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.

In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks to Mike Burns, CEO of &pizza based out of Washington, D.C.

The brand was founded in 2012 by Michael Astoria who's still involved with the brand today. Astoria traveled the country and found D.C. was a blank slate and ripe for a gourmet pizza brand.

"Really, there wasn't a staple pizza here in D.C.," Burns said in the podcast. Astoria built one shop, unsuspecting that it would take off.

Burns said the brand got "too corporate" and lost the edginess it was known for after Astoria stepped away from &pizza in 2018. He came back into operations, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Astoria wanted to stay as the creator and founder, but didn't want to run it on a daily basis.

Enter Burns, who joined about a year and a half ago.

"It's been everything I thought it would be," Burns said. "It's a really fun brand and we're just trying to kind of bring it back to its roots of the fun, urban-centric college campus brand when it first started."

The brand has begun franchising. Burns said &pizza wanted to stay corporate for a long time thinking it could grow faster and the leadership team could control the brand.

Burns said he believes &pizza should have franchised six or seven years ago when it was at its peak. "It's such a cool, fun brand," he said. "Everybody loves it. There's a need for it in the market. Potential franchisees have been reaching out for years trying to franchise this brand, and to me to be at 45 restaurants, or 46 with a couple of airport units, is a shame."

To learn more about &pizza's franchising efforts and how it has increased business listen to the podcast above in its entirety.

In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks to Kevin King, who recently took over Donatos Pizza last October as president and CEO. Under King's leadership, the brand is embracing strategies to keep it relevant for both new and existing customers amidst rising pricing wars in the pizza industry.

Donatos started in 1963 when its founder, Jim Grote, started a small pizza shop in the sound end of Columbus, Ohio based on principles and values that even today make Donatos a standout in the pizza industry.

The brand is founded on three tenets: lead with love, follow the Golden Rule and do the right thing.

"If we do those, we know we'll have a successful business in the end," King said.

Donatos has 180 traditional restaurants across the U.S. and 270 units inside Red Robin restaurants.

"Donatos has always been about abundance, great toppings, great quality and super consistent," King said.

To learn more about the Donatos Pizza story, click the link at the top of the page.

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In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks to Mary Jane Riva, CEO of California-based Pizza Factory.

The brand was founded in 1985 in two small California towns and will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year. Riva and her husband, Bob, came aboard as franchisees in 1990 and opened five of their own Pizza Factory locations. In 2012, the founders were ready to leave and sold the company to the Rivas.

"The culture of Pizza Factory is so much about community and it's individuals being able to come and work in a town or a city. Some of our stores are in really small towns, so it allowed people who wanted to be self-employed and live in a small town and actually accomplish that," Riva said.

Pizza Factory connects with its communities with owner/operators who are residents of the towns their shops are in.

The brand was recently acquired by Wonder Franchises. "After 12 years, it can to a point where I knew it was time to bring on some extra resources," Riva said. "Another set of eyes, and bring on that support system that I felt that as an office and for the franchisees, really we are the steward of the brand. The franchisees are who we work for, and I felt that is was time to bring on another set of eyes and that youthfulness."

With rapid changes in social media, digital and tech stacks, Wonder will help Pizza Factory into the future. "Bringing them on was one of the ways I felt we could support the franchisees better as well as accelerate growth."

Listen to the podcast to learn more about Pizza Factory and Wonder Franchises future. Don't forget to subscribe to the Networld Media Group YouTube Channel.

In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks to John Stetson, CEO of Florida-based Stoner's Pizza Joint.

The brand was founded in 2013 in Savannah, Georgia. The first location had a stone oven, which is from where the brand takes its name. Though the brand enjoys its double entendre namesake, there's actually no cannabis involved in the recipes, though Stoner's does use it in its marketing.

"We kind of pivot depending on the marketing we're in," Stetson said. "If we're on a college campus, I think we're very outgoing with the name. If you go into one of our locations we'll have #legalizemarinara, #ownajoint, #getbaked -- those kinds of play on words of cannabis and pizza simultaneously. But, then you go into some other demographics where it's more of a community and it doesn't resonate as well. We, in those markets, will drop the 'Joint' from our signage as 'Stoner's Pizza.'"

He said he doesn't want to lose that family of four ordering a pizza on a Friday night and the franchisees strive to be local pizzerias in their respective communities. The brand also delivers to a lot of schools, so it's cognizant of how the brand stands in the community.

"We use it to our advantage when we can and obviously pull back when we need to," Stetson said.

To hear how Stoner's Pizza Joint is weathering the economy and more, click the link above.

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In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, Editor Mandy Detwiler talks to Carl Comeaux, CEO and partner of Texas-based Crust Pizza Co. Comeaux joined the company after being a fan of its pizza. Crust now has 30 units in Texas and Louisiana and plans to grow another 15 in 2025. It has seven corporate stores and 23 franchised units with a goal of 250 units in nine years.

"We're looking for owner-operators," Comeaux said in the podcast. "Right now at this stage of where we're at in growth, eventually we'll be looking for multi-unit franchisees that own 10 to 15 other units for other concepts that are looking for a second brand to sink their teeth into."

Comeaux said the product helps Crust stand out in a heavy pizza field.

"It's premium quality," he said, adding the dough is made in house every four hours. "Our sauces are all proprietary blends — our pizza sauce, marinara, Ranch, Alfredo ... the sauce are amazing that you can put on the pizza or dip. ... We created our own propriety cheese about a year ago, and when we did that we were able to save 50 cents per pound on cheese."

To learn more about Crust Pizza Co.'s operations and how the brand is building its own tech stack, click the link above.