How Saroki's Crispy Chicken & Pizza pairs great food, service with mega pavilions

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.