Operations

How Burattino Brick Oven Pizza is redefining the concept of neighborhood pizzerias

Burattino Brick Oven Pizza has three locations and has become a destination location for diners in L.A. and Toronto. The neighborhood pizzeria doesn't have foot traffic but has become a high-volume brand through word of mouth and social media.

Provided by Burattino Brick Oven Pizza.

September 26, 2023 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

When it comes to pizza brands, you've got to stand up and stand out to be noticed. What started as a single unit in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, has grown to three high-grossing units in the U.S. and Canada. Today, Burattino Brick Oven Pizza has a firm foundation to back up its recent growth.

Emil Chiaberi and Chef Lee Kim have opened two units in the L.A. area in Rancho Palos Verdes and Carson, California, and one in Toronto. The destination brand has customers traveling some distance to get to their favorite Burattino. But it's the brand's streamlined business model that makes it truly a standout.

Emil Chiaberi founded Burattino Brick Oven Pizza in the L.A. area. Provided by Burattino Brick Oven Pizza

Chiaberi said in a phone interview with Pizza Marketplace that he first learned about a pizzeria that was about to close from his housekeeper, whose husband, Lee Kim, a chef, worked there and was about to lose his job. On impulse, Chiaberi decided to step in and buy the place as an investment. The pizza itself was great, Chiaberi said, but the place was a hole in the wall and needed some TLC.

Chiaberi made a couple of minor tweaks to the pizzeria and that's how it went for a couple of years, pretty much breaking even. Chiaberi's wife told her husband to really step into the company if he was going to own it. It was time for a rebrand, a refresh and a rebirth.

Thus, Burattino Brick Oven Pizza was born in 2016.

"I loved food, and most importantly in this case I'm a people person," Chiaberi said. "I actually enjoy people, and I do love making people happy."

Chiaberi, a marketer by trade, handled the marketing and upgraded the menu. He said he had had no experience with social media and had to learn as he went, but he had fun with it. Revenue increased 750% as a result.

An interesting model emerged. They kept the pizzeria's original location in a L.A. suburb, which doesn't have foot traffic. People must drive to get there.

"We became one of the most famous places in L.A.," Chiaberi said, with social media contact reaching more than 60 million people a month. "People obviously love what we do and they love the vibe inside the place. Basically, I built the whole thing with just a thought."

Once word got out that Burattino had great food in a fun atmosphere, Chiaberi said customers started driving and flying in from all over the place. Often they don't even charge, say, someone who flew in from Arizona to try the pizza.

"We're a neighborhood pizzeria," Chiaberi said. "We really bring gourmet experiences in a very accessible and affordable way. You will find things that you'd normally find in a five-star restaurant, like wild boar pepperoni or sausage or black garlic sauce. … but we're blue collar. That's who we service. We're not a fancy place. It's not intimidating … but it costs just like your neighborhood pizzeria."

To keep up with demand that resulted in two- to three-hour lines, the brand opened a second California location about 15 miles away in Carson, California, in 2022 to give the first restaurant some breathing room. A friend of Chiaberi's later opened a third Burattino location in Toronto.

On the menu

What you won't find are coupons or deals at Burattino. The food here stands on its own.

A second Marsal deck oven was added to the kitchens to help with output. "It takes TLC because you have to rotate (the pizzas) inside the oven," Chiaberi said, "and we have thin crust, so the way it's done, it requires some technical know-how, and also constantly watching it. … It's a more complex operation than a conveyor."

It takes a week to train a new pizzaiolo, and Chiaberi calls Kim a "dough whisperer," adding that operating the ovens and handling the dough is Kim's domain. Kim's passion is handed off to those he's training.

Pepperoni is the brand's top seller, like many other pizzerias. Black garlic pizza is also a favorite — topped with pepperoni or sausage and a black garlic sauce. The Meat Lovers is popular, as is the Hawaiian Barbecue Pork topped with roasted pork, ham and pineapple.

With the latter, the company roasts the pork in the brick oven for six hours to ready it for pizzas. They buy fresh, local, never-frozen chicken and try to source as much as they can locally, including chorizo and bacon. It's better for the environment and helps build local relationships.

Each location makes its own dough, roasts its meats and makes its own sauces, like the white garlic and black garlic sauces.

"It has to be absolutely the best. That's the baseline," Chiaberi said. "Ingredients are everything. You can make a crappy pizza with great ingredients, but you cannot make a great pizza with crappy ingredients. It doesn't work that way."

Though the brand sells wings, meatballs and salads as well, nearly 100% of sales is pizza-based.

The dough is time sensitive, so they can't sell take-and-bake pizzas or ship. Pizzas are baked at 600 degrees.

Chiaberi said quality and the brand's recipes set it apart from the bevy of competition in the L.A. area. One of his goals when he began marketing the brand was to educate customers that Burattino is not a commodity product.

"We wanted to step out of that category because pizza is a commodity product, for the most part," Chiaberi said. "We wanted to really create something unique. Our crust, I believe, is pretty unique. Our recipes are different, and the vibe is different. It's very genuine."

Burattino Brick Oven Pizza offers pizza, salad and wings. Photos provided by Burattino Brick Oven Pizza.

Operations

Chiaberi said the brand's biggest challenge has been maintaining its recipes and feel as it expands. While other restaurants struggle with recruitment and retention, Burattino doesn't have issues finding or keeping good employees.

"We have a different way of treating employees," Chiaberi said. "Some have moved on to other careers because they were going to school when they worked with us. … Sometimes when we were in a crunch, we would call them and they would come in for a shift just to help out and hang out with old friends."

Burattino used to offer delivery via third-party, and although the brand was a top customer for Grubhub, the delivery services were taking 30% of sales and the brand was making very little profit. With other deliveries to be made along the same route, quality control was difficult. The brand is dine-in or carryout only now.

"Our volume dropped a little bit, but not by much, surprisingly," Chiaberi said, "and we don't do deliveries anymore at all."

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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