Back when Michael Oshman founded The Green Restaurant Association (GRA) in 1990, environmental sustainability hovered as a fringe issue. The popular press rarely reported on climate change and plastic waste was only beginning to find a spot on consum...

RECYCLE When we think sustainability, we immediately think recycling.  Waste is a huge issue that must be addressed appropriately, whether viewed at the level of a single pizzeria or the nation as a whole.  According to the Green Restaurant Associa...

Safe! Is your kitchen safe? Hopefully, right? But is your kitchen as safe as it could be? If your protocol assumes that your staff will use common sense rather than train protocols, then your kitchen is vulnerable. You are vulnerable from injury to t...

Get your house in order for killer sales days It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The “Pizza Holidays” are soon to be upon us. Those would be Halloween, the night before Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and of course Supe...

Fire! So, we had a fire at our main Tulsa location. Something like that is scary, and it freaks you out and makes you wonder how close you came to losing it all. Of course, we have insurance, but not the level of insurance where you can burn down our...

Flooring Matters When it comes to restaurant flooring, Allison Westrick embraces a pragmatic approach. The co-founder and design principal at Sketch Blue, a Columbus, Ohio-based design firm specializing in hospitality spaces, Westrick understands the...

Going beyond customer service If you’ve sat in on any of my seminars you may have heard me ask the question, “What is the difference between hospitality and customer service?” It is such an interesting question because there are such diverse an...

Plan for a busy winter party season  The winter holidays are just around the corner. Even though the weather is still warm and no one has finished their gift shopping yet, people are eagerly booking parties for fourth quarter. Pizzeria owners say th...

Forgetting Full Service For some pizzerias, the front of the house looks and functions a bit differently these days.  Pushed by the pandemic and labor market forces, operators across the U.S. have reevaluated their in-store service models. For many,...

Once your doors are open and a combination of savvy marketing, word of mouth and plain-old good food has people flooding your doors, you’re about to face a new (and welcome) problem: How do you handle the pressure and challenges of being the new sp...

Lightning Fast Whether your pizzeria has four wheels, is a takeout joint, fast-casual concept, or a full-service establishment, you must provide timely service. Although timely has a different meaning in each of these concepts, speed of service begin...

Inflation Nation Over the last two years, the Ohio-based Donatos Pizza chain has captured record sales, opened new restaurants, expanded its presence in Red Robin restaurants and welcomed a host of new franchise partners. But it isn’t all rosy for ...