busy Signals
• Call Recording
• Call Queuing / Auto Answering
• Multiple (random) start of call upsell messages
• On hold music/message loops
• Detailed reports—hold times, lost calls etc
• Callerid delivered to POS system
• Auto attendants— ”If you have arrived for curbside pickup press one ”
Cellular Backup Internet
Protect against outages
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• The same router can be used to create chain wide virtual private network to connect your locations.
• SD WAN LTE/LTE A (4G/5G) modems.
On the PBX
“Press one to receive a text message with links to our onlne ordering ”.
SMS Marketing
Manage bulk text message marketing from our system to drive increased revenue. As low as $0.01 per message. Group text messaging to communicate with your employees (drivers, bartenders, all staff etc).
PAULIE GEE’S RICOTTA BE KIDDING ME
Ingredients
• 8-oz. pizza dough ball
• 3½ oz. Galbani® Fresh Mozzarella
• 2½ oz. sweet Italian fennel sausage
• 7 slices Canadian bacon
• ½ tbsp. fresh basil
• 0.05g olive oil
• 2½ oz. Galbani® Ricotta
Directions
1. Stretch pizza dough to make a 12” pie.
2. Place mozzarella and sausage evenly over dough. Then arrange six slices of Canadian bacon in a circle and place one in the center of the pie.
3. Apply basil evenly, shiny side up, and drizzle olive oil over basil. Then bake pizza in oven until thoroughly cooked.
4. Remove pizza from oven and slice between Canadian bacon pieces.
5. Spoon three dollops of ricotta on top of each slice (two near the edge, one near the center), serve and enjoy!
This recipe’s no joke.
What happens when the legendary Paulie Gee mentors someone like Derrick Tung? Pure magic—in pizza form, that is! After meeting years ago, their relationship quickly blossomed into a friendship. Soon after, Derrick opened his own Paulie Gee’s, bringing Brooklyn’s popular pizzeria to the Windy City. And he still pays homage to his friend by serving the classic pizzas Paulie Gee’s is known for, just like the Ricotta Be Kidding Me. Inspired by Paulie’s favorite calzone, this pie features sweet Italian sausage, Canadian bacon and Galbani Ricotta and Fresh Mozzarella. It’s a combination of flavors that will tickle anyone’s taste buds.
Find
Ispirazione Italiana
What's my Italian Inspiration? It’s creating specials that are truly special. Our team members are constantly bringing new ideas to the table. So, we introduce pizzas every quarter that showcase our innovative thinking and unique flavors. That includes our “cheesavore” specials that focus on celebrating the cheese. We trust the Galbani® brand to help us create pizzas our customers crave.
Derrick Tung, Owner, Paulie Gee’s Chicago
Learn more at GalbaniPro.com
The “Old Soul” Pizza of Youngstown
The Brier Hill pizza style from Youngstown, Ohio, is carried on by a handful of tradition-bearing purveyors—and kept afloat by hordes of devoted fans.
BY TRACY MORIN
ANY RESTAURATEUR KNOWS IT’S DIFFICULT TO RECREATE THE MAGIC OF AN ITALIAN
GRANDMOTHER’S FOOD—the love, the care, the passion and pride that go into every bite. But the best Brier Hill-style pizzerias set their sights on accomplishing this labor of love every day, carrying on their grandmas’ traditions for die-hard fans in Youngstown, Ohio.
The Brier Hill pizza style is named after a neighborhood in this eastern Ohio town, whose population swelled to 170,000 by 1930. Seeking work in the surrounding steel mills, immigrants flooded the area, with Italians settling in the neighborhood of Brier Hill. “They’d make pizza and bread in brick ovens in their backyard,” says Anne Massullo-Sabella, owner of Avalon Downtown Pizzeria in Youngstown, a hot spot for the Brier Hill style. “At one of the churches, a monsignor
started to make it on Fridays, as a fundraiser. He tried to have the name trademarked and wasn’t able to, but that’s how the name got started. Growing up, we didn’t refer to it as Brier Hill pizza—it was just grandma’s pizza.”
While other U.S. regions sell what they call “grandma pies,” Brier Hill is a very specific type of style. But Massullo-Sabella emphasizes that the Italian immigrants weren’t attempting to be originators; they were simply practical and frugal by necessity, using whatever they had on hand. In their yards, they grew tomatoes, which could be canned, and peppers, which could serve as a topping. Cheese was expensive, so instead of mozzarella, they threw grated Romano (left over from pasta dishes) on top of the dough-and-sauce base. Voilà—a cheap, filling meal or snack.
These bare-bones elements became part of the pizza’s charm. “It comes from not having a lot of money,”
Massullo-Sabella says. “But they knew how to make the smallest, simplest thing so tasty. When they had a small amount of dough left over, they’d fry it and throw sugar on it for us kids. We thought we were getting a treat, and we were actually getting scraps.”
Carrying the Torch of Tradition
Despite these humble, “scrappy” beginnings, Brier Hill pizza continues to thrive in the area. Youngstown’s St. Anthony of Padua Church has relied on the pizza to headline fast-sellout fundraisers since 1972. Several pizzerias selling Brier Hill pies have been operating for decades, such as Wedgewood Pizza (established 1967) and Cassese’s MVR (opened in 1927).
Massullo-Sabella herself re-entered the Brier Hill scene by reviving the style she’d grown up loving alongside her grandparents. They’d owned a pizzeria, Avalon Gardens, from the 1930s and employed a pizza maker who’d plied his trade at a pizzeria called Lavanty’s. He stayed with the business for decades, solidifying its reputation as a Brier Hill pie haven, even as the business traded hands, then eventually shuttered.
It was this tradition that Massullo-Sabella wanted to carry on when Avalon Downtown opened in 2012.
“We thought we’d make 100 pizzas a day—something very doable. I knew the pizza was good, because I grew up eating it, but I never realized how crazy people could behave over pizza.”
Anne Massullo-Sabella, Avalon Downtown Pizzeria
But she never expected such a frenzied reception from customers, who proved a still-rabid fan base for Avalon’s Brier Hill style. “We thought we’d make 100 pizzas a day—something very doable,” she recalls. “I knew the pizza was good, because I grew up eating it, but I never realized how crazy people could behave over pizza.”
That opening-day enthusiasm was repeated when Massullo-Sabella was forced into a 40-day shutdown as she broke ties with a business partner. “When we reopened, I knew it was a special pizza in this area. I realized the love people have for this product,” she says. “We’d have a two-, three-hour waiting time—and this was for two weeks straight! It was an eye-opening experience for me, seeing that love. Brier Hill pizza is the old soul that’s going to be there forever.”
Old-World Time Warp
At Avalon Downtown, pizzas start with a light, focaccialike dough made fresh daily. “It’s not thin or super thick—it’s medium, but very light, with a lot of aerated holes, because we don’t use a sheeter,” Massullo-Sabella explains. “So there’s a lot of labor on one shell: cut, weigh, ball, put on a pan, let it rise a little, press out once, let it rise again. It’s like a little factory.”
Except it’s all done by hand—and complemented with high-quality toppings, like Stanislaus tomatoes, Grandé Romano cheese, Smithfield Foods Margherita pepperoni, and sausage (featuring the pizzeria’s own special seasoning blend) custom-made by a local butcher. The pizza is cooked in a round oiled pan, with three sizes available: 8”, 12” and 14”. A deck oven at 450° to 500° crisps up the pizza’s bottom for an irresistible crunch.
But Massullo-Sabella believes that customers’ love for the Brier Hill style goes beyond technical specifics and logistics. “The biggest thing is the nostalgia,” she says. “It takes them back to childhood—to something their grandma, mother or aunt made. It’s an old-world style, and it brings you back to happier times.”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
Pizza Power 2025 Power
Faced with familiar challenges, independents keep learning to win—on their own terms, with creativity and technology on their side.
BY RICK HYNUM, CHARLIE POGACAR and KEVIN MCINTYRE
Powered by
WHEN FRAN GARCIA FIRST
DECIDED TO OPEN his own pizzeria—the celebrated Artichoke Basille’s Pizza in New York City—in 2008, he got some unexpected advice from a fellow restaurateur: Don’t do it. And, mind you, that restaurateur was his own mother.
“She said, ‘The rent is too high. There’s a friggin’ pizza place on every corner. They’re gonna chew you up and spit you out,’” Garcia recalled in a recent interview on Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast.
Garcia was just another pizza guy, making artichoke pies at his mom’s Staten Island restaurant and giving slices away for free to get customers hooked. But he and his cousin, Sal Basille, had bigger dreams. Yes, there was pizza aplenty in New York, Garcia told his mother. But his was better. “I said, ‘That pizza sucks. I’m going to sell more pizza than anybody. We’re going to be famous.’”
Garcia and Basille went on to star in The Cooking Channel’s Pizza Masters and Pizza Cuz while steering Artichoke Basille’s to countless accolades and 13 locations in New York, New Jersey and California. “One thing I learned about business,” Garcia said, “is don’t [expletive] listen to anybody.”
That might be an overstatement, but take it in the spirit in which it’s intended. Every year, the pizza industry brings new challenges; 2024 was no exception, and the same will go for 2025. Yet the industry keeps thriving because pizzeria operators keep rising to the occasion, because pizza itself is
Fran Garcia (right), co-founder of Artichoke Basille’s with his cousin, Sal Basille, turns a deaf ear to naysayers and has even launched his own solo brand.
both trend-resistant and adaptable to new trends— and it never gets boring. According to Datassential’s Pizza Keynote Report, released in October, 66% of consumers reported eating a pie within the last week, and 87% said they’re eating more or the same amount of pizza as last year.
With demand like that, Garcia’s right: Don’t let anyone tell you there’s too much pizza out there. Looking back at 2024 shows us that the field is still wide open—perhaps more than ever—for pizzeria owners and pizza chefs with ambition, drive and creativity. Granted, an IBISWorld report, released in September, found that pizza restaurant revenue has been falling at a CAGR of 2.4% over the past five years. However, the report estimates a 1.4% increase in 2024, which should see overall revenue reaching $50.1 billion.
“Competition is fierce, as opening a new pizza restaurant is fairly inexpensive, and demand for pizza is somewhat evergreen,” IBISWorld notes. “Successful restaurants must ensure they carve a niche for themselves in the crowded market.”
To do that in 2025, you might have to learn a new trick or two (nationwide shipping, for example, and better employee interviewing skills). And running
“I continue to believe that we will deliver U.S. same-store sales growth of 3% or more annually. And that’s why I expect Domino’s to continue to drive additional market share gain.”
Russell Weiner, Domino’s
your pizzeria will still demand constant adaptation, quick problem solving, and a mastery of both the art of pizza making and the cold, hard calculus of business management.
The major chains, after all, still have a leg up on independents. They’re vying for the same pizza dollar that keeps the lights on at your place. And, as we saw this year, they will do whatever it takes to pull business away from you. So let’s start there— with the so-called pizza wars of 2024.
Restaurateur Brian Lewis (below left) started shipping his pies nationwide shortly after opening Bocado Pizza in Sandy Springs, Georgia, earlier this year.
BOCADO
PIZZA
Leaning Into Value
Despite a fairly robust economy overall, many American diners still had the inflation jitters and couldn’t be persuaded to loosen their wallets this year. Domino’s, the world’s top pizza chain, saw that coming and had a plan in place called Hungry for MORE. And to hear CEO Russell Weiner talk about it in a third-quarter earnings call on October 10, that plan worked like a charm.
Weiner said the company launched Hungry for MORE in December 2023, fully expecting that “consumer spending would be pressured in 2024 and that the QSRs that offered the strongest value would win. That proved to be right, and…leaning into our strategic pillar of renowned value has been key to our success in 2024, especially in the U.S.”
Never mind the “burger wars,” Weiner added. “I think we’re in the pizza wars right now, and, again, clearly we are winning that.” To keep up, he added, other pizza companies will have to “continue to lean into value.”
2025 Trending STyles
Source: Datassential
ADOBE
STOCK/BRENT HOFACKER
2025 Top Pizza Ingredients
Based on Total Percentage of Restaurant Saturation | Source: Datassential
Just a week into October, Domino’s resurrected its Emergency Pizza plan; with a qualifying digitalonly order of $7.99, Domino’s Rewards members received an offer for a free medium two-topping pizza to redeem whenever they needed it most. And that was just the latest value offer from the chain. It started in late January with a weeklong digital-only special featuring large two-topping pizzas for $6.99 each, a deal that resurfaced as a carryout offer in mid-August. In March, June and October, Domino’s marked down all menu-priced pizzas by 50% for a week.
We could go on and on—there were other deals from Domino’s, too—but suffice it to say that the chain has seen four straight quarters of same-store sales growth since Hungry for MORE’s debut.
Other pizza chains fought the value wars with less fervor. In August, Donatos debuted its Bakery Crust Pizza—thicker and cut into squares—aimed at budget-conscious families. That same month, Cicis Pizza rolled out a three-month all-you-caneat buffet deal on Mondays and Tuesdays for $4.99. Take-and-bake leader Papa Murphy’s joined the fray in September, introducing the Everyday Value menu with three large pizzas starting at $7.99 apiece. And MOD Pizza, after flirting briefly with bankruptcy and getting acquired by Elite Restaurant Group,
came out with its Unlimited Toppings, One Price menu structure.
Of course, the QSR value wars extended to all fronts, not just pizza—from Taco Bell’s new Craving Values menu to McDonald’s $5 value meal and Burger King’s $5 Duo deal. But, aside from Domino’s, there were few clear winners overall. According to an October report from Black Box Intelligence, quick-service restaurants, despite all of these deals, saw a decline of 2.2% in same-store traffic in June, 3.4% in July, 4% in August and 2.5% in September, not to mention a drop in same-stores sales in June and July, although those sales went up by 0.8% in September.
DOMINO’S
Domino’s partnered with nail brand Olive & June for its Emergency Pizza offer in October.
2025 Fastest-growing Pizza Ingredients
Based on 4-year growth | Source: Datassential
“One idea we’ve discussed is asking [job] applicants to meet someone in the dining room during the interview. It’s a way to gauge how comfortable they are interacting with guests.”
Eric Soller, Old Scratch Pizza
At Domino’s, however, Weiner sounded the bugle for victory—for now, anyway. His brand reported same-store sales growth of 3% in the third quarter of 2024 and a 5.1% increase in global retail sales. “With the slate of initiatives we’ve got out in front of us, I continue to believe that we will deliver U.S. samestore sales growth of 3% or more annually,” Weiner told investors. “And that’s why I expect Domino’s to continue to drive additional market share gain.”
Rethinking the Hiring Process
As the value wars heated up, another conflict raged behind the scenes: the battle for talent. Finding and keeping reliable team members remains a challenge. Whenever PMQ shares a story about renowned legacy pizzerias closing down, comments on social media go something to the effect of, “Young people don’t want to work hard!” But if you believe that, consider the perspective of Aaron Nilsson, chief information officer at Jet’s Pizza, the 400-plus-unit brand based in Detroit.
Nilsson recalls growing up in a “one-stoplight farming community,” where hard work meant tilling the land and stacking hay—something he watched his father do all of his life. “It’s the worst job ever,” he admits. “That was my definition of hard work.” Today, Nilsson says, that definition has evolved.
“We’re in an information society. My daughters have grown up seeing me spend most of my time working ‘hard’ by sitting silently at a laptop. The definition of ‘work’ has changed—and we’re the ones who taught it to them.”
If you’re still struggling to find hard workers, maybe it’s time to rethink your hiring process. Just ask Christina Martin, owner of Manizza’s Pizza in Las Vegas. In July, she told PMQ she’d recently posted an open position and netted 12 qualified applicants. Eleven showed up for interviews, and 10 impressed her. Although she could hire only one, Martin shared her experience to give other operators hope.
And, while her experiences are anecdotal, recent industry data supports her optimism. The National Restaurant Association reported fewer than 800,000 open positions in May 2024, down from a pandemic high of 1.5 million—a sign that vacancies have been sliced in half.
Martin’s success isn’t just luck. She puts care into crafting unique job listings. Instead of generic phrases like “must be able to multitask” or “work in a fast-paced environment,” she uses playful language: “Are you awesome? Want to come be awesome with us?” She believes these questions help set her pizzeria apart from the competition: Who wouldn’t want to be awesome?
The job applications at Manizza’s Pizza are equally distinctive, with questions like, “If I gave you an elephant and you couldn’t sell or get rid of it, what would you do with it?” As Martin explains, “The candidates who take their time and give thoughtful answers stand out. Even if it’s something like, ‘I’d start a circus’ or ‘I’d ride it to work, since gas is expensive,’ that tells me they’re creative and
not just mass-applying to jobs. Plus, we get to smile during the process—it makes it fun, not boring.”
Martin also requires applicants to make a small but effective pledge in the application: They must check a box agreeing to show up for the interview. “It’s not like it guarantees they will show up, but I think it reinforces their commitment,” she says.
Meanwhile, Eric Soller, owner of Old Scratch Pizza in Dayton, Ohio, has experimented with new interview techniques. He’s noticed that younger employees often feel uncomfortable engaging with the restaurant’s guests. “They’d rather go to the dentist than pre-bus a table,” Soller jokes. “One idea we’ve discussed is asking applicants to meet
The Reviews Are In
The charts on the opposite page reflect food critics’ and the general public’s reviews of their favorite pizzerias nationwide. Using a simple algorithm, we based the Critically Acclaimed ranking on 2024 “best-of” lists from 50 Top Pizza, The New York Times, TheInfatuation.com and Gayot.com; and 2023 “best-of” lists from The Washington Post, Food & Wine and TimeOut.com, as well as the current Michelin Guide. For the People’s Choice ranking, we averaged out ratings for highly reviewed pizzerias on Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor and Facebook, attaching some weight to the total number of reviews.
From job listings to interview techniques, a creative approach to hiring could help you find better employees.
People’s Choice Pizzerias
AI AND PUPATELLA
“Don’t use AI like you’re doing a Google search. Refine your prompts, and the system will work quickly to provide the needed information.”
Jim Biafore, Pupatella
PMQ asked Jim Biafore, CEO of the 10-store Virginia pizza chain Pupatella, how his brand is using AI to improve operations and its plan for the future. Here’s what he told us:
Current Applications:
• Customer Experience: AI-driven chatbots enhance customer service by handling orders, answering queries and providing personalized recommendations.
• Financial Data: AI helps in data analytics and with forecasting sales.
• Lease Review: AI will be deployed to evaluate leases to ensure dates are accurate and information is recorded as needed.
• Delivery Optimization: Our third-party delivery partners are already using AI algorithms to optimize delivery routes, ensuring faster and more efficient deliveries, which improves customer satisfaction.
“While these applications are already proving beneficial, the true game-changer will be AI’s ability to provide deeper insights and automation,” Biafore added. That includes:
• Predictive Analytics: Advanced AI could predict trends and customer preferences with even greater accuracy, allowing us to tailor our menu and promotions more effectively.
• Robotics: AI-powered robots could take over repetitive tasks in the kitchen, ensuring consistency and freeing up staff to focus on more creative aspects of pizza making.
• Personalization: AI could offer hyper-personalized experiences, from custom pizza suggestions based on individual tastes to targeted marketing campaigns.
someone in the dining room during the interview. It’s a way to gauge how comfortable they are interacting with guests. For many young people, that kind of engagement doesn’t come naturally, but we want to help them develop those skills.”
Once team members are onboarded, Chase Sereda, a Little Caesars franchisee in Canada, aims to make the job feel meaningful. Inspired by another franchisee, he takes a photo of each new hire with the first pizza they make. When that team member eventually moves on, he also shoots their photo with the last pizza they make and shares both pictures on his team’s WhatsApp group. “We try to celebrate wins, no matter how big or small,” Sereda says. “These little things can make a big difference. They help transform your restaurant into a fun, vibrant place to work.”
Hiring and retaining good talent remains a challenge, but operators like Martin, Soller and Sereda have shown that creativity, thoughtful engagement and small commitments can set restaurants apart. Their success proves that when young people are put in the right environment and given the tools to succeed, many will work just as hard as their parents and grandparents did.
Working Smarter, Not Harder
Fortunately, advances in kitchen technology, like smart ovens and digital dough presses, mean pizzeria work doesn’t have to be all that hard in the coming years. Granted, for some pizzeria owners, changing ovens can feel a bit like getting a divorce— aside from the emotional pain of ending a longtime love affair, it’s expensive, too. But if you’re fed up with your old oven’s mood swings and stubborn ways, newer and more compliant models await you. They’re smart, too—which is the whole point, really. Austin Titus, president of Cannoli Kitchen Pizza, with six stores in Florida and three more on the way, has installed a smart oven at a Fort Lauderdale location and plans to implement another in a Boca Raton store. “It’s an electric stone conveyer oven that controls the temperature in
multiple zones: entryway, interior, bottom and exit,” Titus says. “We’re still learning more about them, but I can confidently say that they’ve improved our operations and reduced waste. The oven is a true game-changer because it provides the same—or better—product that a traditional deck oven does, using a fraction of the time, labor skill set and learning curve.”
These ovens give you precise control over temperatures to ensure even and consistent cooking, Titus says. That means fewer burnt pizzas, less food waste and a boost to the bottom line. Another big plus: Smart ovens save on labor costs “because you don’t need somebody tending to the pizzas and turning them the right way.”
Titus is also sold on digital dough presses. “It does more of the same thing that the oven does— improved consistency in the dough thickness, size and temperature before it enters the oven,” he says. “This also allows our employees to have way less of a learning curve and takes a fraction of the time, compared to traditional dough rolling or tossing. It’s truly a win-win-win for everyone. The customer gets more consistency, employees can progress quicker in their ability to perform, and the business saves on the operational costs.”
Then there’s the much-ballyhooed rise of AI. Yes, it’s just slowly inching its way into the pizza industry (not unlike robotics), but don’t sleep on it. “We will find ourselves using AI in our everyday duties, such as delivery and ordering,” Marco’s Pizza COO John
Meyers wrote in a September 16 article for PMQ.com. He pointed to Marco’s Automated Promise Time program, which “uses AI to calculate and predict the time it will take to make and deliver a completed customer order, considering the store product capacity, oven time, number of drivers, weather and traffic conditions.”
Joe Park, the chief digital and technology officer for Yum! Brands (Pizza Hut’s parent company), told The Wall Street Journal in March that “an AI-first mentality works every step of the way. If you think about the major journeys within a restaurant that can be AI-powered, we believe it’s endless.”
But don’t assume AI is a tool for large chains only. Jim Biafore, CEO of Pupatella, with eight stores in Virginia and two in Washington, D.C., believes it will level the playing field for independents. “We’re exploring AI in various aspects of our operations, and the results are promising,” Biafore tells PMQ. “The great thing about AI is that it helps the small shops compete with the larger chains that typically have the resources to evaluate data.” He suggests that smaller operators use AI to analyze various types of data, automate and send personalized offers to their customer database, and even help write correspondence to vendors and guests. (See sidebar on page 30 for more details.)
Using AI, smaller independents can also better keep up with online reviews, notes Jared Norris, chief customer officer for ChatMeter, a reputation management intelligence platform with clients like
ADOBE
Smart ovens can ensure greater consistency and save you money on training time and labor costs.
Figaro’s Pizza and Glacier Restaurant Group, owner of the MacKenzie River Pizza chain in Montana.
“Restaurant owners can use AI to take a pulse on real-time customer feedback by analyzing reviews and uncovering emerging trends or common problems,” Norris says. “A large language model (LLM) can understand text written by people and understand sentiment, identify trends, and spot emerging issues much faster than you would reading each and every review. Analyzing customer reviews like this allows you to see your restaurant through the eyes of the customer and remove any biases or preconceived notions.”
For example, Norris says, “You might notice customers are complaining about pickup or delivery orders being consistently 10 minutes late and use that information to better set expectations about timelines. Or you might receive quick feedback that customers aren’t loving a new pizza on the menu and tweak its recipe to better fit their tastes.”
Just don’t think of AI tools like ChatGPT as search engines. They’re much more powerful. “Understanding the prompts is the key to using AI properly,” Biafore says. “Don’t use AI like you’re doing a Google search. Refine your prompts, and the system will work quickly to provide the needed information.”
And if you don’t know how to refine your prompts, just ask the ultimate expert for advice: the AI tool itself!
The Frozen Frontier
Fortunately, success in 2025 doesn’t necessarily hinge on shelling out big bucks for the latest technologies. Freezers aren’t all that smart, but look at what independents are doing with them nowadays. Perhaps the most exciting development in 2024 was St. Louis restaurateur Katie Lee’s breakthrough deal with Walmart. Lee, the owner of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria, which has three locations, journeyed to Bentonville, Arkansas, in late September for Walmart’s Open Call product pitch day for a shot at the coveted Golden Ticket—and scored.
Lee’s frozen pizzas and pasta bakes had already emerged at St. Louis grocers like Dierbergs Markets and Straub’s before moving into retailers including Fresh Market, Fresh Thyme, Kings, Balducci’s, Mother’s, Whole Foods and others. “We dreamed big and expanded into local grocery outlets, nationwide shipping, then moved into wider retail distribution, and now Walmart,” Lee says. But she makes it clear that there’s only one difference between the pizzas and pastas served at her elegant, high-end restaurants and her frozen items at retail stores: The latter are, well, frozen.
Lee started freezing her dishes for sale during the COVID-19 lockdown. A true believer in fresh, clean ingredients, she didn’t want to sacrifice quality with her frozen line. “People want to cut costs and think they need to use different cheeses and different processes to make [frozen] food,” she says. “So what you find in the grocery store is overly processed food with a lot of science and junk behind it. Because we had to pivot so quickly, we made our exact same pizza and sealed it and froze it. And then we realized that’s the best way to do it. That’s the most innovative way to do it. And it’s what everyone is afraid to do.”
It’s also what shoppers want, Lee believes. “Consumer demands are changing, which is why we see grocers trying to make this product in-house, and they can’t seem to do it.” Social media is also
“[Grocery stores offer] overly processed food with a lot of science and junk behind it…. We made our exact same pizza and sealed it and froze it. And then we realized that’s the best way to do it.”
Katie Lee, Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria
spurring demand for higher-quality offerings on the frozen pizza shelves. “Food is, like, No. 2 on TikTok right now,” Lee says. “It’s up there with music and celebrities. People are just very interested in food, and they understand food much better than they ever have, really, in history. They want to try really great food, and the retailers are taking notice. And if there’s a demand, they’re going to put attention toward it.”
Anthony Mangieri, the celebrated pizzaiolo behind New York’s Una Pizza Napoletana, would likely agree. His single-unit restaurant was rated the best in the U.S. and the world this year by 50
Top Pizza, but many of us can try his pies in our own living rooms, thanks to the growing success of his frozen brand, Genio Della Pizza, in retail stores. Mangieri and a growing number of independent pizzeria owners have been elevating a segment that Technavio projects to grow 5% annually between 2024 and 2028.
Atlanta restaurateur Brian Lewis wants a piece of that pie, too. After opening Bocado Pizza this year in Sandy Springs, Georgia, he introduced his woodfired sourdough pizzas to a wider audience through nationwide shipping. They boast flour from a small Italian farm, a dough that’s naturally leavened over 72 hours, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes from Italy’s Campania region.
Like Lee, Lewis wants to replicate the restaurant dining experience as closely as possible. “Our biggest challenge has been changing the readyto-ship pizza industry’s mindset,” he says. “We’re moving away from the conventional methods that rely on fillers and additives for extended shelf life. Instead, we’ve created a simple, high-quality pizza where we control every ingredient, from the dough to the sauce to the cheese. This approach allows us to offer a premium product without unnecessary additives, challenging the 180-day shelf life common in the freezer section. We’re proving it’s possible to make authentic restaurant-quality pizza accessible to consumers at home without compromising on ingredients or taste.”
Frozen pizza looks to be the next frontier for independents. “Pizza is universally beloved,” Lewis adds. “Coming out of the pandemic, we have a new expectation for convenience and accessibility. Just as services like UberEats, DoorDash, HelloFresh and Goldbelly have transformed how we’re able to access restaurant-quality food with the click of a button, nationwide pizza shipping from restaurants like ours meets the demand for convenience without sacrificing quality. Our goal is to maintain a consistent Bocado experience, whether you’ve had our pizza at the restaurant or only know us from online orders.”
The C-Store Factor
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that the major chains aren’t the only competitor to keep in mind next year. As convenience store retailers continue to ramp up foodservice operations, pizza is one segment where they’re excelling. In fact, 199 million servings of pizza were ordered from convenience stores in the 12 months ending August 2024, according to Circana CREST consumer survey data.
Pizza lovers are seeing increased variety thanks to innovative limited-time offers (LTOs), restaurantquality ingredients and competitive pricing from c-store operators. One formidable competitor is Iowa-based Casey’s General Stores, which has long proclaimed itself the fifth-largest pizza chain in the U.S., with nearly 2,900 locations. This past year alone, Casey’s customers bought more than 45 million pizzas, the company says.
“This isn’t gas station pizza—it’s restaurantquality food from a gas station,” asserts Brad Haga, senior vice president of prepared food and
dispensed beverages at Casey’s. “It’s not crazy to think you can get handmade, delicious pizza from a convenience store.”
Casey’s isn’t the only c-store giant seeing success from pizza. Since it started cooking up pies in 2008, 7-Eleven, with 84,000 locations worldwide, has greatly expanded its offerings to align with flavor trends and customer preferences. According to Justin Whittaker, 7-Eleven’s senior category manager, their pies are baked in-store with a blend of mozzarella, Parmesan and provolone cheese, while the sauce is made with fresh tomatoes, Italian herbs, garlic, salt and pepper. “Our pizza platform has evolved over time to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers,” Whittaker says. “From serving personal-size pizzas to pizza by the slice to whole pizza, we continue to grow our offerings based on what our customers want and expect.”
Compared to Casey’s and 7-Eleven, most c-stores operate on a smaller scale and without the same resources, but that doesn’t mean they’re missing out on all the pizza potential. Fischer’s Neighborhood
Market, with 32 stores in the U.S., has partnered with Hunt Brothers Pizza to offer fresh pies at 13 locations. The program has steadily expanded over the years, notes Zain Bidiwala, Fischer’s senior marketing and brand leader.
Casey’s General Stores says its customers bought more than 45 million pizzas this past year alone.
“We’re focusing on promoting Hunt Brothers’ menu items on our social media pages more heavily,” Bidiwala adds. “Being that it’s such an accessible brand, there’s a lot of fun that can be had— entertaining, educating and engaging our audience via our shared love for pizza, without always pushing the ‘hard sell.’”
Learning to Win
When CNN founder Ted Turner started various other networks that bombed—and there were a bunch of them—he was often quoted as saying, “I’m not losing. I’m learning how to win.” The fact that you’re still in business as 2024 grinds to an end means you’ve been learning that same lesson, too. It was a rough-and-tumble year that saw multiple bankruptcy filings among small pizza chains, including Buca di Beppo in August, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza & Wings in September, Oath Pizza in November, and, perhaps most shockingly, a close call for MOD Pizza, once the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the country. Not to mention the struggles of Pizza Hut franchisee EYM Pizza, which filed for bankruptcy in July and will sell more than 125 stores as it undergoes financial restructuring.
“It’s not crazy to think you can get handmade, delicious pizza from a convenience store.”
Hunt Brothers provides a comprehensive training program and works closely with employees to ensure they’re correctly prepared. “Training covers everything from pizza preparation to handling customer requests efficiently,” Bidiwala says. “The process is designed to be straightforward, with the pizzas baking in approximately 10 to 15 minutes, making it an ideal quick-service option for our customers.”
Brad Haga, Casey’s General Stores
But you’re still here, still learning to win. So is Fran Garcia, by the way. In fact, he has a new solo concept, Panko Pizza, that’s going strong in Middletown, New Jersey. “If you’re willing to friggin’ do it and break your ass and risk it all, go,” Garcia says. “Listen to no one. Go with your heart. But you should have a little bit of a road map and somebody you could call and ask questions to, because you could get hurt very bad.
“I’m blessed to be doing something that I love,” Garcia adds. “But, I mean, I have a lot of friggin’ headaches, man.”
Fischer’s pizzas include classics like pepperoni, sausage and cheese, plus specialty options and customizable mix-and-match toppings, giving customers plenty of flexibility for their orders.
Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor in chief. Charlie Pogacar is PMQ’s senior editor. Kevin McIntyre is the online editor for C-Store Decisions.
CASEY’S GENERAL STORES
Top 30 Pizza Chains BY UNIT & SALES GROWTH
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•
Boost Restaurant Sales with Instant Text Messaging
Cost-effective marketing with a 90 percent read rate.
The restaurant industry today is chaotic, so cutting through the noise is critical for driving customer engagement. One powerful tool gaining traction is text messaging, which boasts a staggering 90 percent read rate within just 10 minutes–compared to emails, which have an 18 percent open rate and are often ignored for days. “The urgency with text messaging is immediate,” says John Scully, CEO of PizzaCloud and Text.Food. “People read texts right away, whereas, with email, the response is much slower, if it happens at all.”
PizzaCloud, now partnered with nearly 2,000 restaurants, offers a full range of services, including text messaging, IP phone services, and cellular backup. For those not affiliated with the pizza industry or who don’t need these additional services, Text.Food is an ideal fit, as it focuses solely on text messaging for all restaurants.
The instant impact of text message marketing is driving more and more restaurants to adopt it as a tool for connecting with customers. “We saw tremendous success with our PizzaCloud service,” Scully says. “It inspired us to create Text.Food specifically for all restaurants. Our goal is to add 10,000 quick-service and fine-dining restaurants to our text messaging service over the next two years.”
Unlike many other platforms that charge steep prices based on message volume, Text.Food offers volume
discounts across chains, regardless of how many locations an owner manages. “Our pricing starts at 2.2 cents per message for small customers and drops to as low as one cent for large-scale users,” Scully says. This model benefits both small operators and larger chains, ensuring that everyone receives the best rate.
Automated campaigns are another valuable core feature of Text.Food, allowing restaurants to schedule texts based on slow times or special promotions. Some even send humorous, light-hearted messages rather than relying on promoting coupons and sacrificing profits. “One of our users sent a message reading, ‘Did you know it’s not a felony to eat pizza on Monday? Order now!’ These messages are fun and engaging, not overly salesy, and people respond to them just as well as coupon offers,” Scully says.
With Text.Food, flexibility is key to creating campaigns that match a brand’s voice, whether it’s advertising new menu items or encouraging customers to stop in on slower days.
Customer support is another strong suit where Text.Food excels. The platform offers a self-service portal, but for those who need assistance, their team is available 24/7 to help design the most effective campaigns. “We aim to offer the best of both worlds. Restaurants can manage everything on their own, or we can guide them through the process,” Scully says.
One of the significant advantages of Text.Food is the ease of setup. “Once the brand is registered a user can send their first campaign in minutes. We handle the annoying bit, getting the initial approval from the National Campaign Registry,” Scully says. This makes it an attractive option for busy restaurant operators seeking a simple, effective way to boost sales and engage customers.
With affordable pricing, flexible campaigns, and exceptional customer support, Text.Food is positioned to become a leader in text message marketing for restaurants. Whether you’re a small independent operator or part of a larger chain, this service can help increase revenue and customer satisfaction—all with a simple text.
Start increasing sales and visit Text.Food today.
IP Phone Service
Increase revenue and lower cost
• No Busy Signals
• Call Recording
• Call Queuing / Auto Answering
• Multiple (random) start of call upsell messages
• On hold music/message loops
• Detailed reports—hold times, lost calls etc
• Callerid delivered to POS system
• Auto attendants— ”If you have arrived for curbside pickup press one ”
Cellular Backup Internet
Protect against outages
• When your Internet fails our cellular backup router keeps your phones, credit card processing and web orders all working.
• The backup kicks in automatically in seconds. So quickly you will not even drop calls in progress when your primary Internet goes down!
• The same router can be used to create chain wide virtual private network to connect your locations.
• SD WAN LTE/LTE A (4G/5G) modems.
On the PBX
“Press one to receive a text message with links to our onlne ordering ”.
SMS Marketing
Manage bulk text message marketing from our system to drive increased revenue. As low as $0.01 per message. Group text messaging to communicate with your employees (drivers, bartenders, all staff etc).
DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE
ADOBE STOCK/ALEX
Little Italy Ristorante uses 7 savvy social media strategies to command online attention, create brand loyalty and drive sales.
BY TRACY MORIN | PHOTOS VIA LITTLE ITALY RISTORANTE
AVERY WARD, OWNER OF LITTLE ITALY RISTORANTE IN GROVEPORT, Ohio, knows that digital marketing doesn’t mean just one thing; it means a lot of things. In fact, you could say it means everything—at least when it comes to boosting the success of his pizza restaurant, situated in a town of less than 6,000.
Ward, who’s only 27 years old, knows his customers are living in the digital age, and he’s happy to meet them there. Whether using gamification in his loyalty program or creating avid engagement on Facebook through two-way storytelling, Ward prioritizes digital intelligence. Here are seven of his most successful strategies to keep business booming.
Mouthwatering food shots are ideal for posts on Instagram, where users want to connect through images.
1
Know who you are.
It’s impossible to create a cohesive digital marketing plan without first having a sense of your business’ personality and values. For example, Little Italy Ristorante, in addition to its brick-and-mortar business, operates a food truck and a full-service catering company. Ward knows it’s crucial to maintain a unified front across the board—all businesses, on all platforms. “From your website to the way you talk to customers, you need to be consistent with your branding,” he says. “Everything should tie in—your mission, vision statement, menus, in-store graphics and displays all need to speak the same language.”
2
You’re only as great as your people.
Avery knows it takes a dedicated team of people to pull off your efforts—and you can use digital marketing to attract them. Ward recently posted a TikTok video that showed him (wearing his eye-catching personal “uniform,” a shirt covered in cartoon pizza slices) asking his marketing guy to post a delivery driver ad right before he leaves for the day. The implication: that this off-the-cuff video was the result (complete with an AI-generated song that explicitly called out its AI origins). The video’s tongue-in-cheek humor attracted, as of press time, more than 176,000 views—but, more importantly, it reaped 31 driver applications.
You can also tap your staff members to develop or pursue their side passions. “So many 18- and 19-yearolds want to get TikTok famous now,” Ward says. “We have six employees in college studying digital marketing because they want to be in social media.” The takeaway: Don’t overlook the talent that’s inside your four walls— and don’t hesitate to make contact with local students who might want to assist in your digital marketing efforts.
3
Track customer behavior.
Whether he’s sending “win back” offers to loyalty members who haven’t visited in a while or messages meant to drum up business in the moment, Ward uses his POS and a dedicated marketing system (Toast and Dryver) to contact customers and gauge success. “We make an offer so good they’d feel stupid saying no to it,” Ward says. “We then track customer behavior and build a profile of them—see how often they visit, what time of day, what they order. So if we have a slow period at 2 to 4 p.m. on a Monday, we can see what customers have come in at that time and send them offers to drive traffic.” For all efforts attempted, through any channel, the Little Italy leadership team evaluates results, building scorecards to determine how effective a digital marketing effort is. They’ll look at, for example, how many people redeemed an offer and how much they spent.
4
Diversify your digital marketing.
Committing to multiple types of efforts will reap maximum benefits. “Our digital marketing occurs on several fronts,” Ward explains. “We have a website that uses video with a clear call to action, plus text messaging and email marketing. When people sign up for our loyalty program, they consent to us contacting them on Facebook Messenger, not just through text and email. And our program is gamified, where they earn points to unlock rewards.”
5 Use video to tell your story.
Ward’s vlog series on YouTube, called Slice of Life, began this year as a way to profile movers and shakers in the local community. He releases a new episode (six to 13 minutes long) every Wednesday and now uses them to detail his life as a young entrepreneur,
“Give people a story to follow, and they will. Yes, there will be haters, but you want to create that attention and buzz. Revenue follows attention.”
Avery Ward, Little Italy Ristorante
celebrate his team members and share stories adjacent to his business. For example, an episode over the summer that showed Ward visiting Pure Green Farms (“Where Our Salads Begin,” the title explained), has received nearly 2,000 views. Together, his first 30 episodes tallied 2.4 million.
“We have very good production, and the videos drive a lot of customer engagement and brand loyalty, because they’re following our story,” Ward says. “People want to get behind a mission and a product and cheer you on—so share your story and journey. I always hear from customers who say they watch our episodes every week, and that starts a conversation.”
Ward also uses an AI-driven program called OpusClip, which pulls out short-form video (perfect for TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts) from longer videos, based on what it thinks has the most viral potential. From every video filmed, Ward generates seven pieces of content: the original, four shorts, and two retargeting posts (for example, asking, “Did you catch last week’s episode?”).
6
Conform to the purpose of each social media platform.
Ward emphasizes that each social media platform has its own focus, and you want to make sure your content is catering to that. “People are on social media
to be social, not to get ads,” Ward says. “Your content should align with the purpose of the platform you’re using. Facebook was created to connect with friends, so its goal is to create conversations (engagement). TikTok is for mindless scrolling and funny videos. Instagram is to connect through photos.” And, if your content gets enough views, it’s more likely to be shown to more people—after all, Ward points out, every platform’s goal is to keep people on their website as long as possible. To capture an audience, start with an attention-grabbing hook—whether it’s something funny on TikTok or a post that asks questions on Facebook.
7
Start a conversation.
Similarly, you want to be sure your Facebook posts aren’t just advertising your menu, but getting customers talking. Ward encourages comments by asking for favorite memories of Mom and Dad on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, or posting trivia questions with gift cards for the correct answer. “The key is to be social back with them,” Ward adds. “Write back and say, ‘Thanks for your comment. We love this story, and we’d love to see your mom at the restaurant soon!’ Give people an opportunity to share their story, too.” Ward also loves pizza-themed contests, like showing a box with an invite to win a gift card by guessing the number of pepperoni slices inside.
The bottom line, Ward believes, is to start somewhere— anywhere. Establish who you are, take your story into the digital sphere and keep sharing what you’re about. “Give people a story to follow, and they will,” Ward says. “Yes, there will be haters, but you want to create that attention and buzz. Revenue follows attention.”
Tracy
Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
From Avery Ward’s pizza-slice “uniform” to uniform branding across his pizzeria’s efforts, Little Italy Ristorante solidifies its marketing message through consistency.
Nicholas Harper: A Matter of Trust
The owner of Peace of Pie On Hartwell is learning to let go and put more faith in his employees as he grows his South Carolina pizza business.
BY BRIAN HERNANDEZ
FROM JUST RECENTLY BEGINNING HIS PIZZA JOURNEY to competing in national and international competitions, Nicholas Harper, owner of Peace of Pie On Hartwell in Fair Play, South Carolina, has been doing, learning and even teaching some of what he has learned along the way—short as the journey has been so far. I sat down with Harper to discuss pizzeria staffing, robots and PMQ’s Pizza Power Forum.
Brian Hernandez: Tell us about your beginnings in pizza.
Nicholas Harper: I was the fourth owner of a pizzeria in this location and the third name change. I bought it in November 2020 and immediately shut it down. I took a class on New York and Neapolitan pizza at Pizza University & Culinary Arts Center in Beltsville,
Maryland, became a certified pizzaiolo, then reopened on January 8, 2021. I’d never made pizza before, so it was all new to me, but I took to it right away. A year later, the restaurant got flooded, so we rebuilt it bigger, better, stronger, and reopened in March 2022. That April, I won a Margherita Meats contest and went to the World Pizza Championship in Parma with the USPT. That was a huge turning point for us. The local paper did a huge piece about it. Since then, business has exploded.
Hernandez: To what do you attribute your success, since this location has seen some closures before?
Harper: Before me, all the pizzerias in this location used frozen dough. I decided right away [to use] fresh dough. At first, the dough was not great. It took about six
(Left to right) Peace of Pie On Hartwell offers locals and employees alike a fun, relaxing atmosphere, both inside and out; Nicholas Harper takes time away from his routine of singing and dancing to The Grateful Dead in the kitchen to strike a pose.
months to get a full grasp on it. And, looking back, it’s so awesome, because I had customers come up and say, “You’re figuring it out now, aren’t you? It’s getting better.”
Hernandez: What’s next for Peace of Pie?
Harper: The goal has always been to have multiple restaurants, whether that means franchising or opening multiple units myself. I’m still figuring that out. I’ve had opportunities to open another brick-and-mortar, but we just haven’t enough staff to do it. Attending PMQ’s Pizza Power Forum (PPF) in Atlanta made me realize that, in three and a half years, I haven’t been trusting my employees enough to let them take over the things that I’m in control of. I’ve worked open to close in the restaurant for most of the time we’ve been here. It used to be, if we went on vacation, we shut the restaurant down. I had been working on that trust issue on my own throughout this year leading up to the PPF, but listening to some of the panelists there made me realize: If you don’t give your team the opportunity to grow into the position that you need them to, the business is never going to grow into the position it needs to be in, either. I’m working on tidying up my policies so, if I’m not here, things still run the exact same way, day in and day out.
Hernandez: How do you take a step back and realize, “I’m the problem”?
Harper: Honestly, this is a brand-new realization from the PPF. There were two or three panels where it felt like there was no one else in the room and they were having a conversation with me. I always said, “I know I can do it right. I know I can do it the way I want to, so I want my hands on it.” But if my people cannot do it just as well as I can, that’s my fault, because I haven’t trained them to
be that good. So, it’s taking a hard look in the mirror and realizing, “I’m the one holding my people back by not letting them do what they already know how to do.”
The PPF also made me realize that we’re going to have to start looking at the possibility of using robotics, whether it’s a machine that helps me cut and roll dough or a dough press. That’s where we lose most of our time— hand tossing. The other day we did about 220 pies, the most we’ve ever done, I think, and it took everything we had to make those 220 pies. But that number is only limited by my ovens and staff issues. I have some new ovens coming that can hold four times as many pies. Now we just need extra hands.
Hernandez: You don’t see robots as taking jobs away from humans?
Harper: Nope, I see them as tools to help humans. The employees want them, too. If we have three people rolling a 55-pound bag of flour, it’s gonna take them an hour, but they won’t all roll the same. If I can make the job easier and get consistency and free them up for other things in the pizzeria, it just makes life easier.
In an expanded version of this Q&A, Nicholas Harper talks about his love for The Grateful Dead and his experience at the 2024 World Pizza Championship at PMQ.com/peace-of-pie.
For more information about the U.S. Pizza Team, its members and sponsors, visit USPizzaTeam.com.
In the true hippie spirit, the veggie-based Mother Nature’s Finest is a bestseller on the Peace of Pie menu.
The Grateful Daze Taproom is a groovy new addition to the “peaceful” landscape of Fair Play, South Carolina.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS OF THE 3RD ANNUAL GALBANI PROFESSIONALE PIZZA CUP!
The competition featured more than 50 competitors and $15,000 in prizes, including two trips to Italy to compete in the World Pizza Championship. Thank you to all of our team and event sponsors (below) for making this dream come true for some of the most talented pizza people in the industry.
THE WINNERS ARE:
NON-TRADITIONAL FINALS
(GALBANI CUP TRIP TO ITALY)
1. Patt Miller, Pizza Patt’s, New Vienna, OH - 1040.99
2. Sean Dempsey, Dempsey’s Brewery, Watertown, SD - 1010.28
NON-TRADITIONAL SEMI-FINALS
Table 1:
1. Sean Dempsey, Dempsey’s Brewery, Watertown, SD - 508.26
2. Rico Lunardi, Slice On Broadway, Pittsburgh, PA - 489.46
3. Alejandro Burgaleta, The Pizza Point Miami LLC, Miami, FL - 484.6
Table 2:
1. Patt Miller, Pizza Patt’s, New Vienna, OH - 521.46
2. John Walker, The Nona Slice House, Safety Harbor, FL - 515.07
3. Troy Sproul, Blue Square Pizza, Hopkinton, MA - 501.25
BEST CHEESE PIZZA FINALS
1. Enrico Aguila, Uncle Rico’s, Fort Myers, FL - 980.09
2. George Taylor, Taylors’ Pizza House, Endwell, NY - 873.76
FREESTYLE ACROBATICS
1. Michael Testa, The Jersey Pizza Boys, Avenel, NJ - 482.9
2. Travis Siebens, The Nona Slice House, Safety Harbor, FL - 473.7
3. Patt Miller, Pizza Patt’s, New Vienna, OH - 438.9
BEST CHEESE PIZZA (SEMI-FINALS)
Table 1:
1. George Taylor, Taylors’ Pizza House, Endwell, NY - 427.74
2. Dave Potter, Prohibition Pizza, High Springs, FL - 424.33
3. Rico Lunardi, Slice On Broadway, Pittsburgh, PA - 424.30
Table 2:
1. Enrico Aguila, Uncle Rico’s, Ft. Myers, FL - 515
2. Daniel Saccone, Saccone’s Pizza, Leander, TX - 461.55
3. Peter Carbonaro, Pizza a Modo Mio, Charleston, SC - 438.66
SECRET INGREDIENT
1. Jose Ahmed Flores, Crust Lover’s Pizza, Sanford, FL - 372.66
2. David Solum, Danger Von Dempsey’s ATY, Watertown, SD - 363.06
3. Jay Falk, Caliente’s Pizza & Draft House, Pittsburgh, PA - 359.74
LARGEST DOUGH STRETCH
1. Matt Hickey, Caliente’s Pizza & Draft House, Pittsburgh, PA - 32.625"
2. Jay Falk, Caliente’s Pizza & Draft House, Pittsburgh, PA - 30.25"
3. Perry Bogacz, Caliente’s Pizza & Draft House, Pittsburgh, PA - 29.625"
FASTEST PIE MAKER
1. David Whisker, BC Pizza, Boyne City, MI - 49 seconds
2. Patt Miller, Pizza Patt’s, New Vienna, OH - 51 seconds
3. Jay Falk, Caliente’s Pizza & Draft House, Pittsburgh, PA - 59 seconds
FASTEST BOX FOLDER
1. Justin Adams, Wawa’s, Easton, PA - 21.4 seconds
2. David Whisker, BC Pizza, Boyne City, MI - 26.37 seconds
3. Sean Dempsey, Dempsey's Brewery, Watertown, SD - 34.93 seconds
For more information about the Galbani Professionale Pizza Cup or the U.S. Pizza Team, contact Brian Hernandez at bhernandez@wtwhmedia.com.
Non-traditional winner
Patt Miller
Freestyle Acrobatics winner Michael Testa
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(Clockwise from left) Jim Mackin, LaVaughn Frame, and Ted and Tim Volikas celebrate 50 years of Pinocchio’s; Ted greets a costumed Pinocchio in 1978; three generations of family–Tim, Tom, Ted and Tom’s wife, Athena Volikas—have carried on the Pinocchio’s tradition; Ted (5th from right) poses with employees in the 1980s.
Pinocchio’s Restaurant
Tom Volikas, an immigrant from Greece, liked to tell people he “came over on the Mayflower with $5.” As a chef, he dreamed of owning his own restaurant and seized the opportunity in 1965 when Pinocchio’s Restaurant in Media, Pennsylvania, went up for sale. The business was already 10 years old, but Tom—and later his son, Ted, who took over in the 1970s—would revolutionize it. Today, Ted’s kids, Athena (named after her grandma) and Tim, are carrying on the legacy in its third generation (with Tim’s daughter, at only eight, already folding boxes and playing hostess).
“When he bought it, this place had one pizza peel,” Tim recalls of his grandfather’s humble beginnings. “As a trained chef, he tweaked the recipes and made everything a lot better—the sauce, the dough, he did it all. It was a family affair back then, with his wife, brother-in-law and three kids.”
Fortunately, the innovations never stopped. “We were the first in the area to offer delivery, in 1978,” Athena adds. “My father brought stromboli to the area, and he brought in tacos, back in the day. People would ask, ‘What’s a tay-co?’ and he’d have to explain it to them.”
BY TRACY MORIN
STATE O F PENNSYLVAN I
ATEOFPENNS YLVANIA
Athena credits Tim for building the outside deck that expanded on the 120-seat interior, then in the COVID pandemic buying a 1955 Ford Vanette (dubbed Pinocchio’s Pizza & Beer Van) for events. He also created the Beer Garden to Go, a retail bottle shop beside the dining room that has won awards for its selection of more than 1,000 different beers that customers can mix and match.
The business, celebrating 70 years in 2025, also cherishes its role as part of the community fabric. In Media, a small town outside Philadelphia, Pinocchio’s has been honored as best family business by the chamber of commerce, while multiple employees have stayed loyal for 30 and 40 years. Customers, too, are reaching their third and fourth generations, with the youngest visitors receiving dough to play with during meals. “Basically, anything that comes across my desk to support the community, we do it,” Athena says. “We get a lot of word-of-mouth, so it’s about maintaining the customer base we have. It’s amazing to me that people have been coming here longer than I’ve been alive!”
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
Joey Todaro, III, Wing King