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Letting go, learning, leading: Pizza execs look back at a harrowing year

It was a year of excruciating decisions, uncontrollable conditions and lots and lots of leaps -- if not catapult-rides -- of faith in the pizza business. Here, some of the pizza restaurant business's leaders go "on-the-record" about the toughest moments of 2020.

Photo: iStock

January 7, 2021 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

The restaurant tragedies of the last year are written all over the nation's landscape in the darkened and boarded-up storefronts of what at last count was approximately 120,000 restaurants. Aside from the unestimated and still accruing toll these losses have incurred on business owners and employees, are the ripple effects of all the collateral damage to surrounding communities and the many patrons who depended on these places for a source of connection.

"For the first time in 16 years, we were losing money."

-Elliot Schiffer

Though some would say pizza purveyors — as a food category — have fared better than most overall, there are still many pizza brands among the list of casualties. While the Denver-based pizza chain, Mici Handcrafted has fared relatively well as a company overall, the now five-store brand did suffer a particularly painful closure this pandemic-stricken year, according to the brand's partner and CEO, Elliot Schiffer, who told Pizza Marketplace the closure of its original founding store in downtown Denver this year had to be the hardest lesson learned over a year of hard lessons.

Schiffer (provided)

"The location was 16 years old — it gave us our start," Schiffer said in an interview with Pizza Marketplace. "We had our first employee still working at the location after 16 years.

"For a few months after offices were shut down, we held on to the location thinking that we could turn it around despite a 50% reduction to our sales. For the first time in 16 years we were losing money. We finally made the decision to close it in September and were sad to say goodbye. In hindsight, we should have moved quickly on this decision. We are a nostalgic group and we are fiercely loyal to our team. But in the end, it was the right thing to do for our brand."

Schiffer provided a tough answer to a tough question about the most painful losses of the year. But surely so many restaurateurs reading this relate to the pain evident in Schiffer's words. Some of the other "hardest lessons learned" we were informed of were more general in nature, with many having to do with the overall sense of loss of control that many leaders have felt over the past year.

"A hard lesson we learned is that not everything can be within our control. We're a large brand with locations in over 50 counties throughout the state of California, so staying up to speed was difficult, but not impossible! Every single day our Franchise Support Center stayed updated on which counties were open and what each location was permitted to do," Mountain Mike's President and COO Jim Metevier said.

At Annapalis, Maryland-based, Ledo Pizza President Jamie Beall also was tested by the rapid rate of change as the pandemic has ebbed and flowed since last March. In fact, that constant transition changed his very definition of a typical day in the pizza business.

Riva (provided)

"The hardest lesson to learn this past year was that in the face of quickly changing market conditions, I needed to let go of some of my traditional views of "normal" that I have held for the past 30 years," he told us.

That may be why Pizza Factory President and CEO Mary Jane Riva boiled her top three lessons of the year down to a very tight, but impactful list.

"Stay calm, be flexible, and always be transparent," she told us were her biggest take-homes from the year that was.

In the midst of all that practiced "calm amidst the storm," brands did some pretty dramatic things to adapt. For instance, at the renowned and longtime pizza buffet brand, Pizza Inn, leadership knew they'd have to bend and bend fairly dramatically.

"The past year was all about working to be quick and nimble in a game where no one had the playbook," Brandon Solano, CEO of Pizza Inn's parent company, Rave Restaurant Group told us. "We had written a playbook and we had to throw it out and make the best decisions we could given our limited resources and difficult circumstances.

"At Pizza Inn, guests have always enjoyed dining at our buffet for the quality and variety of options, along with a great value. But, that in-dining experience wasn't something we could offer, so we had to let go of the ideas we held of our 60 year-old-brand and reinvent that experience for guests living through a pandemic. When we were creating the Contactless Buffet To Go … we held on to our brand pillars and adapted to the current environment and successfully managed to offer the same value and variety in a safe and responsible way."

As Solano indicated however, as hard as some lessons have been to learn for many pizza brands — financially and otherwise — most of them have been extremely good at driving home keys to future business success.

"I needed to let go of some of my traditional views of 'normal' that I have held for the past 30 years."

-Jamie Beall

Libardi (provided)

That was certainly the case for Marco's Pizza, where President and COO Tony Libardi helped guide the brand to its 1000th store opening, along with record-breaking sales during 2020. Those successes have, in turn, affirmed when the brand was moving in the right direction, helping to solidify the commitment along the same path moving forward.

For Marco's, the first two tenets of success gleaned from the past year, include the brand's leadership's renewed commitment to lead with a people-first mentality, while also using the brand's so-called culture to guide decision-making going forward.

But the third and equally important forward-focused quality was that oft-cited "P" word — the pivot.

"Pivot and plan ahead, always," he said. "The pandemic has forced leaders to be aggressive vs. conservative when it comes to innovation. By assembling a task force committed to the future, you'll always have one step ahead – whether that's the use of new technology, AI, robotics, social distance-friendly models, etc. By bringing a team together, you're prioritizing the value of not only preparing for the future, but acting on it sooner. Leaders must have the courage to stop doing what used to work and move into unchartered territory to find long-term success."

DiMeo (provided)

Certainly that idea of taking the leap of faith more readily was one shared across the leaders we talked to as among the most valuable lessons of the year. In fact, at the East Coast brands, Squisito Pizza & Pasta, as well as sister brand, Squisito Too, President and COO Michele DiMeo said that was underlined for the brand's approach to trying new tech and staying at the forefront when it comes to that area of restaurant innovation.

But aside from the increased compulsion to stay on that breaking edge, DiMeo also said 2020 left her and other leaders at her company committed to something as old and familiar to restaurateurs as the food itself — the need for community.

"We learned and confirmed at Squisito that our philosophy to support our local community is the lifeline to our success," DiMeo said. "Communities support local! Take care of your guests and they take care of you.

"When we fast-forward 30 years, Squisito will continue to be a neighborhood/community staple ...We stuck together, stayed on top of things as they changed daily, supported our communities and staff and because of this, 2020 has allowed us to grow our brand

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.

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For over 45 years, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, a leading family-style pizza chain known for its legendary crispy, curly pepperonis and Mountain-sized pizzas, has been quietly building one of the largest regional pizza franchises in the West. Today we're developing coast-to-coast with 300+ restaurants, and we're primed for explosive growth nationwide

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