Operations

Organ Stop Pizza one of last 'pizza and pipes' concepts

In the 1970s and 80s, pizza and pipe organ restaurants were popular. Now there are only two left in the U.S. and Organ Stop Pizza has a mighty organ that's ready to help the restaurant sell pizza.

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July 15, 2022 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

Most pizza concepts look for a niche that makes it stand out in a crowded field. Organ Stop Pizza has one already built in – the largest and most valuable theater organ in the world, estimated at more than $6 million. Together with the brand's signature pizza, it's one of only two remaining "pizza and pipes" restaurants in the U.S.

Pizza and pipes concepts were popular in the 1970s and 80s, said Organ Stop co-owner Jack Barz. Organ Stop Pizza was born in 1972. Barz began his career as a dishwasher in 1985 before rising through the ranks and eventually buying the restaurant in 2004. He holds a degree in hotel and restaurant management.

On the Menu

Organ Stop is a counter service concept with a medium crust that sits somewhere between thin and thick crust.

"It's a crust that's very crispy on the bottom," Barz said. "We get a nice, crispy brown to it but it's actually soft and doughy in the center. … It's a little bit different from places that are one or the other."

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There's a salad bar, a handful of plated dinners, some sandwiches and some appetizers, but you won't find chicken wings on the menu. The restaurant isn't vented for a fryer and there's no room for one in the kitchen anyway. They use a small air fryer for some appetizers.

The bestselling pizza is the Combination, which features cheese, pepperoni, sausage, ham, beef, bacon, mushroom, black olive, green pepper and onion. For snow birds who winter in Arizona, Barz said the Hawaiian, with cheese, ham and pineapple, is a seasonal favorite.

"We're very cyclical in the winter months," Barz said. "We've got a lot of older retiree winter visitors who come down from other parts of the country, and they're big fans of the Hawaiian."

Organ Stop Pizza has a beer and wine license. The brand uses a Middleby Marshall conveyor oven that can push out 200 pizzas an hour.

Challenges

Right now, staffing remains a challenge for Organ Stop Pizza like many other restaurants in the country. "Now, it's more finding the people but during normal times, it's trying to develop them to a manner in which we want them to be. Our goal is definitely customer service, and so it's pretty easy to find people to do the work, but my biggest thing is I want to find people who are having fun while they're doing it and make all our guests feel welcome," Barz said.

To hire, Organ Stop uses social media and friends of current workers, using incentives to get employees to recommend their friends and family to come work for the pizzeria. When employees do get people in, they get a higher sign-on bonus as well.

"It was a brutal winter trying to get staff," Barz said. "Going into the slower months I'm actually a little over-staffed until it starts picking up again with people traveling during the summer. Right now, I'm actually sitting pretty good. It's nice to have some breathing room in my schedule."

The biggest lesson Barz has learned is "having patience and going with the flow," he said. He's realized, especially in the last two years, that he can't control everything and the business requires adaptation.

Back in the 1970s there were three Organ Stop Pizzas, but the concept has since been whittled down to the original. "It's not that we don't want to (open another store). It's very capital intensive to get the instrument as well as finding more people to play it and maintain it," Barz said.

So, about that organ…

The Mighty Wurlitzer, as it's called, was originally built for the Denver Theatre in 1927, where it was played until the 1930s. It sat in storage after the advent of the talking picture and the Great Depression, and was damaged in a fire in the auditorium.

Organ Stop purchased it in the 1970s at a fifth of the size it is now and rebuilt it. Since then, the organ has been embellished from its original state with the addition of several sets of rare pipes, including a massive set of 32-foot wood diaphones. They're visible from the front of the building.

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"It's truly the foundation of the restaurant," Barz said. "The pipe organ is the restaurant. It's what we were started on. It's what we're known for. I like to really think of us as an entertainment facility that sells pizza to make money.

"People come in from all over the country, all over the state to hear this pipe organ because it's basically the biggest and best out there.

Each night, the organ rises above the audience on a 8,000-pound rotating hydraulic elevator. It sits 10 feet about the 700-seat dining room. It's got 1,074 keys, buttons and switches linked to a series of xylophones, glockenspiels, gongs and cymbals to create the sound of a full-blown orchestra.

The restaurant attracts roughly 300,000 customers annually to eat pizza and hear songs like "Flight of the Bumblebee," "The Hills are Alive" and "The Circle of Life."

"The theatre organ world is a different world than church or classical organs," Barz said. "There are a lot of classical organs that are much, much bigger than ours … but they're a different beast."

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

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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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