Operations
PizzaLeah pivots in wake of pandemic
PizzaLeah opened just four days before the pandemic shut down the state of California. Founder Leah Scurto explains how her company pivoted from full service to carryout.
January 4, 2022 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group
Opening a pizzeria is difficult in the best of times. Add in a global pandemic, and it's even more taxing.
That was the case for Leah Scurto, who opened PizzaLeah in Sonoma County, California, just four days before the state of California issued a shutdown due to COVID-19 in March 2020. What was supposed to be an casual dine-in restaurant quickly pivoted to carryout and delivery in response.
"We had four days of using the dining room before the shelter in place order came down," Scurto said in a phone interview. "It's been a whirlwind with constantly changing rules and regulations. The business model is drastically different from what I had envisioned and planned for."
She had custom built two 12-foot-long party tables and planned a casual eatery where folks could share a bottle of local wine or drink a beer and bring the family.
What she ended up with was a predominantly takeout business. Scurto spent more than two decades working for California-based Pizza My Heart, which helped her build a solid foundation for opening her own pizzeria and navigating the carryout waters.
"It's not what I wanted for this restaurant, but it's what kept me alive and kept the restaurant actually open through the pandemic," Scurto said, "but I'm thankful I had that knowledge and thankful that we are thriving and succeeding."
Scurto said PizzaLeah is known as a place to get takeout pizza now. "I don't know that I can ever achieve my initial vision," she said. "Maybe that means there is a second restaurant down the road."
Still, the dining room is now open and the concept is fast casual. After the restaurant restrictions eased in California, the patio opened and then the dining room. They have hand-held ordering devices to take second beverage or dessert orders at the table.
"There was a time where you had to keep your tables six feet apart. You couldn't seat more than four people in a group. So for a while it didn't make sense for me to open the indoor dining with those restrictions because there's so few tables it wouldn't have made a difference," Scurto said. "It would have gotten in the way of the takeout business we were doing, and that what was paying the bills."
On the menu
The artisan dough is made in house with an extended fermentation and pizzas are baked on electric deck ovens. The pizza deliberately has a little bit of char and blistering. "All my pizzas are kind of cooked well done," Scuto added. "They should have a little bit of char on them."
She likes to top her pizzas lightly, as the dough isn't made to hold a lot of toppings. Guests who build their own pizzas are recommended to choose no more than four toppings and are discouraged from loading toppings like some of the chains in the area.
"All of my specialty pies are on the simpler side in terms of the amount of (toppings) that are on them," Scurto said. "The style that I'm making is not conducive to loading 10 toppings on top of the dough. It's just won't really hold up. It won't serve the best product.
"I feel like I've been training customers to a certain extent in how a proper pizza should be made."
Meatballs are made and sausage is blended in house. Vegetables — everything from mushrooms to fennel — are dry roasted or sauteed during morning prep. She buys from local farmers or at minimum uses California farms.
"For me, it makes a higher quality of product," Scurto said. "Being in California and especially Sonoma County, our produce is just absolutely phenomenal and I want to showcase it. I want to treat it right, and I want the customer to have the highest quality product that they can have."
That higher quality — the time and effort the pizzamakers put into each pizza — sets PizzaLeah apart from its competition. Making sure pizzas are served "with intention" is a hallmark of the brand's identity, Scurto added.
"Everything I do on our specialty pizzas is well thought out and composed," she said. "I focus on flavor pairings. There's more thought put into it, more love put into it, more love and time and energy put into it. I can definitely make a cheaper pizza, and I could make an easier pizza, but I don't like to cut corners and take shortcuts."
Everything on PizzaLeah's menu is named after friends and family. The most popular specialty pizza is the award-winning Old Grey Beard with Calabrian chili peppers, house-made Italian sausage, Bianco diNapoli organic tomatoes and finished with orange zest and hot honey. It hits all the notes — sweet, salty and meaty.
Second popular is the Roo, which Scurto made with her wife in mind. It's a white pie with olive oil, fontina, dry-roasted mushrooms, fresh thyme and roasted fennel and finished with Parmesan-Reggiano and fresh parsley.
Lessons learned
Scurto, a consummate chef first and foremost, said she's wished she'd been more attuned to the business side of the restaurant when she opened, as she originally hired the wrong accountant. If she had it to do over again, she'd find one that was more restaurant specific.
She doesn't do a lot of marketing. She's done a couple of ads with local newspapers after winning "Best of" awards, but "I really rely on social media and word of mouth," Scurto said. "I think me being in the restaurant and touching customers goes a really long way. People get to know me, and then they want to share it with their friends."
She's usually in the restaurant every day, only recently learning she can take some time off.
Silent partner Clarence Wainer helped build out the restaurant and supplied some additional capital for funding. She funded the restaurant privately and received a small microloan from a local Bay area company.
Hiring has been challenging, especially with California wildfires driving out some residents who were unable to build due to the high cost of living. "Each time there's a fire, we end up losing workforce," Scurto said. "The wealthy aren't the ones working restaurant jobs."
Scurto has been approached to open a second location but said the time is not quite right.
"I'm open to it for sure but everything is still so up in the air right now, especially in California."
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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