Operations

Emmy Squared’s new pizzas a love letter to local communities

Emmy Squared Pizza ditched the traditional corporate menu model by empowering local general managers to develop and launch custom, regionally-inspired recipes that celebrate the unique flavors and cultures of the diverse communities they serve.

Photo: Willie Lawless/ Networld Media Group

January 22, 2026 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

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In a move away from the "one-size-fits-all" corporate model, Emmy Squared Pizza recently handed the creative reins to its local teams through a new regional menu initiative for the month of January.

Kevin Stoeffler, the brand's director of culinary, said the campaign was born from an internal dialogue with general managers who live and work in the diverse communities the restaurant serves.

By empowering these local leaders to pitch and develop their own recipes — ranging from a Miami-inspired "Miracle Mile" pie to Nashville's "Sweet Melissa" — the 30-unit chain aimed to maintain its "mom-and-pop" spirit while competing with neighborhood pizzerias.

This collaborative approach not only highlighted regional flavors and cultures but has also significantly boosted staff morale by ensuring that those building the pizzas in the kitchen are the same ones defining the brand's local identity.

The regional pizzas included:

The Mambo Crispy Chicken Pie featured fried chicken, Mambo sauce and scallions.
In Nashville, Louisville and Birmingham, The Sweet Melissa is inspired by a "meat and three" concept, the pizza brings together grass-fed beef, American cheese, Sammy Sauce, greens, pickles and whiskey bacon jam.

In Charlotte, Virginia and Atlanta, DJ's Southern Pizza combines BBQ chicken, gouda, barbecue sauce and red onions.
In Philadelphia, Min, Don't Be a Jerk tops the crust with jerk chicken, red onion, bell peppers, miso green ranch and green onions.
In Miami, The Miracle Mile Pie stacks black forest ham, mojo pork, yellow mustard, cilantro and pickles.
In Las Vegas, The High Roller delivers steak, gouda, caramelized onions, parsley pesto and thyme.

We reached out to Stoeffler via a phone interview to learn more about the unique program and what it meant for it staff.

Q: This initiative moves away from the one-size-fits-all corporate menu model. What was the internal light-bulb moment that led the brand to hand creative control over to local employees?

Stoeffler: We were having a conversation, an internal dialogue, with our general managers who live in these communities. They work in these communities. They're representative of these communities. And honestly, they have some really good ideas for some local pizzas. So, we were able to capitalize on their thoughts, their emotions about being in that community and then representing something for the community that they work and live and they are a part of.

Q: In the restaurant industry consistency is usually king. How did you balance maintaining the Emmy Squared brand with the total creative freedom given to these local teams?

Stoeffler: That's where the operational services piece kicks in. We've got these different pockets of general managers, and they're based in their regions and they all had really, really great ideas. And it's kind of my job to make sure that they execute it at a high level and standards.

We were thinking about the menus and the ideas and for this promotion. They came up with some great pizzas and then it was my job to make sure that they could execute them by the region to Emmy Squared's standards.

Photo: Willie Lawless/ Networld Media Group

Q: Walk me through the submission process your managers went through while coming up with their pizza ideas.

Stoeffler: We did it collaboratively. The GMs would submit their pizzas, and then I would workshop them. We don't have an R&D facility, so when we do R&D, we're in stores and we try to make it as close to what is actually going to happen.

So, we've got to make it operationally relevant, but also really cool and special, like our regional director in New York, when he came up with that Thyme Squared pizza, he really bought into it. And those are people actually building and making these pizzas in the restaurant. Then we'll work on operational techniques on how we execute that to volume.

Q: Were there any local ingredients that were particularly challenging to adapt to the Detroit-style steel pans that you guys use?

Stoeffler: Actually, no — and this is really cool — is that Detroit-style base that we use is the perfect canvas to paint different flavors. So, you have a base pizza and then we can add complexity and cool local things to that pizza.

We get really excited — at least I do — I get really, really excited about adding that complexity to our pizzas. The Miami pizza, the Miracle Mile pie that we're doing — when we opened Miami, I was there and I absolutely fell in love with that cuisine. And I wanted to make it real and very authentic to what is actually going on in Miami. So, we worked with the general manager there and it was just kind of based on some of the same taste profiles that I had (in Miami) to come up with some of those pizzas.

Q: Beyond the pizza itself, how did this initiative impact staff morale and the culture within the individual restaurant kitchens? Was it kind of a competitive spirit?

Stoeffler:It was more collaborative, I really think, because we had April Harris in D.C., you had a couple of different people add to the collaborative spirit on that. We finish that pizza with green onions and that green onion was a callback to the kind of the Mambo sauce that's going on in D.C. and how that had its roots in Black culture in and also in what the Chinese takeout restaurants there that would put those green onions on top of their dishes.

Q: Emmy Squared Pizza started as a mom-and-pop operation but has grown to 30 stores. How do you keep it feeling like an independent in each of the communities it serves?

Stoeffler:We started as a mom-and-pop 2016 and then grew from there. That kind of entrepreneurial spirit stays with us. I do a lot of openings for the company, too, and when we go into the communities, we get to know our neighbors. We do small little pizza drops to our neighbors, get to understand what the boutique across the street is about, what the restaurant next door – what they're about. And we try to be part of that community and I think that's one of our keys to our success.

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.

An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.

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