Operations

Wiseguy Pizza shaped by worldly inspiration, dedication to quality

Wiseguy Pizza, launched by Nuri Erol and now owned by Thompson Hospitality, had five locations in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia region. The brand has grown with its emphasis on good food and service.

Provided by Wiseguy Pizza

September 29, 2023 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

What happens when one man sets out to create the perfect pizza? The result is Wiseguy Pizza, a Washington, D.C. brand with five locations, which launched in 2012 by founder Nuri Erol. Erol, a native of Turkey, was on a mission to create the perfect pizza and traveled the world over searching for recipes.

He started Wiseguy Pizza with a New York-style dough, "but he's taken everything — what he's learned across the world — and cherry-picked secret trades. Everybody makes pizzas, and everybody claims to have good pizza," said Alex Berentzen, COO of Thompson Hospitality Group, in a phone interview with Pizza Marketplace. "But we have a really good pizza, and I'll tell you why: what makes our pizza so successful is it's put in stone deck ovens at 550 degrees. We use a pizza peel, obviously, but we don't use screens. We want the pizza to be directly on the stone."

Provided by Wiseguy Pizza

On the menu

The result is a golden-brown crust with a crispy, puffy, bread-like texture. It can be folded, but diners hear a delicate crunch to the dough. Those who usually leave the crust behind don't at Wiseguy. The whole slice is enjoyed.

Berentzen said consistency and quality ingredients makes Wiseguy a standout in the industry. The brand uses an all-natural cheese from Wisconsin, filtered water, a tomato sauce sourced from California and expensive olive oil. Sauces are made in house at the Navy Yard shop in a basement kitchen that functions as a commissary by a long-time employee to make it consistent. Dough is made on site at each location, however, in small batches.

"We serve 18 different types of pizza," Berentzen said. "It sounds like a lot, but we've gotten very good at it. When you scale a concept and get ready for growth — which we are there now — it's about owning your craft and just getting it right. It's repetition, repetition, repetition."

Pizza accounts for 95% of Wiseguy's sales. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand sold pizza by the slice, but afterward sales have shifted to whole pies as well. Today, sales consist of 70% slices and 30% pies, Berentzen said.

Thompson Hospitality Group partnered with Erol and eventually took over the brand last year, bringing with it years of experience in both menu development and scaling brands.

"The reason we're so successful is we don't mess with the brands," Berentzen said. "We don't change anything. That's a mistake that other operators do when you have an owner/operator founder create a wonderful restaurant brand, grow it to a few locations and then someone else partners and they start messing with the ingredients or how things are done. We haven't changed a thing."

Along with the consistency of the brand are long-time employees that have been with Wiseguy for 12 or 13 years or longer.

Aside from pepperoni, always a big mover, the brand's Chicken Paneer Pizza is a top seller on the menu. It includes a house masala sauce, chicken, paneer cheese, mozzarella, green and chili peppers, onions, tomato, cilantro and jalapeño sauce.

The Korean Chicken is also popular with house chili and sweet sauce, crispy chicken, mozzarella, cabbage mix and sesame aioli. Guests also like the Buffalo pizza, which features spicy chicken, buffalo sauce, cheddar, mozzarella cheese and Parmigiano.

"They're a little bit off the beaten path, but once people come in and they try them, they're hooked," Berentzen said.

Garlic knots are popular, as are homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Operations

Thompson has helped the brand add to its tech stack, including a new POS system to replace an outdated one. Online ordering was added, and a couple of shops are so busy they're putting in kiosks to speed up the ordering process.

"People want technology. I'd say about 40% of our orders are ordered off-premise through technology, either through third-party vendors or delivery or online ordering," Berentzen said. "We have to (embrace technology). With our new solutions, it's seamless. … That's the support that Thompson Hospitality can give them — the structure, the systems and help the brand scale that way so that we can grow a little better. Technology is important for us."

The brand has also redesigned some packaging to include branding, which will roll out in the next four to six weeks.

Wiseguy Pizza has five locations in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area. Thompson Hospitality has about 60 restaurants in the area, including the Wiseguy brand, as well as units in South Florida. A sixth Wiseguy Pizza will be built in the Ft. Lauderdale area.

By the end of next year, Berentzen said the Wiseguy brand will have doubled in size.

"We could easily handle this in the DMV area. We could go to 30 or 40 locations and not have to change a thing," he said, adding he doesn't worry about the brand growing too quickly. "We have it down to a science."

Thompson Hospitality has 19 brands under its umbrella and opened 14 or 15 restaurants this year alone. With buying power and experience on its side, Thompson is helping Wiseguy Pizza grow in a methodical, but responsible, way.

"Our strength is our culture, so when we knew (the Wiseguy's location at) Wheaton (Mall) was opening, we hired people early on and put them in the other stores to train," Berentzen said, adding the new location had employees who had already been on the payroll for nearly two months.

Recruitment and retention haven't been an issue, and sales have been up year over year.

"Our stores are doing great," Berentzen said. "I wish we had more (Wiseguy locations). At some point we want to franchise the brand out, too."

There's a link on its website for folks interested in franchising, and the brand is just starting to collect some of that information.

"We have big plans for this brand," Berentzen said. "I know this could be a national brand. It's perfect."

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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