The 14-Week Pizzeria Operators Playbook

Most struggling pizzerias do not need more ideas. They need a clear order of operations.
 
 In Episode 156 of the Pizza King Podcast, Tyrell Reed breaks down the 14-week Pizzeria Operators Playbook he used to bring structure to a struggling store and support 34% sales growth in seven months.
 
 The playbook moves through four phases: stabilizing the operation, building a leadership pipeline, improving speed and accountability, and reinforcing the right habits through recognition. Tyrell also explains the 1-2-1 leadership structure designed for small and midsize pizza shops.
 
 You will learn:
 • Why food safety should come first
 • How cash controls, training, and manager rhythms create stability
 • How to build one lead manager, two junior managers, and one future leader
 • Which numbers help measure daily execution
 • Why recognition belongs inside your accountability system
 • How one clear focus each week can create lasting progress
 
 Download the complete Pizzeria Operators Playbook free:
 https://pizzakingpodcast.com/playbook-1
 
 Episode sponsors:
 Edge Pizza Ovens: https://edgeovens.com/test-bake
 Mailwise Solutions: https://mailwisesolutions.com. Pizza King Podcast listeners save $150.
 Virnika AI: Save $500 on the first year of Agent Penny with no setup fee. Mention the Pizza King Podcast at https://virnika.ai/ 

George rolls up in the EDGE test truck and invites you to step inside, where you’ll bake your own pizzas in our oven—using your dough, your toppings, your process. It’s the simplest way to experience firsthand why EDGE powers some of the best-performing pizza kitchens in the world, and why our bake is widely regarded as market-leading. 

https://www.edgeovens.com/test-bake

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 1:11

We start to build in what recognition looks like, why it's important, how we use that to reinforce the good habits and the good processes versus always, you know, having to be, you know, you think accountability, you think, oh, we have to, we have to get on somebody. Recognition becomes a part of accountability too. What is going on, PizzaFam? Welcome back to the Pizza King Podcast. I'm your host, Tyro Reed. As always, it's Thursday's takeout tips. I'm gonna do something a little bit different this time, though. You've heard me talk over the last couple of weeks, or if you've seen through email that I am launching a coaching program, a small cohort for 10 owners to go through the Pizzeria Operators Playbook that I put together as part of my leadership accelerator program. I've been dropping hints about it, I've been talking about it. I'm just I just want to go through, I'm just gonna give it to you. That way, if you can't make the cohort, if you if you you know you don't have the time right now, or if you don't have the investment, I still want to make sure that you get it. So I don't know. This this is my platform, so I decide what we put out there, and we're gonna give this program away. And that's not to take anything away from the people who have already signed up that want to be a part of it. That's a chance for us to work hand in hand and really do this together, shoulder to shoulder. But if you say, look, I think I can handle it, let me let me give it to you. So I'm gonna go through kind of like the overview of the program, but this is me get I'm going to just give you the the steps to it and give you what's in what's inside of it. And then if anybody wants the full playbook, they want the book, the accompanying book that goes with it, the 14-week tracker, I'm gonna give you all of those things for free here today and stay available for you if you want some help going through it. So without uh without wasting anybody's time, let's just jot let's just dive right into what I'm calling the pizzeria operators playbook. I built this for people who are having trouble, you know, really just growing their pizzeria. I built this from my experience taking over a struggling pizzeria and taking the steps that I needed to take to turn those operations around and ultimately turn those sales around. We just finished July, month seven, since taking over, we are up 34%. So we're it's working, we're growing, we're doing the right things, we've taken the steps. Some, you know, 14 weeks is you know, is the outline. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. Sometimes you skip through weeks and you get things done a little bit faster. But the 14 week is a is a framework that we put together, meaning I can teach you all of the things that are here within that within that time frame if we have one singular focus every single week. So it's a 14-week system. I mean, it's it's built to promote structure, it's built to help develop your team, it's built to help you run a pizzeria without having to live in your pizzeria. That's that's the whole goal, right? Is we want good businesses, we don't want to, we don't necessarily want to have to live in them. So you know, because a lot of us got here by being good, right? We're good, we're good pizza makers, we were good, probably good managers, or maybe we were good at, you know, something else in our in our previous life, but you decided that you're gonna get into this business, and then it came smacking you in the face that it's not really all that easy. Some people, you hit a home run right out of the box and you're busy and you're great and you're making money, that's not always the case. Some of us really have to build our business over time and build our teams and build our build our systems that people like to throw out there. This is exactly for those pizzeria and those operators who are struggling to find structure. Like you you got managers, but they don't know what what to do every day. So everything still ends up falling back on you. You're you're leaking cash. Maybe you got a profit problem in the pizzeria and you're and you're starting to leak out some little bit of cash there. There's no consistency in your processes, you're not running PLs. You know, maybe you're having some trouble having you know consistent systems and your recipes are all over the place, or your team isn't trained, or you don't have those weekly rhythms. Like there's there's so many different reasons that pizzeria's struggle, and we built this to address all of them systematically, step by step, and and and shure up all of those processes along the way. And if you're listening, don't worry. I'm gonna I'm gonna send everything that I'm talking about here today. I'm gonna send that out for you. The system is a 14-week system, and we're starting on September. Hold on, I'll tell you the exact day so that if you do want to join me and you want to be a part of this process, all you got to do is send me an email, info at tyrellreed.com. We'll jump on a call and then we'll uh we'll talk about what it takes to get started. But we're starting on Tuesday, September 8th. Tuesday, September 8th. And that's weekly calls. We're doing it in a group format. One singular focus every week. We're we're we're take we're tackling all every one of these standards week by week until we have a full, fully functioning, healthy operation with a leadership pipeline, with standards and systems in place, with customer service, you know, goals and standards in place, with a recognition program built into it at the end. It's it's so it's so dope when you get it all, when you get it all going the right way. So it's it's it's a 14-week system. It's built on four phases. We we do them in order. We try, we don't skip around because the order is what builds it, right? So, first, in the first phase, we start by stabilizing the operations. We tackle food safety. Always first, we we go after food safety. Then we tackle cash and make sure we're we're handling that training, team training, general manager rhythm. What are our weekly routines look like? And we kind of finish that off with product compliance. Now, always start with food safety because that's to me the easiest place to start to build a system and to start building routine from because one, everybody understands why it's important, and two, nobody argues with it. Because we got one responsibility, and that's to serve food with at the highest, you know, highest quality and that and at with the utmost integrity. People come to us because they trust that we're safe and we're doing the things that will not get them sick, or or you know, things like that. You know, you see all the news, you see, you know, lettuce recalls and knees recalls, and this like people start to lose trust in in restaurants and things like that if they're not doing the right things, or if you go into a place and it's dirty, or you go, you you know, you get some food and it wasn't good food, you probably never go back to that place. So we always start with food safety because most issues are caught by having solid food safety processes. The second phase is where we really start to jump into the leadership components of it, talking about execution, talking about routines, setting standards for hospitality, setting our structure for leadership. I'm very big on a one-two-one structure, especially for pizza shops, you know, small, medium-sized pizza shops that don't need, you know, a 20, 30, 40 person crew. We're talking about shops that run with 10, 15 people, 20 people. You need three leaders. You need one, one, one number one leader, you need two junior managers, and you need at least one person in development all the time, one, two, one. That's something that we teach, something that we pre that we promote, and something that helps us build a pipeline of leadership because we're continuing to develop the next phase and the next round of leaders. We know people grow out of positions, we know people are gonna leave. We know turnover is what it is in this industry. Let's plan for that. Let's build a system around that so that we're not ever stuck without. And that's exactly what the framework is for. So we we start to put in the components of building a one-two-one leadership pipeline, setting up our structure. We start to talk about optimizing back a house once we know we got the leadership, the leadership in place. Because once once we're there, we have a stable operation, we have a leadership team, we have a pipeline for building and developing and training more leaders, that's where we start to build in the things that take our operation to the next level, which is phase three: speed, systems, accountability, the things that really help measure the quality of your business. What are your ticket times? What is your what is your your coaching look like in the moment? You know, what are the metrics that are really pushing your business forward? Are we talking about sales per labor hour? Are we talking about what your what your food cost is? Are we talking about what your paper cost looks like? All of those things are what we talk about and what we break down in phase three. This is weeks 10, 11, 12, in there, those, those become very important. The final phase is where we really lock in the recognition, the culture, the team components, because now that you have momentum, you built your you built your operation, you stabilize your leadership structure, you really leaned into your speed, your standards, your accountability, the routines that run your system, you know, the operation. Now we lock that in by saying, look, we reinforce the good habits. Because what's the hardest part? Making this stick, right? Making it stick. And we run into the same issues, even in my operation. You spend that time building these things, and we got our checklist, and we got we got our forms, we got our our our weekly rhythm. But then the habits don't stick. You know, we lost momentum because we thought we had our process down and then somebody, you know, didn't do it or didn't execute. We didn't we didn't put them really in a position to be successful because we didn't make it part of our culture. So that's where the last phase comes in. We start to build in what recognition looks like, why it's important, how we use that to reinforce the good habits and the good processes versus always, you know, having to be, you know, you think accountability, you think, oh, we have to we have to get on somebody. Recognition becomes a part of accountability too. So showing showing people that this is the right way to do it, and then we recognize them for that is a great way to build that structure. So we really reinforce doing that. So I'm excited, I'm excited about starting. And if anybody really wants to join me, man, I'm telling you, just send me an email. Let's let's get it going. I got nine spots left, and this is going to be our you know, our first cohort.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

The investment is the investment is low. We don't even need to say that.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

All right, and that's and that's really what the four phases look like. Now, in addition to four phases that I talked about, we're talking about you know, stabilizing operations, we're talking about building a leadership structure, pipeline, and and and culture there. We talk about setting standards, building in those routines and weekly rhythms, and we talk about recognition. But throughout all of that, we're always focused on the continued development of leaders. Like this is kind of like the overlay of the whole program. We're always going to be talking about mindset, we're always gonna be talking about communication, we're always gonna be talking about how we how we handle decision making, how we handle coaching and feedback, you know, promoting and developing future leaders. All of that is consistent throughout the entire program. So what I did was taking, you know, the the time and the things that we did here in my store over, you know, I call it a 14-week. That's what we built the program around, but this is something that is continuously ongoing. Taking the things that we're doing and we and we learned and we put together from my store and my experience, we turned it into a little, you know, just a little book that I like. It's a good way to tell the story. I'll send you the book. It's it's a short read. It's a fictional character, but it's there's elements of it that we can all feel, right? The showing up early into the store and turning on everything because nobody else would do it. You know, the story of the operator who misses his daughter's soccer game because things just got too busy. So there's a there's a nice book that that accompanies this. I'm gonna send you the 14-week tracker so that you can, you know, track how you're putting these things in place. It has all of the all of the tools, all those things built into it already. And I'm gonna send you the overview, the you know, the full overview of the program. So if you want to start doing this and you really want to start you saying, hey, look, it's time for us to really stabilize this operation. It's time for us to put some things in place. This is a good place for you to start. And I'm gonna give it to you so you can start for free. All you gotta do is send actually, yeah, if you don't want to send me an email, that's fine. You're just like, I don't want to that's fine. Everybody has their reasons. I'll just give you the link. You can click it, you can download it. It is completely free. You can just take it right off my Google Drive, just make a copy, and then let me know how it's working for you. Let me know if you need if you need some help. And let me know if you want to join us in September and do it together, because this is this is the chance to do this alongside some other pizzeria operators who are open, who are looking to grow, who are in a position that's to say, look, it's time to take this to the next level. That's the kind of room you want to be in, right? So join us for that. Join us for that if for nothing. If you're interested, like I said before, shoot me an email, info at tyroreed.com, text me, call me if you got my phone number. Let's talk about it. I want to I want to see you there, and I want to see your business grow and I want to see you thrive. And let's do it together as a community. So every everything is gonna be weekly calls, Zoom style calls. I'll probably, we're gonna not I'll probably we're gonna run it through the through the school community because it allows us to have you know all of the course things and everything uploaded and and available to us there. So, but that's all we that's all we got this week. Take a look at it, go go beat it up. It's something that that we built, we've worked hard on. Go beat it up, go give me your feedback, and most importantly, go put it in place in your restaurant and let's and let's see how you grow and see how you how you develop your team with it. Link is in the show notes. Link is going to be on on the Pizza King Podcast website, pizza KingPodcast.com slash playbook. Uh, thanks again to all of our sponsors, Edge Pizza Ovens, Mailwise Solutions, Vernica AI, all of the all of the partners that help us continue to bring this show to life. But that's all we got for this week. It's been another good one. Enjoy it. Have a great weekend. We'll see you in California on Sunday. Sunday, 4 o'clock. We're speaking in Anaheim at the California restaurant show. Working on putting together like a little meetup or something. I gotta I gotta reach out to. I really want to do it at Vito's place in uh in Venice. Actually, let's can we call Vito live on the on the podcast and ask him if it's cool to have a meetup at his place?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

You think he'll answer the phone? I hope he does.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

We're gonna call Vito the Candia from Angel City Pizza right now and see if it's okay if we just do like a quick little meetup at his place Sunday or Monday.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

It's gonna be embarrassing if you don't answer the phone though. It's a little early and uh and no, not too early. Almost 10 o'clock. He's open.

unknown 17:21

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Vito, what's up, brother? How you doing?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Doing well. Listen, I got I I was testing to see if you would answer the phone when I called you. I'm on the podcast right now. I'm like, he might answer the phone if I call. But listen, I'm uh headed to LA or Anaheim this weekend. But uh cool. Are you okay if I just have a little meetup at your place month Sunday or Monday night?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Not a lot of people, just my you know, some of my family, some of my friends. Obviously, I'll I'll buy pizza, all that, but I'm like, let me ask them first before I just tell people to meet me there.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Absolutely. You're more than welcome.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

All right, cool. I'll uh I'll let you know when, but uh yeah, it'd be it'd be great to get over there and see you anyways.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Absolutely, bro. I was hoping I mean I know you at US City were gonna come up in like August or September, but I was hoping you were definitely still gonna come up.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Hell yeah, I can't wait. I I gotta come see you.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Absolutely. What do you got going on in that high?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Speaking at the the California restaurant show.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Oh, that's right. I got tickets for that. I completely forgot about it.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Are you gonna come?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yeah, yeah. My my salary guy in he got me tickets for.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

He's leaving my day off, so I'm I'm gonna go down there on the Monday.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

All right, cool. I'll uh I'll be there. So I'll see you. I mean, both places, but I'm thinking probably Monday after dinner, like you know, seven, eight o'clock, maybe I'll uh just meet meet some of my boys over there.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah, absolutely, bro.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

But yeah, I'll I'll see you. I'm speaking Sunday, but I'm I'm definitely gonna see you.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

All right, sounds good, bro.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yes, sir. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

All right, I'll talk to you. All right, take care. See you good.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

All right, so there it is. We're gonna do a meetup at Angel City Pizza. I'll put it out on my story somewhere. It'll be either Sunday night or Monday night at the end of this week or next week. So that's all we got, man. Pizza King Podcast. See you later.