News

Annual CiCi's Pizza Throwdown showcases employees' skills

February 20, 2013

Angel Roldan of the Garland, Texas, CiCi's Pizza restaurant on North Jupiter Road, has been named the winner of CiCi's third annual Pizza Throwdown event. Roldan baked a full buffet of pizzas, desserts and garlic parmesan knots in 24 minutes and 9 seconds to earn the national title. He also wins $2,500 in cash, a home entertainment center and the Crystal Pizza Cutter trophy.

The company will further honor him by putting his name on a distribution truck that will travel more than 100,000 miles in 2013 to deliver supplies to CiCi's Pizza restaurants throughout the country.

Only 21 seconds separated the top three places. Other results include:

• Second place: Maria Enriquez of Columbia, S.C., will receive a laptop computer, printer and $1,500. She also tied for fastest dough stretcher with her sister, Erika, who also competed.
• Third place: Elizabeth Cruz of Roeland Park, Kan., who won for overall quality and whose time was 5 seconds behind Enriquez, already has a Crystal Pizza Cutter award as winner of the first CiCi's Pizza Throwdown. She wins an iPad 2 with a $50 iTunes gift card and $1,000.
• Fourth place: Erika Dominguez, of Columbia, S.C., who competed alongside her sister Maria, will receive a Kindle Fire HD, a $50 Amazon gift card and $500.

The pizza artisans have competed in local and regional events that began in October with a starting field of more than 200 competitors.

"Our annual Throwdown inspires pizza artisans at all of our restaurants to perfect their skills throughout the year, and we hope they will start training now for next year," said Chris Patterson, CiCi's Pizza director of People Development.

Read more about staffing and training.