Michigan-based Saroki's Crispy Chicken & Pizza pairs delicious chicken and pizza in a mega gas station setting. However, it wasn't always this way. The brand, which has 19 location, used to have good pizza, but not great pizza. Owner Todd Saroki went to California to study under master pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani. What he brought back was a pizza product customers love.

Todd Saroki and his brother Curtis Saroki cut their teeth working in a kitchen in a uncle's gas station. They eventually took what they learned and opened Saroki's in a large gas station pavilion.

"We opened up with just our own recipes," Todd Saroki said. "We learned as we went, and we were doing well in the pizza space. We liked our pizza, but we didn't love it. When we were thinking about opening up our second location ... we said we have to have better pizza."

Todd Saroki went to a pizza show, sat in one of Gemignani's seminars, and eventually went to Gemignani's International School of Pizza.

Today they use high-quality ingredients and brick ovens to make their pizzas. Curtis Saroki said they tried using conveyor ovens in some of their restaurants but didn't like the way the pizza came out, so they eventually went back to brick ovens again.

"We're very involved in operations," Curtis Saroki said. "Both of us were operations guys before we started franchising and I'm still going to locations to make sure that everyone's keeping up with the quality."

To learn more about the Sarokis' pizza journey, click the link at the top of the page to view the podcast in its entirety.

In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, chats with Tory Williams, general manager of Bright Penny Brewing Co. in Mebane, North Carolina.

The brand has three locations, all of which operate differently. The main restaurant and brewery is in downtown Mebane where the brand does all its beer manufacturing.

Neapolitan pizza is the brand's biggest food seller, with favorites like cheese and pepperoni the favorites. There's a pizza called Family Friendly which has cheese, pepperoni and a local sausage. The 412 is a barbecue chicken, bacon, local hot honey and jalapeno, and the Sweet and Salty features prosciutto, sliced figs, goat cheese, arugula, and a balsamic glaze.

"We make our dough," Williams said in the podcast. "We make our sauce. We typically buy in a lot of shredded cheese, but we do slice our provolone and slice our Swiss cheese as well. We do some sandwiches as well so we do cross utilize some ingredients there."

To learn more about Bright Penny's brewery and how well beer goes with pizza, click the link at the top to listen to the podcast in its entirety.

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In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com, chats with Jordan Krolick, president of Blue Moon Pizza and Jeff Goldt, chief operating officer of Blue Moon Pizza.

The Atlanta pizzeria brand, known for its unique hybrid pizzas and passionate customer base, is ready to expand with franchising. Today, it has five units.

Looking ahead five years, Krolick said he expects Blue Moon Pizza to be larger.

"We do have a five-year plan," he said. "Our goal is to start franchising in early 2026."

As a professor of franchising at a university in the city, Krolick said franchising is a unique business "because it sounds really eat, but in reality it's kind of a pseudo-partnership. The business model has got to be such that both sides are making great money. And we want to make sure that we put our franchisees in the best position to succeed. And that requires detailed systems as we're building out. It requires a great business model which we already have and it requires a system that is truly ready to understand, recognize, deal with and be a true advisor and supporter to the franchise system."

The brand watches other companies to gain insight into how to treat its customers.

"We ... are making sure our employees know what it is that we are expecting out of them and what our customers, more importantly, are expecting," Goldt said. "We've been able to show them that if they give the service that we expect from them, and that they're capable of giving, they will get the reward financially from the customers, they will get it from the appreciation from the customers, they will get it from the hours they get to work with us and so forth, and also the enjoyment they get from being in the restaurants and being in that work environment."

Click the link above to listen to the podcast in its entirety, and don't forget to subscribe to the Networld Media Group podcast channel for more great restaurant interviews.