How Mike Pitera Built a Pizzeria Around 7 Styles of Pizza - Pizza a Modo Mio

In this episode of the Pizza King Podcast, Tyrell Reed sits down with Mike Pitera of Pizza a Modo Mio in Charleston, South Carolina for a real conversation about what it takes to grow a modern pizzeria. Mike breaks down how he went from washing dishes in New York pizzerias, to corporate sales leadership, to building a pizza business that now offers seven styles of pizza across multiple locations. 

They talk about simplifying operations, training a team to handle multiple pizza styles, using one master dough to create consistency, and balancing craftsmanship with smart business systems. Mike also shares how his food truck days helped him test markets, build local demand, and create the momentum that led to brick-and-mortar growth. 

This episode is packed with value for pizzeria owners, operators, and managers who want to grow without losing control of quality. You’ll hear lessons on leadership, team morale, menu strategy, catering, customer experience, and why the best operators never stop learning.

Connect with Mike Pitera
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pizzamodomio/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.pitera/

Follow Pizza A Modo Mio
Website: https://modomiopizza.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pizzamodomio/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pizzamodomiosc/ 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:12

A lot of restaurateurs or business owners what they can lack is one could be excellent as a chef, but terrible as back office and running the business. And one could be a money guy and know exactly how to pay the bills and invest and do what they need to do and watch that bottom number, but they can't even boil an egg. I have the best of both worlds where I cooked, I went to culinary school, I learned it growing up, I had a passion for it, and that's what I did first. And then I got all my real life, you know, learning from working in corporate America. And I was able, was lucky enough to bring those two together and understand how to treat employees, understand how to run a business because I was that employee, but understand how I need to grow that business and what things I gotta do and not do at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Super special guest this week, Mike Patera. Thank you for joining the show. Welcome to the Pizza King podcast. Please uh introduce yourself to look, everybody are, they know who you are. But introduce introduce yourself so that so that we can formally get it done here.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah, so first, thanks for having me. I I love you know following you and all you're doing. And this is just uh this is gonna be a fun afternoon. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

My name is Mike Peterra. I'm with Pizza Amoto Mio. I'm located in Charleston, South Carolina, and we started out as a New York pizza shop, and now we offer seven styles of pizza. So it's uh something I've always done since I was a kid, since I was 15, and I love it. I love this industry.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Hold on, bro. Seven styles of pizza? Yeah, we do seven now. Yeah. Are you it's crazy? Do you are you just have you just have this thing to torture yourself? Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty I'm yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

I'm I'm wearing a hat because I'm getting gray and I'm losing my hair a little bit. So I gotta I started wearing hats because I gotta hide it.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

We'll send you we'll send you a Pizza King hat too. Because I'm doing I'm going I'm going through and my son just reminded me this morning that uh it ain't it's not coming back as quick as it left.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Uh that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Seven styles. What what what styles are you offering in addition to New York style?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, so we do the regular New York round, and then we do grandma, we do Sicilian, we'll do Detroit, we do Chicago Tavern, we do Roman, and then we do gluten free. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

What's it what's it like teaching those styles? And I know there's subtle differences between some of some of them, but like you still have to really go in depth when it comes to training that.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah, how do you So, you know, everyone knows how crazy it is to find good help and people that want to learn and want to follow in your footsteps and want to run with the craft. And it's very hard these days to find someone that's passionate like that. So I just simplify everything, you know. Um, I would say five of those doughs, I have a master dough for all of it. Okay. Um, because obviously I can't use my master dough on my Roman, but I have a master dough that I can do all five styles with it. And it's pretty much I just bring them to the bench, I show them. Um, you know, on slow days, like like for instance, you know, Wednesday at two o'clock or one o'clock, right before dinner and right after lunch, you know, it's really the lull part of the business. You know, I I'll jump them on the on the on the bench and I just say, Hey, you want to learn how to make pizza? Yeah. And really it takes one kid to say yes. And then they all want to follow because they all want to be a part of it, and they all want to learn, and they all want to be next to me and make the pizza and all that. So it becomes, you know, it becomes a thing. And it's it's really not that difficult, believe it or not. It's it's just they see the passion of it in me and how I enjoy doing it, how I love doing it, and how the final product comes out. And, you know, like I said, all it takes is one person, it becomes very contagious, and then we just train everybody. But um, having that master dough is key. So I don't have to make five. That's right. You know, I've learned that we have four locations. Uh, we we're opening up our third brick and mortar. Um actually on Monday. On Monday, we're opening up. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. And uh, you know, through this whole period, I learned that you can be a pizza guy, but you have to be a businessman too, and you have to think both ways, right? I gotta think the quality, the quantity, how I can be putting out a great product as a pizza guy, different styles as a pizza guy, what makes us different as a pizza guy. But then on my my business year, my my businessman's year, now I gotta say, hey, how am I gonna simplify it? How am I gonna keep it strategic enough where everyone can do it and streamline it and be able to grow? So I kind of be able to merge them two together to make it easier on the trainings and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

It becomes difficult sometimes, especially when you like to try things. Yes, yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

I can get away from you really fast.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, I find myself getting caught up in things that end up not mattering at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

My guy here, Andy's like, Tito, what what problem are you trying to solve that doesn't need to be solved this week? Right. It's true though. Like I was thinking we could do fresh pineapples, but do we really need that?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah, you know, but you know what? You gotta, you know, reinvent yourself sometimes and be different and do stuff. And like you said earlier, like whenever I I have I've I'm very impulse. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. Like if I have an idea, I try to think of everything I can do, how to do it, when I can do it, why I want to do it. And it could be great because it could be you can get onto something and you know, expand what you want to do. But at the same time, like your like your employee said, does it have to be done now? Is it a problem that you have to solve now? Is it something that they do right now? You know, not always. No, not always, but it makes it fun and it makes makes the kitchen fun to come into where it's not like Groundhog's Day and the same thing over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I like it when my team comes back at the end of the week, because it's usually just us, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, we're closing on Monday, and then Thursday, Friday, everyone starts to come back in after after their couple of days off and they're looking to see what's different, what changed. Right. What's new this week? What are we doing? So I like that part of it because it keeps you interested in it. You know, it can get it can get monotonous doing this every day for years and years. Did you you grow up you grew up making pizza?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah, so I grew up in um, I'm from Brooklyn, New York, and then I moved to Long Island, New York. Um, so I grew up in a big Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, and I grew up with like LB Spamoni Gardens, Pizza, Pizza Wagon, Joseph Avenue U, all these big destination shops that you would go to, you know, growing up eating that type of food. And then when I moved to Long Island, I met with I had a couple best friends that I met when I moved out there when I was 15 years old, and their parents owned pizzeria. So my first job was washing dishes in a pizzeria. And I would and it was old school back then, you know, you had the old men in the back, you had people that were just, you know, didn't share recipes and everything was all tight, and everything was like, you know, hey, what what Joe want throwing down the block? Why do you come in here and grab a slice of pizza when he has his own pizzeria and all that type of stuff, you know? So it was very, very, very old school. But I just grew up in that in that genre, that neighborhood. I grew up in that industry with it being my first job. And then I I started washing dishes. You know, we were cheap labor for my friend's father. We had all his friends came and, you know, I got a free pizza and a and a Pepsi or a Coke and I got a couple dollars for tips. And, you know, he was just loving it because he got for cheap labor and I love it because I was hanging out with the adults, you know.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, you're you're doing something your friends don't really get a chance to do. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

That's that's pretty cool. So that's how it all started, man. That's it, just all it started from there, and then from at that from that point, I just worked at other pizzarias and I've always cooked like my whole life being it with being with with involved with a family that loves to cook. We always congregated around the kitchen and again, that's just contagious. Everyone loves cooking. Nobody's ever in the living room, the dining room, everyone's around the island or in in you know in the kitchen and eating and talking. So I've always loved to cook. So it was just something that I was always passionate about, and it just blended into uh you know working in the pizzeria and pizzeria restaurants and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Professionally, I think I read that you took the took the turn into the corporate world though for a little while, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, so um all through high school I worked at the pizzeria and I had some like side hustles, side jobs. I had a DJ entertainment company as well. I had that for about 15 years. Um You were doing like parties and Yeah, so we it was actually a pretty I started doing Sweet 16s and all that, like all my friends, the girls that I was friends with, I did their Sweet 16 parties and everything. And then I would do like the prom and all the local stuff. And then as I got older, I started doing weddings, and then as I got older, 21, eight, 18 to 21 years old, I went on my own and bought a box truck, bought a van. I had an employees, I had um about 10 employees, um, and we grew all the way up to three years ago. I sold my portion of the business, and we did 2,500 parties a year. Whoa. Yeah. So that was a side hustle. That was just a side hustle. That was we didn't we did a lot of stuff. We did big corporate events, we did, you know, and weddings and parties up in New York are nothing like down here. I mean, they are just 200, 250 plus people that are at weddings. They're spending 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 down weddings. It's a big production.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

So we would do probably two or three weddings and private corporate events a weekend. And I did that for a long time as I was going to college. And I got out of the pizza business a little bit, you know. I said, you know what? I said, I have my business doing DJing. I still love it. I make pizza at home and all of that. And I would sub in for friends when somebody would call out if they needed somebody. But I was going to college, I had my DJ company, and then I said, What am I going to do? Cook, cook for my entire life, you know, on holidays. You know, I went to culinary school. I left culinary school and then I went to regular university. So my mind was, I don't want to be in the kitchen my whole life at that point. You know, when it's Christmas and New Year's and Thanksgiving, I want to be my family. I don't want to be having to be open for business or cook in somebody's kitchen for that. I left, kept my DJ company as a side hustle, and I worked at Xerox, the copy machine company. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Were you like working the territory or are you uh Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So I worked I worked in sales in Melville, Long Island. It was uh there's a big strip called 110, and it's big like in industrial strip. And basically I was I graduated college and I was knocking on doors, making phone calls, just doing everything I could to get cold cold call sales, you know, selling copiers to attorneys and doctor's offices and you know, anyone that needed to print copy or scan. That was my bit. How can I sell you a copier? And I did that for and I did that for 15 years. And I worked all the way up to become a manager, to be uh a regional manager, and then I became the VP of sales. How you were so you're leading the team at that point? I was leading the team and the territory, and I was working in Manhattan on Seventh Day.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Wow. So still covering an area while leading the team and training and helping people hit their goals too.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah, it was straight corporate. I mean, I had to do uh interviewing, hiring, we had to do sales preparation, we had to do sales training, we had to um build teams, so I had the New York, I pretty much had all of Long Island, I have had all the the boroughs, so Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, New York City. I covered everything. And then I had about I had about 50 employees under me that I was managing.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

So it was crap. I just talked to a guy a couple of weeks ago, he actually just released, but he talked about how his roots in hospitality and then in the restaurant business really propelled him and gave him leverage in the corporate world because he knew how to talk to people. He knew how to spark conversations or improvise and do all he just learned so many skills. You feel the same way, like your background in in the kitchen and just in family businesses helped you excel in the corporate world?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

I think that without that job, I wouldn't be able to have the right tools to be where I am today.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I mean, you know, corporate America is corporate America, right? You know, I called it the golden handcuffs. You get paid really well, you have great benefits, you're getting that check every Friday, and you're off on the weekends and it's nine to five. But, you know, you're you're you're cuffed to them. Whatever they want, whatever they do, whatever, you know, and it's not a life that I wanted to live. But what I got out of it was structures, putting processes in place, uh, learning how to create a sales team and creating morale between each other, because you gotta remember, morale is uh to me is the most important thing to have in a kitchen and to have in any type of you know team environment. If you don't have morale, then that morale is just gonna tank, and nobody's gonna want to work with each other. And a sales team is the same way. So there's a lot, a lot that I've learned. I've learned everything the way that I run my business, I've learned from corporate America. I'm super thankful for that because I think a lot of restaurateurs or business owners, what they can lack is one could be excellent as a chef, but terrible as back office and running the business. And one could be a money guy and know exactly how to pay the bills and invest and do what they need to do and watch that bottom number, but they can't even boil an egg, right? So what I feel is I have the best of both worlds where I cooked, I went to culinary school, I learned it growing up, I had a passion for it, and that's what I did first. And then I got all my real life, you know, learning from working in corporate America, and I was able, I was lucky enough to bring those two together and understand how to treat employees, understand how to run a business because I was that employee, but understand how I need to grow that business and what things I gotta do and not do at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So when you when you decided that you'd had enough of the corporate life and you were gonna get back into restaurants, yeah, is that the point that you decided that South Carolina was a move? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, so it's a big move. Yeah, it's a big move. So up in New York, there was a lot going on during COVID. I was having a lot of stuff going on with me personally, and I wasn't happy with where I was. And, you know, my family recently moved down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My brother moved down to Richmond, Virginia. Everyone pretty much moved out of New York, and I was the only one up there. And once COVID happened, New York just changed. Long Island changed, just everything just changed so much, and I didn't want that. I wanted to start fresh, I wanted to start new. And I met a girl, my girlfriend, it was my wife now. So she went to school down here. She loves South Carolina. My parents were down here. I wanted to be close to the family, so I said, you know what? Let's just get out of New York. Let's get out of here and move down south. You and I will start new, have a nice warm climate, and you know, see where it goes from there. And I had no division of opening up a pizzeria and brick and mortar or anything like that. What I did though is if you ever look at my Instagram, and if you ever look at my Facebook and stuff, I call it the Jalopi. You're gonna see like an old beat up RV.

unknown 17:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Is that that how you started it? That's how I started it. With my DJ company, right? COVID happened. New York shut down. You couldn't have any group gatherings, couldn't meet together, couldn't have any parties. I had people booking weddings that they called me, and I had to give them their full deposits back because the state said you can't get married in public anymore with people. So my DJ company just like tanked. It was just like nobody can get together. So I bought a hot dog truck and it was an old 1970 RV that the guy converted into a hot dog truck. And people from up north, if you ever seen a hot dog truck, it's an RV with a side window with the big Sabrero saburette umbrella on the outside, and you're getting dirty water dogs out of it. That's what I got because New York allowed outside gatherings at one point. So I said, you know what? If I can't DJ, maybe I can do hot dogs, a pizza, or do something out of a food truck in an outside environment. So I bought I bought this truck for $3,000. And you have to go to my Instagram. I'm gonna find a picture. I have to look at this picture of it. It's on my Instagram. It's just it's just so ugly. It's it's horrible. I spray painted it, I roll painted it, I did all this thing to make trying to make it look good. And it sat on the side of my building where my DJ company was in my warehouse, and then I moved down to Charleston. I said, I have to bring that down with me. I left the business, uh, the warehouse. I want to bring the RV truck down. Because down here, food trucks were blowing up. Everyone was eating out of a food truck in Charleston. They have all these HOA neighborhoods. You come every Friday, every Thursday, every Saturday, and you're cooking dinner for two, three hundred houses, and people come and all that. And I wasn't used to that in New York. So I hired a transportation company to bring the truck down. And there it is, this old beat-up thing rolls up to my apartment in Charleston. Everything's all nice, palm trees, brand new apartments. And you see this old rusty, raggedy food truck come off this truck, and my neighbors that haven't even really met me yet. And they're like, who is this guy pulling in?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Oh, the New Yorkers here.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Man, it looked like the Griswolds. You know, Christmas vacation, that old RV, that's what it was. And uh yeah, the New Yorkers are here. They call them the Yankees. The Yankees are here.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

The Yankees.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

So now I'm stamped as a Yankee and I'm ruining South Carolina now. So, so yes, I said, you know what, I'm gonna do it. I when I moved down to Charleston, I already had a job set up. So the job was I was doing property management. I was doing a sales job. So I had that solidified, I was doing sales, and I said, you know what? I said, why don't we try to make some pizzas out of this, out of the hour apartment complex that we were in? And I had two uni. I put the two unis inside the kitchen, and I did a pizza service for the first time ever, and it was the worst night ever. It was just terrible. It was what went wrong. What went wrong is I'm in Charleston with no air condition with two uni ovens at 650 degrees. Baking the inside was like 150 degrees. I almost got heat stroke twice. I couldn't, but I was sweating so much that the flour would touch my arms, it would turn into dough. It was just a mess, man. And then I was like, what did I get myself into? Why did I ever think I could do something like this? And um, you know, a nice neighbor came with like a frozen pack and put it on my back, and I had to stop service. Like I was seeing stars. It was just a debacle. It was just horrible. And then I said, you know what? I said, we could figure this out. And um, that's when it just like clicked with me. Like to see everyone was so excited to get pizza from up north, that's when it clicked. And I said, okay, we really have to do something real this time. So I ended up selling it. I bought a uh an ATV 8 by 16 foot trailer, and my father and I built a kitchen inside this big rectangle trailer. And we put a floor. You built it out yourself? Yep, we built everything out ourselves. You know, we I put the make tables in, we my dad ran the electric, we put the the generator cord in, we did everything ourselves. And then I had a hitch on my truck because I had a truck, and then that's where it all started, man. I just at the end of work, my wife, my girlfriend then would hook up the truck and we say, okay, we're going to this neighborhood tonight. And this is probably four months moving into Charleston. When we're going to a neighborhood, we pop up our tent. Now it was all nice and clean, and we started doing pizza service. Within eight months, nine months, we opened up our first brick and mortar because everybody wanted to know where our store was and we didn't have one. Yeah. Pizza down here didn't exist by selling by the slice. There was no garlic knots, stromboles. That wasn't a thing down here in Charleston. So when people from up north moved down here, they were missing bagels and pizza. And we were lucky enough to be able to provide that to them. That's what really kicked us off. What was the menu like when you started?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

And was it just you and you and your girlfriend handling the full service?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Yeah, it was that's it. I didn't know anybody. It was just me and her. We didn't know anybody. We couldn't afford to pay anybody. You know, our menu consisted of six pizzas. It was cheese, our hot Rony, meat lovers, white, and a margarita. And we did five pizzas. No, sausage, peppers, and onions. We did six pizzas. That's it. And we priced it out. Whatever we made, we made. When we sold out, we sold out. Nice. You know, my wife, she had no idea what she was doing at first because she didn't work on a pizza either. So, but she, you know, she worked the register and wrote the tickets and gave them to me. But I had to make pizza, I had to put it in the oven, take it out, cut it, make another pizza. So I was the line. I was everything. And again, we were just learning. Yeah, we were learning. You know, it was just we were making it happen. We had to make do. You know, we were you still running the Oonies at that time, or did you change those? It was the trailer that we had had a tailgate that came down. It was, it would actually come down. So what we did is we put two stanchions and uh sta um uh metal, what are they like metal legs posts that would come down and the door became a platform? And what I put out there, I moved the ovens outside because I learned not to have the ovens inside. So we moved the ovens outside, and I actually used the black stone rotating oven. Dude, I love that oven. I it's my favorite. And they don't make the old ones, they don't make anymore. The dome, you know. Um I had two of them. And you'll see that on my Instagram too. I had two black stones, so I didn't have to worry about having a pizza guy, uh oven guy rotating the pizzas.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

So you're doing like 14, probably doing 14, 16.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah, yeah, that's right. We were doing like 12, yeah, about 14 inch pies.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you could do 16, but it's pretty tight in there.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we do 14, and um, I threw it in and then it would rotate it. I can throw a second one in. By the time I threw in the second one, the first one was done, I would take it out, cut it. By the time I cut that and box down and put the ticket on it, the second one would be ready. So I took that out and then I had to do two again. So it was two, two. Two and two, you know, make it, bake it, and then bag it up and then box it up. Um, yeah, it was it was hard. Pizza truck is not easy, man. I mean, there is so much risk in it. You show up to a neighborhood, you prep up for they say, Oh, yeah, we have 150, 200 houses here. They all love your pizza, they're gonna come. You show up and ten people come, you just work three or four hours for shifting. Did you guys have nights like that early on? Oh, yeah, all time. All the time. If it rained, forget it. If it rained, nobody wants to leave their house. Nobody wants because we would meet in a common area where like the neighborhood pool is and the parking lot and stuff, and um no one would come out. Or the worst is usually there's your point of contact per neighborhood. She volunteers or he volunteers herself to say, okay, I'm gonna run the food truck calendar, I'm gonna book the food trucks and let my neighbors know. If you get a lazy promoter, do you have people say, Oh, I didn't even know you were coming because they didn't do their job?

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

And then you're you're just wasting a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Motors are everything. My wife's funny. She's like, she's like on the list for all of the neighborhoods around here, so she knows where the trucks are going. Yes, so you know in all of the neighborhoods. Yeah, oh yeah, we do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

So there were so many factors that were out of my reach that I couldn't control. You know, people at first didn't know who I was. I was just I was one of the first pizza trucks around here from New York. You know, I just started my social media and all that. I didn't have a following of social media in Charleston for me to say, hey, I'm at this neighborhood and all that yet. So I depended on people like that. And if they didn't do their job, you know, my dough's tossed. You know, I I can't, it's not like I had a walk-in. It's not like I had a full restaurant. I had a commissary kitchen that I rented. I had a small little double-door fridge that I would keep my stuff and prepare for each each uh event or party I was doing. And then if I didn't sell through all that, all that went to waste, you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:00

That's so risky. So so now as you're as you're moving, you're going neighborhood to neighborhood, you're you're seeing some success, you're having some tough times. Yeah. But then you that leads you to brick and mortar. How do you decide where you need to be based on you've been doing you've been doing things all over town, it sounds like, at least all over a part of town. Right. How do you decide where you need to be and you know to take that risk? Because that's even still, that's that's almost a bigger gamble than moving from New York to Charleston.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

It is, it is. And that is actually what helped me also, and I was so, so happy that we started in a food truck because of that. So think about it. If I didn't have the food truck and I opened up a brick and mortar, that only 10-mile radius or whatever it is, knows it, a five-mile radius, whatever it is, is gonna know where I am, right? Now I'm building a name for myself, driving to everybody all throughout Charleston. I was in Daniel Island, I was in Mount Pleasant, I was in Point Hope, I was in West Ashley, Somerville, all these towns. So I was able to get the name out a lot faster. Who is this New York pizza guy? People were going to see me out. It's so funny. You're not a New York pizza guy. I go, Yeah, I'm a New York pizza guy. But that's how it started. I was able to jump around to so many areas that we were able to get the name out. So the reason, the way that we found our first location is we bought a house.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

And it's in West Ashley, a really nice area, nice family area and whatnot. And it was down the road from a shopping center. And there was a soup and sandwich shop that didn't look like they were doing really well. And my wife and I were like, you know what? Do we want to do this? You know, do we want to stop doing the food truck? Everyone's asking where our store is. Do we want to do this? And at the time, I had a great salary. I had I was all set. She had a salary, still working in Manhattan, but working remotely. And I said, I'm gonna have to quit my job if we do it. There's no way I'm gonna be an absentee owner. You know, I'm a control freak as it is, and I need processes, I need things done right, and I can't just open up a pizzeria and tell these people what to do because no one knows what to do out here. They don't know pizza, they don't know how to cut a pizza, they don't know how to stretch hand stretch, they're using presses, they're using flats that's already pre-baked and all these things. I said, I'm gonna have to be there. So it was one day I was coming home from work and my wife said, Go grab a sandwich and soup at the place. I want, I want, she got a tomato soup and a grilled cheese. And I went in, I got it. There was nobody there, and the food wasn't that great, and nothing against them. They were great people, but it just it just wasn't it wasn't working. And I just casually asked, I just said, Hey, by any chance, if you're ever thinking about selling, you know, I might be interested in maybe taking over the lease. I was spitballing an idea of opening up some pizza and stuff like that. Went home that night they called me. And they said, Hey, were you serious? I said, Yes. I said, I'm serious. And I just said it. Like, I was still in the loop of, hey, am I gonna open up a brick and mortar? Am I gonna do it? Maybe I shouldn't have opened my mouth. Like, damn, like what am I?

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Something made that phone ring though.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah, yeah. And I just said it. I said, hey, I think I I think the reason why I said it is because I would have I was assuming they were gonna say no. I was assuming I was gonna hear from them. I said it just to say it, right? Like to because I was interested, but not really thinking they were gonna call me back. And that night, man, they called, they called me, and that's it. It was just like, all right, let's have a conversation. We struck up a deal, and then 30 days later, there I am owning a sandwich and soup shop that we closed down. I kept my job. I didn't tell my job what I was doing. And then instead of instead of working, I was still doing pizza after after work, but when I was done with that, after my dinner shift, I went to the shop and we started gutting everything out. Did you did you guys build that out on your own too? We we build everything out. My father was like a general contractor. So I learned a lot from him growing up. I'm very hands-on with everything. My father always said, you know, learn the value of a dollar and why pay for someone to do something when you can do it yourself and learn. And that's how I've always lived my life. So if I didn't know how to do something, I'll learn how to do it, and then I'll do it myself.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

You're like the you're like the the the creative player on on 2K. Like we would make the guy 6'9 and make them strong, make them fast. You got the right set of skills. Sales. That's right. You DJ'd, you know, construction. You could do like you were made for that.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I had a crazy life. A crazy life, man. People that know me, they say Mike doesn't ever stop. He just go, goes, goes, goes. When you have a home, when you have a home. I just I can't sit still. If if, for instance, like if right now, after we get off this call, like what do I have to do? I mean, I'm opening up a new store, I'm gonna be running over there and doing some stuff, but I can't sit on a couch. I I just can't. I have to be doing something. I have like ADD when it comes to that. So it's just, I don't know. I think knowledge is power, man. I think the more you know and the more you get involved with things and the more you do things, the more successful you'll be in life. And I'm just thankful for being. I believe everything happens for a reason. You know, I never thought I'd come down to Charleston. I never thought I'd meet my wife and open this business. I would never ever think that I have had I would have four locations and three brick brick and mortars. Like you would have spoken to me four years ago, because we've only been open for four years, I would have laughed at you and said, no way I would be ever doing anything like this. So are you crazy? And I just think that, honestly, man, I think God works in mysterious ways. And I think that, you know, um, you know, I'm a religious guy. I'm not over-religious, but you know, I think that there are issues arrive and problems arise for reasons for you to overcome it, for you to become stronger, and for you to be able to pass it and become successful. And I had my challenges and I had my my struggles, you know, earlier in life. And I think because of that, it made me who I am today and the businessman I am today. And I'm thankful for all of it. I really think that everything happens for a reason. I I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

And you know, I agree with you 100%. You just said something that's that spoke to me, knowledge is power, and I saw, I saw, you know, pictures from a couple of weeks ago where you guys are up in at Pizza U. You're learning, learning, you know, learning Roman style in Vito's class with Leo. What's it like, you know, even with your experience and your background, continuing to sharpen your skills. You also compete. I see the U.S. Pizza Team shirt on. You also compete. You also, you know, give back to the pizza community. How do you continue to motivate yourself and learn new things and grow as a leader and an operator?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

I just think I like to be involved and network with as many people as possible. I'm very, very outgoing, which helps a lot. I talk to everybody. But I think that, like I said earlier, like I don't want to live that groundhog day. You know, I've seen it. I've seen the guys in the pizzeria dread to put that key in the door, open it, and say, shit, you know, we gotta make dough again today. We gotta make regular pizza today, we gotta do this. I'm tired of it. I don't, I don't, I never wanted to be that person. I wanted to be able to two things. One, I wanted to be able to learn as much as I can so I can have fun with it and and always be excited to come in and try something new. Like the Roman dough, you know. Vito, I'm you know, very close with Vito, and he's been my mentor, and I've been learning Roman dough with him over the past year. And I've been competing with it and doing stuff with it. And I went up to the class, you know, to support him and help him, but also I'm I learned something while I was there too, that you're always learning every day. If you think that you know everything, then you don't. I know you don't. You know, it's just you just don't. You don't. I don't care who you are. I and there's a lot of famous, amazing pizza old's out there, they're still learning. And why are they so popular and and that they're so knowledgeable? Because they're learning every day. Not everybody knows everything. So I just think that why limit yourself, yourself as an individual, to you know, short what you're gonna do in your career or whatever it is. That's one reason. The second reason is I want to be able to provide, you know, as much as I can and be different in the first ride with my pizzeria. I want people to come in and say, wow, I can have a Roman slice of pizza. I've never had that before. I have to go to Rome for that. It's not here in Charleston. I've never had a Chicago tavern thing crust before. I've loved Detroit. I went there once, but I was never able to find it. Like I want to create a memory and an experience to my customers. I want when they, and I'm very passionate about this, so if I talk too much, sorry. But I'm just, you know, when somebody bites on a piece of pizza, I want to be able to transport them back to some type of memory or something that they remember. And that is my goal when I'm building these shops and I'm, you know, I look at everything. I look at the decor. When people walk in, like my first location, I have the whole timeline of New York City on how it evolved and how it was built. I have certain items that you'll find in New York and Jersey in there. And when people come in, you see them standing there looking at the wall and like reminiscing and learning and looking and bringing them back. And then when they eat the pizza, like, wow, this I remember what it tastes like. This is great. Like, that's my goal to be a storyteller through my pizza and be able to, you know, have a memory for them. So that's that's the second reason why I want to continue learning because it's not just ingredients, it's not just non-bromate, non-bleach, like everyone's saying, and have to do this, and you have to do that. There's so much more to learn and to sharpen your skills to give yourself the knowledge and give your customers a better experience. And that's the main reason why I do it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

I loved it. I learned a lot just being on the other side of the table at the you know competitions here in Orlando as a judge, first-time judge, never competed. But I walked away with just a ton of knowledge and just from just from seeing all the all the different styles, all the different competitors, how the judges really asked questions, gave feedback. One of the one of my favorite things about the pizza community is that openness and that willingness to push the whole the whole genre forward. And it's you know, to me that's fun. I I saw you, I met you, I think I met you for the first time in Atlanta. And yes, to me that was an incredible experience because it wasn't wasn't about anything other than going there to get better and learn something new. Right. And network and meet people. And that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah. I mean, that's what to me, that's what it's all about. I mean, you know, it took me a while to figure that out because being from New York, you have your guard up a lot. Yeah. Especially working in a pizzeria, you have your guard up a lot, and nobody's sharing recipes, nobody sharing trade secrets and things to do. So I was always, when I first, before I joined the team or had this brick and mortar when I had the pizzeria, I had my guard up here. And I was like, just I wasn't part of that pizza community. And then I found out what the pizza community was all about, and how it wasn't like those old days anymore, and how there's a US pizza team and a world pizza champions, and now there's um these big pizza shows and all this stuff. Like, that's what really opened my eyes. Like, wow, this is an amazing community of people that don't care about talking about it and they just want to better each other. And like, like in Atlanta or coming down to LA or Orlando or you know, Pizza Expo, it's so cool going to these things because they say, Hey, I seen you when we were talking, and we talked last year, and how's it going? And it's such a cool community. It's like, yeah, I look forward to those things.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah, and well, you've come a long way if you were a non-participant, because I go to the shows now and you're like, I think I seen you on the microphone, then I see you competing, and then I see you doing like you're well now.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

You know why I'm on the microphone because I had a DJ production company.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Now it now it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

That's why.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

But I can see that you're, I mean, giving what you can to whatever you can to make it better to create that experience. So yeah, you know, being being able to get a closer seat and understanding how everyone works together, even when it's like, hey, dude, we need somebody to jump in here. Can you can you do it? I've seen guys from you know, you know, talk to uh to Rico and he had to jump in and speak for someone. And right, I think for you, you were I think you were out. Did you have surgery or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yeah, so I had it was about social media. I did it at the LA show, and I was supposed to do it at the Orlando show. And in November, I had rotated cup surgery and my torn bicep repaired. Ouch. So I I'm actually I have uh two more weeks of PT. Yeah. Yeah. So yes, that was a that was a nightmare with these past two months, but I couldn't come down to the book. What do you do? You really want to know? Yeah. So it was my 40th birthday in August. I went down to the Bahamas, just me and my wife. And you know when you go to these resorts, to either it's the uh the cruise line or it's the um the you know Bahama mama, whatever it is, they have that wave where you go on the boogie board, you stay in one place and the water comes down. Yeah. So I want always wanted to do that, so I did it. And the guy's telling me to do all these tricks. I had to follow him and do all these tricks and stuff like that. And I see these kids next to me and they're doing all this crazy stuff. And I think I'm like 20 years old again. I go, I can do that. So I started doing it. I'm like, yeah, I thought I was all hot shit, you know. Like, I can do it, I can do it. And then and then the guy said, Okay, the guy said, Do it 360. I said, Okay, and you gotta put your arm out, and then you gotta like use now. That water's coming at you at like 200 miles an hour to you to stay in place. So I put my arm out, and as soon as I put my arm out, my whole shoulder went back. I flipped, I hit the back wall, and my shoulder from from the top to my fingertips was just all pins and needles. I tore all my nerves, and I actually like tore the rest of my my my rotator cuff just by that water. So now, this the next three days of my birthday down in the Bahamas, I'm sitting there, not being able to do anything, and then I got scanned and that's it. Torn bicep tendon and my rotator cuff. 40 caught you real fast. Yep, real fast. Happy birthday, thinking I was cool on this boogie board. Meanwhile, I got a rotator cuff and I'm out for three months. It was horrible.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

My kids love to remind me that I'm not I'm not as young as I used to be. But uh that's pretty cool. I I watched him do it, I've never tried it. My son is great. My son is great. Like I watch him do it, he's he's all over it, but I'm like, nah, it looks like looks like a couple of days off for me.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

You know, that's another thing you gotta worry about when you own a business. Like, you can't do things like this anymore because if you get hurt, it's screwed, you know? I mean, I'm lucky to have I have an amazing crew. I have amazing staff, and I'm always praising them. Without them, I I'd really be nothing. And they were able to step up and you know, think about it. I'm an owner-operate. I'm not just an owner where I sit home. Right. I operate. I'm there making pizza, and now I'm tied up with shoulder surgery in a sling for eight weeks. Then when I'm out of the sling, I have PT for two months. I mean, it was it was scary. It was really, really scary. But you can't do these things anymore. You can't, you just kind of like walk around with a bubble around you and just like be careful.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Yeah, yeah, we got to protect the brand here. You're the quarterback, man. You got the red jersey on, though.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Don't hit them too hard. No, it's horrible. So, how did you know, I want to hear about you a little bit. Like, how did how did you get in this, man? How did you get started in pizza and what's your history?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

So I I'm, you know, I started on the corporate side of pizza at Little Caesars in Michigan, Lansing, Michigan. Okay. Just needing a job, really, more than anything. It was around the corner from my house. I used to walk there and they just hired me. Everyone, I was like the assistant manager, but everybody was the assistant manager at Little Caesars. In real life, I made dough and I washed dishes and uh had a lot of fun there. I stayed there for about maybe about a year, year and a half before I moved to Florida. You know, I moved here to Tampa or Riverview, just outside of Tampa, and there's a little pizzeria across the street. Same thing. I still didn't have a car, I'm 21. Walking across, I applied like to everything in the public center. There was a, you know, to date myself, I'll I also applied. So I applied to West Shore Pizza, but I also applied to Radio Shack and Hollywood Video the same day. No what? So thank goodness I the pizza shop called me because neither one of those other brands even exist anymore. So that's uh that's how old I am. But uh, you know, they had a pizza box in a window just hiring, and I'm like, shit, I worked out Little Caesars, I was the assistant manager, but I'd never like, you know, it was a sh we had the sheeter, we had pans, I never stretched a pizza. You know, everything was very systemized, very organized in Little Caesars. And I came to work in, you know, at a west shore, and it was, you know, very much so a mom and pop. You know, it's it's New York style. We call it Philly style because the the boss, the founder's from Philly, but it's New York style pie. Right. So, you know, they taught me everything and really got close to the founder and owner, Bobby Bassatoro, uh, who just took me, just kind of just took me right under the wing, man, and taught me everything about this business, gave me tons of opportunity, helped me get into my first store, um, you know, 23 years old. Wow. So, you know, since then it's been, you know, now eight locations um over those years. Do you have eight locations? No, I've one now. I've I've had Alo. This is the eighth one that I've had. Wow. At the peak, I think we were three locations. But I've just been able to just learn this business, work on all these stores. I helped him on the corporate side for 13 years. Wow. Opening restaurants, writing the training manuals. We didn't have anything. We didn't have an ops manual, we didn't have training guides. We just had to build it all. Yeah. And it's been a lot of fun. So just kind of learning in a in a different way. I we literally didn't even have, you know, the blueprint to doing it. I copied, I had a subway, somebody gave me a subway ops manual, and I just like changed sandwich to pizza on all the specs while we figured it out. And then later we caught like a Papa John's manual. But eventually we learned, you know, learned all those things as we were opening locations.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Because it was, it was tough to grow. He was franchising, but we didn't really know what franchising was. We were just opening stores and he was cutting deals with all the softball buddies around town. But you know, West Shore grew pretty quickly up to like 52, 53 locations pre-COVID. Whoa. Yeah, a lot of stores closed. Turns out you maybe you do have to vet people before you put them into business.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Maybe you need to understand their background, their financial capabilities. But a lot of lessons learned from for myself and the guys that were just on that team of just training and opening and helping folks get started. Um spent my time on the corporate side. I went to to Fuzzy's Taco Shop for a few years as a franchise business consultant. So I traveled a region. I literally covered from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to uh to Charlottesville, Virginia. So the whole Southeast, you know, 20, 30 restaurants, opened a bunch of stores in a few years for them. Spent a few years on the corporate side with checkers and moles. So I got to learn. So that's good. You got the corporate side of it too. I got the corporate side of things. And and it helped me really understand how important people were to all of these processes. Like everything we did was dependent on how we were training, how we were developing, right? How we continue to, you know, add and build to our team and build depth in our bench. So spending that time there, I worked for a large franchise group, the Pizza Hut, hundred and hundred and four locations. So, you know, a bunch of a bunch of experience, but throughout all of that, we always had a pizzeria. We just didn't, you know, I had a partner, we didn't have a pizzeria that could support both of us. So it was do my corporate job during during the day or during the week and help out here at home at in the pizza shop on the weekends. Right. Until we could uh until we could afford to have us both there. And then it we finally caught that after COVID, it was like really learning what was important. I I was spending a ton of time away, I was traveling a lot. You know, I was getting on a plane on a Monday, come back home on a Thursday. Yeah, working at Pizzeria all weekend, I was missing so much just with my family, with my kids, and then it was you know, till you made that decision, like, okay, maybe it's worth more to take less and stay here and not chase that dollar and you know, just like you cannot. I tell this story. My youngest son was like they draw pictures. They're I they're school age, I got a thirteen year old, two eleven year olds, but at the time. Time there, you know, drawing pictures in first grade, second grade, and they would draw family pictures and I wasn't in them. And it was like, damn, where's daddy? Well, Daddy, you're you're in Mississippi or you're in Louisiana, you're at work. And I'm like, that was that was tough for me. So, you know, kind of hung up that corporate role, which was great. It was fun. I enjoyed the travel. We had a lot of perks that the family benefited from with as far as airline points and hotel nights and free rental cars and all the all the things that come from the corporate grind, but I missed a ton of time. Yeah. So now, you know, life's a little bit slower, but I can be at every soccer practice. I can go to every game. I can, you know, I'm I'm here in the shop now, but I'll be there when it's time to pick the kids up from school. You know, I'll I'll handle everything in my houses three minutes from here. So like I just love that that situation. And, you know, being a learner, being someone who was always I always said yes even before I knew what the hell to do. And then I figure it out. So even you know, Bob's like, you know how to write a manual? Like, yeah, nope. Yeah. So then we figure it out, and then we then we do it and we, you know, we just learn how to how to make it better. We we started working on specs, we started building it, and you know, thankfully, you know, I had that time on the corporate side. So you know, I always tell folks I went from from dishwasher to franchise owner, you know, in in whatever amount of time, but I had a lot of experience on the way and a lot of opportunities to just say yes to things and and try it out. Sometimes we fail, a lot of times we failed. I bought stores that didn't make it, like I've had to close those doors. I've built stores, I've bought stores, I've, you know, all of it over time, but it it's all led us to where we are right now. And uh I started a podcast just because I had some lessons, some leadership things that I was working on. I wanted to get it out. And Bruce Irving really gave, he really pushed me to do it. I've been on his show a couple of times, and he's like, T, you gotta start talking about your leadership stuff on the podcast. You know, I was traveling back with my corporate job, and I had a GM at my store, but I wanted to communicate with him and in a way to help him think like me, see the things I was seeing. So we just started like a morning email chain. And I give him a little motivation, I give him a prompt for the day, you know, let's let's focus on this. And it became like this my first book that uh that we published. And it's just something that we built on, you know, over the over time. It's been, I don't know, seven years now that we've been doing this. And that's awesome. Led to the podcast and doing all those different things. So, you know, I've just I'm in a different spot in the in the business, but um I have the same goals, which is make it better, push it forward. I'm all about people, I'm all about developing leaders. That was the biggest lesson that Bob taught me was no it doesn't matter what we do because he he had pizza shops, we also had a movie theater and a coffee shop and all these different things. He goes, see, it don't matter what we sell, we're in the people business. We're in the we're in the business of of nurturing relationships. So if you take care of people, people will take care of you. And I am 1,000% a believer in that and a product of that. I've had so many chances to not be here just based on the mistakes that I've made. So I'm uh I'm forever grateful. And I'm just trying to give it back whatever I can, and that's why we do this. I just talk about the experience and try to help somebody else make a better decision.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

And you're gonna help people because somebody has been through what you've been through, someone who has been through what I've been through, and when they see people that have been down or failed and they've rediscovered themselves and fixed the issues and all that, I really feel that it makes puts it, you know, a thing in their mind saying, you know what, it is possible. Look at this person. That's how I see when I hear stories of something happen. I mean, I hate to say this, but I actually enjoy seeing people fail and then fix the fix the situation and and they become super successful because it gave me hope to see, hey, you failed at this point. You everyone fails, right? You overcame that, you fixed it, you adjusted, and now look at you, you're the you're the cream of the crop, right? So I enjoy listening and watching podcasts and and reading stuff like that because I know whatever I go through, even to today, even opening up a new location, I'm gonna fail at something, something's gonna screw up, but I know someone else has been through it, and then I can learn from them, so I know how to do it better next time. So I think that's awesome to do a podcast like this and have people watch and learn. I mean, again, it all comes back to learning. Well we're learning every single day.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

And and still to this, to this day, still learning, still growing, still just trying to figure out a way to make it better without without breaking what's already theirs. Right, right. You know, that's that's what we're on. And I love pizza. That's the other part of it, is I just love pizza. So I'm here, we're we're trying pizzas, I'm making different things. They won't let me tinker too much with the with the menu, but we can do what I can do what I want behind the scenes. Yeah, man. And he's like, T don't don't go make any of that wet dough again. Calm down. Like, stop making that wet shit. The dough's not broken. Don't don't don't mess with it.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

I'm like, okay, so what type of type of ovens do you use?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

So funny, I don't well, my camera's kind of fixed. So I have right now we're using the conveyor, the edge. Dude, I bought this, I bought this shop in, you know, last month, about seven weeks ago. And it's got a it's got a conveyor. We got a blodge it on top, a deck on top of it. I have not turned the deck on. It's uh gas or electric? It's uh it's gas. Gas, okay. I have not turned it on. I'm running, we once we got it dialed in and the conveyor was burning the cheese a little bit. Okay. But I talked to my talked to my buddy George, and he helped me kind of dial back the I first I needed to know like what speed and time and intent should I be running on this. It's not George Keller, is it? Not George Taylor, George Clark. I love George Taylor though. I do love George Taylor.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Because he's got a conveyor, so I'm just curious if it was in.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

And I and now that I know I should have called him too. But it was like, how do I how do I dial this in? I know guys are making New York style and conveyors. So once we figure that out and the pizza started to come out the way we want it, uh, you know, because they were like running them through fast and finishing them on the deck just to get just to get them brown and crispy. And it's like, dude, let's let's figure out if we can make this better, make it make it more simple. So I got a deck, but I'm not using it. It's it hasn't been on in five weeks.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Yeah. Well, if you if you have it dialed in, then you know there's no reason for it.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Save the gas and save the heat in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Save the heat. We did no, uh, we did turn it on because we dropped down to like 30 degrees two weeks ago, and he turned the deck on just to warm the kitchen up a little bit. Yeah. We haven't cooked it. And I do got I got like the catering this week, so we'll be running lasagna lasagnas and and spaghetti through it. But nice.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

So you have a whole catering menu also.

SPEAKER_01 52:50

Yeah, it's something that we're we're kind of putting in and trying to dial in. It's an opportunity for us. I saw that deck, and I'm like, dude, we can sell a lot of pizzas fast. Yeah. How do we how do we do it? And then we start putting on fielders. My partner's really involved in the community, which I want to touch on when you too. He's really involved in the community, so he starts getting with all these PTAs and all these church groups and all these teams and all this stuff, and then everybody wants something. So we're doing like 10-inch pizzas for the softball field so they can sell the concessions. Right. Doing a bunch of big things for this for this church down the road. So the catering has really kind of become a competitive advantage for us here and will continue to grow. It's helped us, you know, one month in, we didn't lose anything, so I'm happy. And thankfully it was catering that did it. It's a a money-made catering's huge labor.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

We started doing catering and it's it was game changer, especially like we did it right before uh Christmas and the holidays. So you had all these office parties and stuff like that that were ordering trays of food, and it was something that I wasn't sure if I was gonna get into because I don't have a full kit, I don't have a kitchen in any of my pizzarias. We don't have stovetops, we don't have flat tops, we have ovens, nothing. We have no kitchen. It's all pizza, it's all pizza ovens that we use and uh prep tables and and whatnot. Yeah. So I had to figure out a way to do it, but we we figured out a really good way to do it, and it was a game changer for business-wise, for be able to offer catering and offer something other than just pizza. It diversified yourself.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Yeah, I I I think it's huge, especially when you can execute it. For us, it was really figuring out the sales cycle and the communication. I've I've been learning a lot. You know, thankfully, COVID just opened the internet up and opened up so much education. And I've been learning about just sales and you know, sales funnels and follow-up and automation. And we wanted to take that same approach with the catering. And I talked to Rick Gruber and he kind of he gave me, he really planted that seat for me, like, dude, we got we're the fastest to follow up, we're the fastest to get, you know, proposals out and quotes done, and you know, we can do the whole setup for you. So we've been trying to, you know, adopt that same approach here where it's dude, it's you put an inquiry, you know, an inquiry in, someone's getting back to you in 30 minutes. You know, it's like automated, though. You know, you're gonna get an automated response, but I'm gonna get the alert, I'm gonna call you back, we're gonna see what you need, we're gonna get a quote out fast. Um, we're just gonna try to solve it as quickly as we can, which which helps us here because we're still in transition mode. So it I'm not like hiring more people yet. I'm not really marketing anything yet other outside of to our loyalty members. So that gave us a chance to make a little bit of money without stressing over having to grow and pay the bills just yet.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

Right, right. That's awesome. That's that's that's exciting, man. It is exciting.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

It's a lot of fun. So I'm I'm enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Very cool, man. I wish you the best of luck. I think that's great. That's that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Tell us tell us the you know, the best thing that you've learned that you can pass on to somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

That's a good one because I learned a lot. But I would say the best thing that I've learned is uh it's just so cliche, but it hits me so hard and it's so true. Just run with it. And if you have a passion for something, if you want to do something, just take the chance and do it. Don't wait. I waited a long time. And, you know, I, you know, I'm the happiest I've ever been being in this industry and being in pizza and and working with customers and mentoring the, you know, the my employees. And I wish I did I did it a lot sooner, but there's always that sense of fear that puts you back and that that sense of comfortability, and you say, Oh, I'm comfortable, everything's great, I'm not gonna do it. Why should I do it? There's no reason. But you know, what I've learned is by me taking that risk and failing and and then becoming successful and back and forth, right? If I'd never taken that risk and really went for it, I don't know where I'd be right now. I'd probably be still in New York and probably still be in a suit and tie in 30-degree weather on the train platform, waiting to go into Manhattan, miserable. I just, it's just take a risk. Without any risk, there's no reward. And if it's something that you're really passionate about, and if you have the drive to do it, do it because you will wake up one day when you're 60, 70, 80 years old and said, shit, I wish I did something different in my life. And you're not going to be able to do that. So I think the biggest thing that I've learned out of all of my ventures that I'm getting into, between pizza making and um, you know, selling my sauce and selling my dough and all these other things that I'm doing, I wouldn't have thought about doing that if I didn't take a risk to do it and to see where I would go. And I think I'm a better person. I think I'm a better businessman because of it. Uh yeah, just just just go for it. Don't don't have any regrets. Just do it and work hard and it'll happen.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Absolutely. Dude, there's so many layers to you. We ain't even touch on the dough and the sauce and how how you're expanding the brand. We could probably go another hour. So that all that means is that you got to come back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

You're gonna be in Vegas? I am. I'm gonna be in Vegas. I'm working at um the Maraforney booth. I'm an ambassador for Marifony. Okay. So I'll be cooking with university there, with Galbani. Okay. Um, I'll be cooking at the Galbani booth and with my dough company, Diorio, I'll be making pizzas and showcasing my dough there and that. So I'll be working at all three booths. And I'm I'm signed up for competition, but I'm gonna be so busy. You like paying.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

I was gonna say let's sit down, but you have no time.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

No, no. Let's sit down.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

I'll make time. I'll be at the I'll be at the perfect crust booth.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Good. I'm gonna be there too.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Yeah, so just yeah, hit me up and we'll we'll sit down and do something. I'll be there.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

But we'll set up and talk. But you got you got a lot of layers to you. I wanted to also talk about the the uh you did like Yeah, yeah, Pizza Club. Yeah. Pizza Club. Yeah, man. You're you're one of the first I I've seen people talk about it. I have not seen anybody actually put it out there and put it into action. Yeah. You ran with that. Tell me before we go, at least just tell tell us how that went.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

So it wasn't what I expected. Okay. And I th and I'm learning, so that there's more learning. People love the idea. They love that it was $5.99, get a pizza every week. Pizza Club, I had these nice cards made, and I sold a couple subscriptions, and those customers come in once a week and they grab their pizza, we punch their card, and that's it. The problem that I had was I did it right before Christmas. Okay. And I thought it would be a cool gift for people to buy for one another and people to buy for the beginning of the year because I wanted to start it in January and end in December. So I had to start it in the year. But after I put it out, how of a necessity is it to spend $600 on pizza, right? Or your family right before Christmas, buying gifts, buying food from when people come over, all these things. And then, you know, at the end of the year, January, February, nobody spends any money, right? Because they spent all their money in Christmas. So I've learned that I don't think it was a good idea to do it at that time of the year. Okay. And maybe I should start it mid-year, where people get their tax money back, people who can recover from the holiday. And now it's the beginning of a summer. Kids are out of school. Let's be part of the pizza club. They're more inclined to buy a pizza club. But with that being said, I did sell subscriptions. Yeah. People love it. People love the idea. It's it's it's beneficial for both sides of the party. But I just think that I have to pick a better time of the year to sell it for people to have the funds.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

I think that mid-year is is great because you got a you got an automatic upsell. Start your subscription now and get pizza for the end of the year, you know, through the end of the year plus all of 2027. Right. If you start in, you know, we get it in July, and maybe you give them like 50% off and add the rest of this year and get all the next year for one price, then it becomes like a no-brainer. I'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

That's exactly what that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm punching the half a year, and I'll be a half-year subscription, and then people can use it for the following year. But it's a great concept. I was talking to a guy at at Atlanta, and that's where I learned about it. There was a guy that I met at Atlanta at the forum, pizza forum. And uh yeah, but it I put it into play and it was great. You know, the customers that I had that have it are are stoked. You know, they they get their pizza every week. And I think it's gonna be good that people know that we do that. So now the word's out, I think it would have a better following then.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

So it was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

It's something different.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

You don't try, you don't learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

That's right. Exactly right, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Hey, tell us tell us where they can find you, where they can learn more. I'll post all of the links, but tell us where to where to follow up you and Pizza Amoto Mio.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

So on Instagram, it's PizzaMoto Mio, P-I-Z-Z-A-M-O-D-O-M-I-O. On Facebook, it's Pizza Amoto Mio S C for Charleston, uh, South Carolina. And on Instagram, I'm sorry, not Instagram, but on TikTok, it's Pizzamoto Mio as well. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Yeah, go go check him out. He's got good content. I do I like how you do so. You're not nervous on camera. No, I love it. You do you talk in the car, and and and one of the things I like, not that I now I sound like you, I liked about you being heard and being out was that you talked a lot. I did. And you went live a lot and you and you just opened up and that's I feel like I got to know you just watching those videos. So, you know, that's the point, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

You want to buy, I mean, I want to buy from someone that I feel like I know I can trust, somebody that I can relate to. You know, that's I want people to know like this isn't a facade. This is me. This is who I am. You either like me or you don't like me. You know, I'm a very real dude, a very passionate dude. And it's just that you see what you get, and I like to just showcase that and share it. And hopefully people see the good side of me and what I'm what I'm about. And if they want to follow and come in, they do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

I love it. Keep doing it, keep killing it. Good luck on our new store. Appreciate you. Uh I'm wishing you nothing but success, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Same to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

And with your store too, man. A few weeks in, I you're gonna crush it. I know you are. With that mentality and your hustle and your drive, I wish you nothing but the already successful, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

I'm good. We're gonna be okay. I love it. I love it. Thank you.