Operations
Mattenga’s Pizzeria grows to 6 units with tight operations
Mattenga's is a six-unit brand in Texas. It opened four units last year alone, and co-owner Hengam Stanfield credits her managers for running tight ships when it comes to operations.
July 7, 2023 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group
Hengam Stanfield co-founded the brand with her husband, Matthew, whom she met in college. Matthew, a civil engineer by trade and Stanfield, an electric engineer, had people at their house all the time and would make fresh food for her guests like pasta and homemade cookies.
Once they got out of college and started working, the couple realized they wanted to build a life and have children. "We just felt like staring at a computer all day — which is what our jobs mostly involved — was not really the dream job we wanted to have," Stanfield said. "We really wanted to be in business for ourselves and we loved food and we thought 'Why don't we open a restaurant?'"
"We both had never worked a day at a restaurant before in any capacity. So it was not a very smart move."
The couple sold their house in New Mexico and took their two toddlers to Schertz, Texas, where they bought a failing pizzeria in 2014. Stanfield admits she'd never even cut a pizza before, and said the broker made the business sound like a cash cow. The Stanfields didn't even know how to read a P and L statement.
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Mattenga's Margherita pizza. Provided. |
Within two weeks, the Stanfields were left with no staff, and learned the restaurant was not as profitable as the broker made it sound. In fact, it was operating about $200,000 below the break-even point.
Was turning the pizzeria around hard work? Absolutely, and the Stanfields began learning as they went, working 120-hour weeks and spending time in the community telling everyone they could about the new change in guard. Every day for years — and still to this day — they took food out to businesses, churches and schools.
"It's far easier food-cost wise than it is to spend money on ads, which we do now of course. But that's what we did. The city council, the chamber of commerce — we would drop food off and we were there when they had events," Stanfield said. "That's how we got known in the community, buy being out there and being visible."
A second store opened in San Antonio in 2018 in a failed pizzeria in a neighborhood. How did the Stanfields know they were ready to open a second store? Stanfield said "you're never ready for what you don't know, so you do your best to be as ready as you can." She said to move forward and do the best you can without being crippled by fear because expansion is difficult. Going from one location to two boils down to systems and people, she added.
Indeed, Mattenga's opened four restaurants last year alone. Now with four children, it was always the Stanfield's vision to have people run the stores, while they managed the managers remotely and leveraged automation. They created video training for their employees to set new hires up for success.
Operations
Today, Mattenga's has six fast-casual restaurants, opening four last year alone. Yes, the food is the same, but the strategies are different at each location. At their second location, the strategy was to focus on the dinner daypart, as it in a dense neighborhood. Lunch was successful at their first pizzeria because it was near an industrial park packed with businesses.
The pizzerias offer delivery, and most is done in-house, but they also leverage some third-party delivery programs as well. "Ultimately in a restaurant, the way you market your restaurant, it's very different when you market your delivery service or enhance the operations of the dine-in experience or the takeout experience," Stanfield added. "Each of those customers, their priorities are different. What matters to them is different, and so you really need to be strategic and have a deep understanding of who you serve in each of those categories to have them go well."
The brand doesn't use a commissary and instead makes as much as it can in house. What are employees doing if they're not running prep, Stanfield questioned. The restaurants hire many young people, and investing in youth is part of their core values. "I want them to learn to slice onions. We want them to learn how to make dough or how to roast ground beef," Stanfield said. "That is part of who we are as a company."
A protein crust is also made on site out of ground chicken breast meat, vinaigrettes and a Texas Ranch dressing are made by hand and meats are roasted in house. "Ultimately, you have to know why people choose a restaurant versus another," Stanfield said, adding that making so much on site helps Mattenga's stand out in a crowded field. "We serve people food, and if you don't love food and you don't love good food, what are we doing here? Being able to come up with combinations of dishes and food or pizza toppings as a way of serving your guests — I think there's just nothing like it."
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Mattenga's brisket pizza. Provided. |
Working at a pizzeria is a skillset employees will hang on to forever, she added. The brand employs around 100 people.
The menu also helps the brand success, and they do a lot of marketing in-house as well.
Some 80% of sales is pizza based, and the brand uses conveyor ovens for speed and accuracy. Popular offerings are the Mattenga's Santa Fe Pizza featuring pepperoni, bacon, Hatch green chilies (harvested from Hatch, New Mexico), red pizza sauce and premium 100% mozzarella cheese, and the Big Matt, which is loaded with creamy beer cheese, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, onions, ground beef, bacon, pickle relish and topped with thousand islands dressing. The cleverly named Call a Tow Truck I Hit a Pothole Pizza is topped with Italian sausage, cup-and-char pepperoni, red roasted bell peppers and ricotta cheese and is topped with hot honey.
Stanfield said residents want to support local businesses. "In our community, people appreciate seeing the hustle of the small business owner," Stanfield said. "They're not expecting commercials that look similar to Domino's or any other chain restaurant. People like to see the hustle. It's scrappy. It just shows people want to get behind that."
To maintain continuity across Mattenga's six restaurants, there's a site inspection routine in place where Matt Stanfield visits each of the units. He checks for prep, food quality and consistency. Using an app, the scores are visible to managers so there's accountability between them. Cleanliness is also assessed and they meet weekly with their managers.
Stanfield said they plan to open two or three pizzerias this year. "What I say is one restaurant is hard. So is two, so is five," Stanfield said. "Go big or go home."
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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