1-on-1 with Pizza Leadership

Marco's COO relays many ways brand is 'growing' on pizza-eaters

With 42 years of feeding pizza to the masses under its belt, Marco's Pizza is really just hitting its stride.

Marco's Pizza founder, Pasquale "Pat" Giammarco, tosses some dough in the kitchen of the brand's 1000th store, which opened in Kissimmee, Florida in October. (Photo provided)

November 11, 2020 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

The road to redeeming brand potential can be long, as many of the old-timers at Toledo, Ohio-based Marco's Pizza would surely admit. After all, The New York Times caught the brand's CEO Jack Butoracon the record in 2002 explaining the potential he saw in Marco's.

Of course, that potential also was a primary reason, Butorac began to lead the brand 16 years ago and hasn't let up since. Back then, he was set on remedying what he told Pizza Marketplaceseveral years ago was Marco's primary weakness — an indistinct brand.

Clearly, Butorac has tackled that problem, considering that the chain opened its 1,000th store last month in Florida.

Marco's Pizza President and COO Tony Libardi. (Photo: Marco's)

That growth is now becoming a central — but not sole focus — of the 42-year-old company, according to Marco's President and COO Tony Libardi.

In fact, thus far this year, Marco's has already opened well above 50 stores and is on track to open a total of 80 by year's end. Similarly, Libardi said Marco's has another nearly 90 stores in the development pipeline, indicating brand leadership has not begun to think about slowing its pace.

And if the results of an especially tough year are any proof, Marco's is getting nothing but green lights on its gallop forward. This year alone, it's turned record-breaking sales and even dipped its toe into innovative initiatives like robotic and virtual kitchens and smaller, prefabricated so-called "podular units."

In an effort at learning a bit more about how the year has sliced up and how Marco's will roll into the new year, we recently spoke with Libardi for more details.

Q: How has Marco's fared through the rigors of the pandemic sales-wise?

A: Marco's was uniquely positioned to succeed amid the pandemic due to its delivery and carryout model. By adapting and innovating operations to allow for contact-free delivery and curbside pickup, we have been fortunate enough to safely remain open and operating as an essential business to serve our communities nationwide. As a result, we've been experiencing consistent sales increases with Q3 same-store sales up more than 24% with some DMAs experiencing even greater growth.

As a restaurant leader, what has been your biggest takeaway from this rough-and-tumble year?

Throughout the pandemic, we relied heavily on our core values and cultural beliefs to guide our decision-making. For us, it was the importance of rallying around Marco's most important cultural belief — people first.

We focused on our key priorities during this COVID-19 pandemic: people, business and community health. By maintaining our focus on these three things, we were able to pivot and change quickly our policies, our operations, our marketing, and even our future path.

I truly believe the best leaders use culture to drive unprecedented results. And, throughout this pandemic, we've seen Marco's outperforming other QSRs and recording historic sales milestones. This has allowed us to achieve our highest potential while helping others and the communities we serve.

Q: I understand that you recommend that all restaurant brands take some actions now to move more nimbly going forward, including forming an in-brand task force. How has that helped Marco's?

A:The pandemic has forced leaders to be aggressive vs. conservative when it comes to innovation. By assembling a task force committed to your business 2.0, you'll always have one step into the future — 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.

Our leadership team meets daily to discuss trends and adjustments we need to make to stay ahead of changes in consumer behavior and government orders. At the end of the day, it is all about pivoting and planning ahead. Leaders must have the courage to stop doing what used to work and move into unchartered territory. Brands that are able to stay ahead and revolutionize the new era of restaurants will be the ones to emerge stronger than before.

Q: What has the brand done thus far to accommodate the needs of ever-more-numerous off-site customers that you weren't doing before the pandemic?

A: When the pandemic struck, we accelerated our innovation efforts to quickly and strategically engineer contact-free delivery and curbside carryout. These services allowed us to keep both our team members and customers safe.

We're now in the process of piloting, testing and implementing several technologies including SMS, beacons and more to make contact-free delivery and curbside carryout services more automated.

In addition, we accelerated the adoption of third-party delivery platforms in our stores and are looking to simplify this integration even more in the coming months. We have national partnerships with Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates and, most recently, Waitr/Bite Squad. In fact, since COVID-19 restrictions began (mid-March), Marco's has seen a 140% increase in net sales with third-party apps.

In this new COVID-19 world, "contact-free" is here to stay and those that are able to innovate, adapt, and take this operation to the next level will be the ones to succeed.

Q: Marco's is now also delving into ghost kitchens, right?
A: We're piloting and testing virtual kitchen concepts across the country. It is a new initiative for us that allows franchisees a much smaller investment, and we're learning a lot from these pilots. Marco's Pizza will continue to be at the forefront of answering demand. With these virtual kitchens, we can reach a very specific consumer base.

What about restaurant tech in general, including elements like robotics and AI, at Marco's?

We're currently meeting with various manufacturers and testing robotic kitchen technologies. The goal is to understand the business benefits like minimizing errors while maximizing output and efficiency — all without compromising our pizza quality or craftmanship. The primary benefit of utilizing this form of technology is speed — lowering delivery times and maximizing high-volume opportunity.

Q: Lastly, thus far you've already opened more than 50 stores this year with as many as 80 expected over the 365 days of 2020, including your recently opened 1,000th location. Likewise, you've got nearly 90 in the pipeline, so clearly, ultra-aggressive growth is a huge imperative, but why?

A:Our ability to remain committed to growth lies in our brand's resiliency and ability to rise above the circumstances. We've had our fair share of overcoming obstacles over the years — including franchise growth during the recession (and) pulling off the grand opening of our 900th location in Puerto Rico in the midst of Hurricane Maria, to now — a global pandemic.

But it has been our ability to identify the obstacle, be agile, eliminate failure as an option and remain focused on the vision that has led to our success (that) our team is able to redirect their energies to a higher purpose and know the work they do each day is making a positive difference toward that vision.

About S.A. Whitehead

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.