Operations
People, passion make Farrelli’s Pizza a Northwestern favorite
Farrelli's Pizza in Northwestern Washington focuses on hiring people who will create experiences for the brand's guests. With award-winning pizza and tight operations, Farrelli's opened four locations in 13 months.
May 9, 2024 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group
There's a lot of good pizza in the Pacific Northwest. But what makes a great pizzeria? If you're Farrelli's Pizza, it's a focus on people — building up the employees they hire and serving the people who call the brand their favorite. The brand's slogan is "Great People Make Great Pizza."
Farrelli's Pizza was founded by John and Margaret Farrell and their daughter, Jacque, in Washington state. John spent his whole career prior to Farrelli's in the foodservice industry, working as a territory manager for Saga Foods, a regional manager for Sea Galley restaurants and ultimately as an entrepreneur, opening several concepts.
"But it wasn't until he opened Farrelli's Pizza that he knew he had a winning formula on his hands," said Clayton Krueger, director of marketing and communications for Farrelli's Pizza, in a phone interview. The year was 1995, and the town was Lacey, Washington. "A big part of that winning formula was his daughter, Jacque, who serves as the CEO of Farrelli's."
While John brought industry knowledge, Jacque brought an innate gift to help people be seen and appreciated, and "that's been a skill that has proven to be our secret sauce," Krueger said. Today, Farrelli's has 12 units in western Washington, and the brand has a sister concept, an Irish pub and eatery.
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Photo: Farrelli's Pizza |
On the Menu
Pizza takes center stage at Farrelli's, and it's their own special "Northwest" style, whereas much of the local competition in the Seattle metro area is Neapolitan. It's a thicker crust to be able to support multiple toppings, but it has a digestible fermentation that makes it light and crispy at the same time.
Pizza is hand tossed and baked in Wood Stone open flame ovens at 550 degrees.
"What we didn't want is for people to come into our restaurant and see one of those ovens and think 'Oh! I know what this is. I've had I this before' because the reality is even though we're baking in the same ovens, we bake at a lower temperature at a longer bake time with a thicker rise," Krueger said.
Pepperoni pizza is a top seller and features Hormel Rosa Grande cup and char pepperoni. But the concept was founded on creative offerings like the "James' Favorite" which features an alfredo base, oven-roasted chicken, bacon, house-made Italian fennel sausage, garlic, cheddar, mozzarella and provolone cheese. The Northwest Traditional is a national award winner and is topped with Italian fennel sausage, thick-cut pepperoni, baked basil, red pepper flakes and mozzarella and provolone. It's finished with a drizzle of honey cream cheese sauce and fresh grated Parmesan.
A Pizza of the Month program gives customers a bevy of choices. The offering this month is Dre's Chronic Carnitas.
"We invite our pizza artisans to stretch their culinary prowess," Krueger said. "Our Pizza of the Month Club has become a fan favorite."
Much is done in-house, including cooking fennel sausage, oven roasting chicken breast, roasting garlic cloves, caramelizing onions and making dressings like buttermilk ranch, bleu cheese and a signature dressing of their own.
"We have a pretty extensive amount of prep that we do," Krueger said.
The restaurants used to make their own dough until about three years ago when Farrelli's opted to partner with a local dough commissary with the ability to take the brand's signature dough and produce it to scale. "It's going very, very well," Krueger said. "They have a great distribution and have been a great partner for us. It's helped us, too, with labor costs in the kitchen where we're not just making batches and batches of dough."
Krueger cites the Point Reston location, which sits right on Puget Sound, as an extremely busy restaurant in the summer, and making dough on-site was just too much for the pizzeria to handle daily when they were making dough right up until closing.
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Photo: Farrelli's Pizza |
Operations
To maintain continuity across the brand as it grows, Farrelli's branding elements have become crucial. The brand opened four units in 13 months in 2022 and 2023. When they opened their stores they went through a process with a design contractor who helped Farrelli's dial in its four walls in terms of branding elements and then introduced those same branding elements into pre-existing locations. Whether a customer is at the original location in Lacey, Washington, or the newest location in Tumwater, Washington, "you're going to see a brand that looks and feels like it has a ton of continuity to it," Krueger explained.
There's also a huge commitment to ongoing training and development across the units, so employees are getting the same training, resources and attention to detail. The goal is for customers to have the same experience no matter which store they're visiting.
The brand's "hospitality experts" also create positive experiences for guests.
"At the end of the day, even though it says 'Farrelli's Pizza' on the building, we are really in the people business," Krueger said. "What that looks like for us is that we develop people who make it their mission to create exceptional dining experiences for the people that they serve. Pizza is just the vehicle to make that happen."
Farrelli's staff talks about leveling up the guest experience. Whether it's a group celebrating a 21st birthday party with liquor shots or a more somber visit after a memorial service, the servers are trained to match where the guest is and create an experience that is going to 'level up' their visits.
Hiring is critical for that mission. Krueger said that while they can teach someone to make pizzas, they can't train someone to be a people person. They put a lot of time and resources into training, Krueger added, as well as leadership development.
In terms of technology, Farrelli's began using Toast POS in 2017 having used a legacy server-based system in the past. Switching POS systems started a new tech journey for the brand, and Krueger said Farrelli's went "all in" to create a winning tech stack, which eventually set them up nicely to survive fallout and even thrive from the COVID-19 pandemic. They added online ordering and third-party delivery.
"We have been set up for success through our commitment to embracing technology," Krueger added.
Growth
Ultimately, leaving Washington state is a goal, but for now, there's the small problem of name recognition when going more than half an hour away from a unit despite the fact that Farrelli's has won best of Western Washington for six years running and even national accolades for its pizza.
Krueger said when they open a new unit outside of their normal operating areas, people proclaim they already have their favorite pizza in the area.
"So, what we've tried to do is continue to expand the brand out of a radius that allows us to support that new location and leverage the brand recognition and equity that we've earned in this region," Krueger explained. "We're not ready to out kick our coverage. For example, we're not ready to jump down to Oregon because we don't have that support system in place.
"But, ultimately, our goal is to grow and expand the concept."
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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