[00:00:00] Introduction
Dominick Costantino: Hey everybody, what's going on. Welcome back to the restaurant growth podcast by seven shifts. And I'm so excited to kick off season two of the restaurant growth podcast. I'm your host DJ. And today our first episode of the new season is with Andy Hooper, the president over an ant pizza. And pizza has built a reputation in the restaurant industry as an employer of choice, and they haven't really had the same troubles at many paths through the pandemic and the resulting labor shortage. And they're opening more than 30 locations this year alone. Andy and I got a chance to chat about how they've built such a strong team culture, how they communicate with their staffs, the creative benefits they offer and more. I think everybody will be able to take something away from this and take it back to the restaurant, start engaging with their staff more, and offering maybe more tailored or creative benefits. And I'm really excited to share this conversation with all of you.
Dominick Costantino: Andy, how are you today?
Andy Hooper: I'm, great DJ, how are you?
Dominick Costantino: I'm well, I'm well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Andy Hooper: Thanks for having me excited to chat with.
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. Yes. So Andy Hooper, President of &Pizza. Andy, if you want to just introduce yourself to our audience, tell us what you do and how you got into it.
Andy Hooper: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So, I am the President of &Pizza, we're a fast casual service model pizza chain based on the mid-Atlantic coast, headquartered in DC, approaching 60 pizza selling locations today and we'll open another 35 between today and the end of this calendar year, so exciting growth, creating a bunch of opportunities for those that work for us.
Andy Hooper: You know, my background prior to coming here has predominantly been in human resources, leadership roles, with growth restaurant and legacy restaurant concepts and, you know, I've been excited to be here for the last four years, partnering with Michael to build the &Pizza brand and to extend the business model that we've created, doing well by doing good to as many places as we can.
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. And congratulations on all those locations and looking forward to all of those more to come in the future.
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I think it all starts with growth, right? Just like you, just like you guys, when you can create more opportunities and expand, reach and do well, that's worth that.
[00:02:03] The &Pizza Business Model
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. Kind of going into your background in human resources. Um, you know, you don't get to where you are today without a really solid team. And how, you know, Michael, I know Michael Lastoria, CEO is very vocal about the quality of your team and how amazing everyone is, um, and how much you give back to that team.
Dominick Costantino: I think kind of understanding what you want to give to your team comes from, you know, who they are. So who is the &Pizza team, and who makes up your staff?
Andy Hooper: So, I mean, first of all, we built a business model around taking care of our frontline employees. Frontline employees, our fam, and a foundation to that has been about paying a living wage, offering benefits that matter, you creating an environment where there's actual true democratization of decision-making listening, you know, treating folks with dignity and respect, and that's resulted in, I think, a workforce that is reflected with that offering.
Andy Hooper: And so, you know, we're fortunate to have a, an exceptionally diverse workforce, as a brand that started inside the city and has moved out to the suburbs, you know, our workforce is relatively young, and tends to be attracted to the purpose-driven movement of the future of this, of this industry.
Andy Hooper: Uh, but we also have, you know, up and down the age range, across racial and ethnic boundaries. You know, most importantly for the restaurant space, a mix of full-time and part-time folks too. And that combination, has given us a lot of strength and also allowed us to explore many different ways to staff the business and to support our growth.
[00:03:38] The Part-time vs. Full-time employee Experience
Dominick Costantino: Yeah. And ton of going into that, you know, part-time and full-time, I think the types of folks that are attracted to each types of those roles are very different. How do you adjust your business model around knowing that you're gonna both full-time people that are maybe more career oriented, they want to sit around for a long time. And part-time people that, you know, they're in school or they're at a transitional stage in their life where they're going to work. Part-time maybe for a couple of years and you know, that's not because you're not a great place to work, but because that's just where they are in their life. Um, and the food service industry is very, conducive to having those types of people, and people in that stage.
Dominick Costantino: So how do you, how do you kind of differentiate there?
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I mean, I think first of all, what you're talking about is one foundational principle of real inclusivity. You know, how do you create an environment where that can be attractive and beneficial, uh, for folks who are looking for different opportunities for us, you know, we have, it has always been about.
Andy Hooper: A a road to creating good jobs and good jobs largely means, you know, trying to create as many full-time roles as you possibly can and so that people in the industry who tend to sort of have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet given the way that the restaurant industry has behaved historically. Have the opportunity to have predictability in their scheduling, predictability in their income, practical benefits, uh, wage increases that keep up with inflation, et cetera. But then also acknowledging that will never be a hundred percent of the workforce. And that particularly when you're working in and around universities or places with transit populations.
Andy Hooper: You're going to want to be able to have the flexibility to plug folks in who are looking for part-time work very specifically. You know, instead of trying to cater to one or the other, or trying to limit people from full-time access, which a lot of restaurant companies have done to control costs, we've just continued to stay focused on benefits.
Andy Hooper: Paying a living wage and listening to, and treating our employees with dignity and respect so that they can help us shape what that opportunity looks like in a way that offers value to them. And in turn sort of makes that employment relationship mutually beneficial instead of predatory.
Dominick Costantino: How do you, how does the business model cause do you expect someone like the same role, at, and pizza to be, to have both full-time and part-time people in it, or do you kind of change those roles up based on that availability?
Andy Hooper: Some of that flips depending on, depending on the you know, the shop and the nature of the business and the shop, but one of the things that's great about &Pizza operationally the model is constructed in such a way where almost everybody that's on shift can devote the lion's share of their time and attention towards guest service. So the vast majority of the roles that we have, or guest facing, and that one-to-one service that you can create with a customer going down the line and building a pizza to their specifications is one that is. Lends itself to either full or part-time like, you can be great as a servant, uh, with servant service mindset, you know, for six hours a week or for 40 hours a week, obviously, as you get into leadership roles in the business, full-time starts to be more and more a part of that, because alongside that predictability, you can start to layer in more advanced management tasks to the business on top of that.
Andy Hooper: But I think, you know, we have always looked at this. How do we architect the model of, and pizza in a way where we can truly hire someone for who they are, not for what they have done in their past. And I think where a lot of restaurants get trapped is that they focus so much on experience and they don't focus on actual competency in the role.
Andy Hooper: And so when you have. You know, service mindset and the job is predominantly guest facing. You can really, truly hire for personality at the end of the day and not for, for past work.
[00:07:32] Employee Retention at &Pizza
Dominick Costantino: Going into that you guys have been able to, to retain staff, pretty, pretty well throughout the pandemic. Is that, is that correct?
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I mean, the good news for us was going into COVID. Our house was largely in order. Um, so, so we doubled down on our workforce. It's feels like forever ago now, almost a couple of years ago at this point in time. But on March 13th, 2020, I remember this distinctly. Um, you know, getting on the phone and Michael and I, um, and our general counsel at the time, talking about what are we going to do to help make sure that our team is taken care of.
Andy Hooper: And so that day we immediately raised every hourly workers wage by $1. Now. The expanded a subsidy rideshare program that we had with Lyft to keep them safe and give them transportation options to, and from our shops, when public transit was sort of being appended, um, we increased the practical benefits that we offered to them and we guaranteed everybody's job for the first 30 days of COVID while everyone else just like cutting people and letting them sort of like, you know, to the wind. .
Andy Hooper: Our willingness to put our family first has kept them showing up. It's allowed us to raise multiple rounds of financing into COVID and that is an output of having a team that is dedicated and. You know, I, I feel like we have a rock solid management team that's capable of running a much bigger company than this.
Andy Hooper: you know, we have a great setup with deep expertise to create higher paying higher productivity, frontline jobs, and look, we don't always get it right. And, you know, it's challenging even in this environment for somebody who does a lot of the right things, Our team gives us the benefit of the doubt because they know that we are focused on the right north star for creating something that can weather just about anything including this pandemic
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. And how do you communicate that to your staff? The, you know, your core values to them to make sure that they're, you know, you know, you have a big team, I imagine, probably over a thousand folks, but 60 shops
Andy Hooper: plus or minus, Yes, sir.
Dominick Costantino: or minus, um, you know, how do you keep all of those people kind of guided towards that same, like you said, north star.
[00:09:41] How &Pizza Lives Their Core Values
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I mean, I think the first thing is as a brand, we are not shy about publicizing our perspective on key issues in the public sphere. And so there were a lot of folks in the restaurant space in particular who shy away from that because inevitably. Some of those issues can tend to feel partisan in the political environment, particularly here in the states.
Andy Hooper: But I think if you step back from that and you treat the issue itself, like the issue of frontline wages is an issue that requires attention from the industry and the industry is feeling it right now. You're seeing over the last 24 months, hundreds of thousands of workers just leave the restaurant industry altogether.
Andy Hooper: And a lot of restaurant companies start to frame this as a labor shortage. But I think that that sort of ignores the responsibility that we have as restaurant operators, that at the beginning of this millions of them were furloughed and then asked to come back to work and work in an environment where they didn't know what they were exposing themselves to.
Andy Hooper: Um, there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of changing public health. And then on top of it, a lot of customers abusing them for now having to be enforcers of those pandemic protocols. And so, because we wear that on our sleeve and our stance about what we care about, why it's so public, that helps.
Andy Hooper: Uh, and the second thing is when people come in, they have culture orientation right out of the gate. You know, they're shown the core values and talk about why this is important. And we continue to remind everyone that, you know, when we're trying to do things in shop to drive greater efficiency, it is not to drive greater profits into the pockets of the investors of the company.
Andy Hooper: It's to reinvest that in the growth of the company, and to try to create the highest paying highest productivity, frontline jobs that we can because. Yeah.
Andy Hooper: we have the ambition to change, change this industry from the inside out. And I think the only way to do that is to be an example that is both doing right and profitable at the same time.
Dominick Costantino: Yep. And it kind of goes to saying, you know, they're not wondering what you're thinking, cause you're making sure it's heard and you're putting it out there in a bold way.,
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: and I think it's, that's not always popular and not always easy. And certainly some of our restaurant peers are not always super excited to see us holding that candle. But I think what's interesting is if you think about where the industry is today, We've been, we've been talking about this for years and now the industry is here and the pandemic was for many of them simply the final straw, low wages, lack of benefits, unpredictable working conditions, cyclical nature of laying off and rehiring.
Andy Hooper: When it's convenient for an employer's balance sheet, all of that characterized food service jobs for a long time. As far as an industry, like we have to recognize that if we can embrace and create things that are really attractive for folks, they're going to want to be here and they're going to want to grow in the industry with us.
[00:12:42] &Pizza 's creative employee benefits
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, none of this is the pandemic certainly did not cause any of this happened, this was all brewing. Looking back even 2019, a lot of operators were saying they were understaffed. Um, and it's for similar reasons, going into the benefits and creating a good work environment, um, beyond paying, uh, you know, more than living wage, which you guys do very publicly.
Dominick Costantino: What else are you offering to your employees that makes you stand out and then further from that, you know, what kind of influenced you to, to add those kinds of benefits or what, what about the employees, you know, kind of brought you say, well, we should offer this for them.
Andy Hooper: I mean, I think there are some things that we do that are. You know, kind of foundational, and then there are some things that we're getting into now in this next phase, now that I think we've seen base wages push higher for the entire industry and, you know, paying higher base wages is now table stakes whereas before it was a very big differentiator for us, we have always tried to stay ahead of where the market is and pull the market up to us. Sponsors of minimum wage legislation, both here in DC and nationally and now we're starting to see that, you know, catching up, which is great because it means the industry is getting ahead.
Andy Hooper: You know, I mentioned this partnership with Lyft, which I think is very creative, you know, historically we used that as a subsidized, the benefit for folks working in our late night show. Where public transit wasn't operating at odd hours of the night. We have a lot of late night business in DC in particular, where we sell pizza, you know, up until four in the morning.
Andy Hooper: We expanded that benefit to all day, every day for our folks. And so, you know, family members at &Pizza have credits each month that they can use on rideshare and you know what that does for folks that's so different is, you know, not only does it remove a cost pressure to the business through subsidy, but it also removes a decision like trying to figure out, like, "how do I get them home?"
Andy Hooper: Or am I going to be able to catch that bus on time? Or do I feel safe right now during the Omicron wave, riding public transit, even if I felt safe last summer, I think we look for opportunities like that to do things that are not just financial in there. But also overall wellness in their benefit. And if you can remove stressors for frontline workers, you're automatically going to get a better product from them in how they service the guests.
Andy Hooper: And, you know, ultimately there are a lot of wise folks in the industry who have, you know, repeated the phrase that the guest experience will never exceed the employee experience. And that's true. The more you can pour into your frontline family members, the more they're going to be able to give across the counter to the customer.
Dominick Costantino: Yeah. And I think that mental benefit, especially specific to the Lyft credits, is so much more than just like the monetary value of it. I can imagine working a late shift, wondering how I'm going to get home by myself. Um, my family members, you know, my partners, my siblings worrying about me working late.
Dominick Costantino: It just takes all of that out of the equation and just makes for a happier, healthier workforce. Are there any other things that you're, that you're doing looking towards now? Of course you don't have to reveal anything, you know, maybe in the works, but, um, you know, kind of what inspires those, creative benefits.
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I mean, I think, you know, usually what inspires them is direct feedback from our family. And that's why it's so important to continue to look at that. You know, when I mentioned earlier, the importance of democratizing that decision-making it's because often the best answers for innovation come from the folks living it out.
Andy Hooper: I mean, that Lyft benefit came from working late night and seeing that place. Firsthand seeing folks sort of, for the lack of a better way of saying it wasted time until public transit ran again and looking at the math and saying, we can give a benefit that would work better for them, help them feel safe and actually lead to a better quality clothes and less labor. If everybody wins in that scenario. And so we look for situations like that. We're, we're looking at creative savings vehicles right now. You know, a lot of frontline, hourly employees don't save for retirement because that's not even on their mind, but ironically, by not saving for retirement, sometimes there's also no saving muscle being.
Andy Hooper: Being toned at all. And so we're looking at creative ways to get people saving that still give them access to that, that aren't traditional retirement savings vehicles, but that might be turbocharged. You know, we're looking at creative employee recognition tools and how we might be able to use things like, for example, people's punch that, you know, timeline, uh, clock punches on seven shifts to underwrite, you know, benefits for them where people are looking for indicators of someone's reliability. And we happen to have that data. And so we're trying to be, you know, continue to be pioneers and looking at all of the data that we have and how we can use it for good. And probably the most exciting thing that we have is we have a SMS. Customer journey that we take new customers on where we educate them about the company and share specific member specific offers with them.
Andy Hooper: And we're using the same framework of that drip campaign with text messaging for our employees, so that we can help them get used to the culture of, &Pizza and learn more about the founding story and have a direct line to the leaders of the business. If they're seeing something early on, that might be, might benefit from some changes to be even more.
[00:18:03] How to Get Real, Honest Staff Feedback
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. And, you know, you mentioned soliciting staff feedback as well. Is that something that you do systematically or is that something that's more just, you know, you got to keep your finger on the pulse of what people are talking about.
Andy Hooper: It's both. I would say that, uh, COVID related manifestation of that is a bit different than it was. Um, pre we had a quarterly all tribe, which was our moniker for our family pre COVID at the time. Um, but an all family member meeting, in each market every quarter where it was literally face-to-face programmatic systematic, and we would gather that feedback and then make changes accordingly. Now, you know, with that sort of, not as much of a tool, we have been able to leverage for the last two years in the same way. We've really leaned on that SMS platform. And we encourage people to text in directly to us. And you know, the other thing is every employee in the company has. You know, access to my cell phone, to Michael's cell phone, you know, so they know how to get in touch directly. And so we get a lot of direct ideas. In fact, the other day, one of our family members shot some pictures of one of our pizza shops and said, we probably need some more paint here. Like, you know, this shop could, the shop could use to be refreshed right now. And that led to the design team, putting together a proposal and the operating team looking at how to incorporate it in.
Andy Hooper: That kind of stuff is great. When you have folks that are stewards of your brand and up this space, and they feel like they can reach out directly, often cuts through a lot of the red tape that exists and continues to foster. Culture of openness and democratize the decision-making and they tell people about it, right?
Andy Hooper: Like if a family or gets a response directly from the CEO of the company and we act on it that spreads like wildfire. And now all of a sudden, every idea is coming to us and, you know, are all of them feasible? No, but are many of them feasible and probably better than we could have come up with as executives of the company.
Dominick Costantino: Yeah. And because you have that, it also gives you that direct line into the shops as well, that you may not have. Um, you know, if people don't want to be open and transparent about how they feel, you know, and it seems like, you're doing everything to facilitate, you know, people may have the direct line, but they might not feel comfortable using it. It seems like through everything that you're doing and practicing what you're preaching, people do feel like their voice is heard and that's amazing.
Dominick Costantino: My last question really is a little bit more around, you're offering a pretty great job in the restaurant space and you're really, um, you know, staying ahead of the industry, but I can imagine hiring still, isn't automatic for you.
Dominick Costantino: Um, you know, what's your approach to hiring and like, where are you looking for people, and like, how what's your interview process? Like, you know in short. What's your strategy when it comes to hiring?
[00:20:45] Hiring Success In a Historic Labor Market
Andy Hooper: I think first and foremost, our focus has always been on providing quality jobs and higher wages as the single clearest way to say to our workforce. Like we care about you and, and that, that word gets around. You know, pre COVID. We probably had several hundred applications for almost every new shop that we opened because that reputation was out there in the space.
Andy Hooper: Obviously, if you take a million people out of the workforce in the restaurant space and you raise everyone's competitive juices, we're not seeing several hundred applications for every new opening we have now, but, but we are seeing more than others and we're able to be ahead of the curve because people see us as like the leader in this space.
Andy Hooper: And so are we immune to the challenges of staffing, especially when you then also wipe out 25% of everyone's workforce due to COVID related illness or whatever? No, like we've had some challenging days. But I think the business model is proof that paying workers, a living wage, isn't a pie in the sky idea.
Andy Hooper: It's functioning, even thriving business model. You know, we hope that other businesses sort of see the light continue to go after that with us, because I think what helps the restaurant industry attractive is if there's optionality and opportunity at that level across the board, like what will make restaurants successful is not just, is there one restaurant operator who's better than everyone else. It's does the industry have a good reputation and, you know, It's it's funny because it's not that we don't do this to make the life of business owners difficult. Like we do it because it lifts people out of poverty and it creates opportunity. And it raises the benefit of working in the restaurant industry, which I know firsthand as an employee, myself who started at minimum wage back in the day.
Andy Hooper: It's a great industry. One where you can truly create amazing opportunities and I think that's what we see as the most important part of our recruiting effort today is to be the brand steward of what a good restaurant job, what a good frontline job could be.
[00:22:56] Advice for Growing Restaurateurs
Dominick Costantino: I mean, and it seems like that's what, you know, you guys are able to do that pretty well. So, you know, I commend you for that. I guess just last piece here, you know, you've been with &Pizza four years. Um, seen a tremendous amount of growth. What advice would you offer to maybe someone who's in, you know, Less than 10 locations looking to grow their brands a little bit and they want to make sure they're putting everything in place to get to that point.
Andy Hooper: Yeah.
Andy Hooper: I mean, I think it's always easier to scale when you have the model that's worth scaling. And so, you know, my first reaction would always be, take a look at each element of your business model today and decide which of those are sustainable at scale. You know, if you're getting there by cutting corners on the quality of the product you're surveying or cutting corners on the amount of pay that you're giving to your employees, that's not a scalable model because it's, it's a little too fragile. I think people figuring out what the value proposition is early on and using that opportunity to get that into the wood is really important. Um, and the other thing I would say is being clear-eyed about what it is that differentiates you, you know, like what are we here for and why are we here and why this, and not something else. Because the industry needs true innovation, maybe not in product, but in people management strategy and in value proposition. And so if it's just the next best version of a thing, it can be a little bit harder of a grind than if it's truly trying to reimagine portions of the industry that need reimagining.
Dominick Costantino: Yeah. I mean, the food is not going to change dramatically from even a hundred years ago, but,, you know, I think that the business and, and the way we treat people, um, is really what actually needs to evolve.
Andy Hooper: Yep. And I think what we're seeing now, particularly with gen Z, right? Is this continued focus on what's under the hood, not what's there, but like what does this company believe? Are they going to be sustainable. Does that sustainability extend beyond their product to their employment practices because people, especially young consumers want to support a brand.
Andy Hooper: That's going to be around 25 years from now. And, you know, they sort of almost treat it a bit like an investment where if I'm going to be giving my dollars and my time and energy here, I'd like for this to be a thing 25 years from now. And I think companies need to have an eye towards what that sustainability looks like and the sustainability needs to extend to the employee base.
[00:25:19] Conclusion
Dominick Costantino: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's just, what it comes down to is presenting yourself as, as an industry leader and making sure that you're staying ahead.
Dominick Costantino: Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Andy Hooper: Thanks DJ. I appreciate it.
Dominick Costantino: Absolutely. And where are you opening right now? And are you hiring?
Andy Hooper: Yes. And yes. So opening today, as a matter of fact, in Philadelphia, in downtown Philadelphia. Um, and those 35 units between now and the end of the year are between Richmond and New York city up and down the mid Atlantic coast all over the greater DC area. As a show of good faith, anybody listening, you can text me directly.
Andy Hooper: You can text us directly. In fact, if you're looking for an opportunity with &Pizza, you can text us at 2- 0- 0- 0- 3, with just hashtag careers and we'll get back to you and find you a place near us where you can join the fam.
Dominick Costantino: That's awesome. Get at it does not anywhere else I don't think people would want to work. So, I hope that maybe we can send some people your way.
Andy Hooper: you.
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