Grit and Dough: Inside Joe Carlucci’s Pizza Revolution

Jim Serpico, the host of 'Bread for the People' and owner of multiple food businesses, discusses the hurdles of managing bread and catering companies, focusing on inventory challenges. He interviews Joe Carlucci, the world record holder in pizza tossing and owner of Valentina's Pizzeria in Madison, Alabama. Joe recounts his journey from early struggles with debt and problematic partnerships to achieving success upon relocating to Alabama. He emphasizes the importance of quality, team culture, and treating employees like family, which were pivotal in his business turnaround. Joe's story underscores the significance of mentorship, reinvestment, and a personal connection with the team. Valentina's Pizzeria, named after his daughter, is a testament to his commitment and has garnered recognition in the pizza industry. The narrative ends with an invitation to connect with Joe in Alabama, reflecting his appreciation for mentors and the strength of his team-oriented approach.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:53 Challenges in Delegation
01:55 Interview with Joe Carlucci
02:55 The Science of Pizza Making
04:53 Meeting Tony Gemignani
07:33 Early Career Struggles
09:08 First Restaurant Failure
14:12 Rebuilding and Consulting
16:56 Moving to Alabama
21:48 Opening Famous Joe's
27:24 Catering and New Ventures
35:42 Starting the Pizza Business
35:59 Navigating Health Permits
36:40 Partnership Challenges
38:10 Personal Struggles and Motivation
41:24 COVID-19: A Turning Point
43:02 Building Valentina's Pizzeria
50:27 Overcoming Regulatory Hurdles
56:32 Creating a Positive Work Culture0
1:07:56 Reflecting on Success and Mentorship

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Jim Curpico. And this should I start
with my name? What should I start with? This is
bread for the people. Do you like it like this?
Welcome to bread? Or do you like it like this? Welcome, ready,
Welcome to bread for the people? Mine? Is there a
script for the people? Is this thing on?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
It's on?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Here? We are bread for the people. My name is
Jim Curproco. I'm very excited about our show today. I
think we have a mutual friend. My longtime listeners know.
I am in the Unsliced Restaurant and Management Business program
with the legendary Mike Bousch. Mike teaches us to let
all business work for us so we could stop working

(00:51):
for our business. So I've been working on delegation and
the bread company that I have and the catering company
that I have, but it's not fucking working out for
me people. The last three weeks, I've been sending a
nice young man to restaurant depot every Tuesday to do
my runs. So he comes and sees me, We go

(01:11):
over the inventory. I give him the list, I give
him pictures. I give him pictures of what Barata looks
like in the can, give him the brand name, give
him pictures of the meats I need for my Perjuto bread.
Then he brings it to my friend who has a
pizza place, who chops the meat for my Perjudo bread.
And then the next day I get a call from
my pizza friend who says, you send me all the

(01:32):
wrong shit. You gave me slice this, slice that, and
this is the third week in a row. So now
I got to go back to my friend. I got
to go back to restaurant depot, wait forty five minutes
to return this stuff, bring it back to the pizza guy.
Now I'm delayed two days. So I move the kid
on to another job, and I'm back to doing my
own restaurant depot runs. But I'm gonna work on that.

(01:55):
I'm curious to know if my upcoming guest here lets
his business work for him. He is the proud owner
of Valentinis Pizzeria. He's a world champion. He holds Guinness
World records for the highest pizza toss, many other world records.
Now you may think when you hear best pizza places

(02:18):
in America that these places are going to be in
New Jersey or New York City or Long Island I
don't know if you would think of Madison, Alabama as
one of the top pizza arias. But the fact is
it is. Please welcome Joe Carlucci.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
How you doing? Thank you for having me?

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you man. The first question I have because this
is like I go through this at the farmers markets
all the time. People come in from Florida and they
walk by, they see this stuff. Some of the stuff
I have, like Semlina bread or Produt the bread that
I got to bring this back. We don't have good
bread in Florida because of the water. It's not true,
is it.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I don't believe it is pizzas beyond breadmaking and pizzas
of science. I think it's not just the water. It's everything.
It's humidity, it's the flower, it's the process that you
go to make it and how you go about it,
and educating yourself on every flower that you buy is
different out there, and the flower, the way the flower

(03:14):
works in your oven is a tremendous big deal as well.
So I don't think people do their recon or research
on the oven they're buying for the flower they're using,
for the temp they want. If they want a high hydration,
a lola hydration, and what tent you need to do,
and if that oven can perform on a volume scale,
if you're doing a high volume place or if you're not.

(03:37):
I think everything comes into fact. I mean I get
that a question a lot you import your water, and
I said, no, we do not. I mean water plays
a big fact. I'm not going to sit here and
say it doesn't. But I can go anywhere in the
world and make the same doll as most people in
any state because it's all science.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
So what I'm thinking is the water is going to
change how it works at a specific place, but then
you have to learn to adapt to it to get
the correct, exact and result.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Correct. It's not just throw flower a bag of flower
in water. Some me. It's like the eighties and nineties
that we did. It has evolved into something bigger and better,
and you just have to really have a passion and
be in and have no pride and pick up the
phone and call somebody like Bausch or Jim and Yanni
to find out and get or Derek Sanchez to find

(04:26):
out things that make them work and how they do it.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, man, so you mentioned Jem and Yanni for many
of you listening. You guys all know that he wrote
the Pizza Bible. He's a renowned teacher. He gives a
lot to the pizza community. Very generous person. How and
when in your career did you first meet him and

(04:52):
was he an inspiration to you.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
I would not be sitting here today talking to you
and having this restaurant if it wasn't for Tony Jimmy Yanni.
There's nobody on this planet in my eyes, that gives
more and is willing twenty four to seven, three hundred
and sixty five days a year of his knowledge to
educate and help everybody. I met him over twenty five
years ago at a pizza competition in Columbus, Ohio. It

(05:17):
was for like be on the US pizza team and
it was like largest pizza stretch and he was my judge.
And I was living in New York at the time
in Connecticut, and you know, I had that kind of
New York attitude. I think I know everything. It's pizza.
You know, we're New Yorkers, right.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Were you aware of who he was?

Speaker 2 (05:36):
No, not at all. I saw something on the internet
and I was thinking, I don't have the money to
market my store like Domino's a pizza hut. But hey,
this would be a great way to get press without
spending money if I got on this team. That was
my thought. So I drove up with a bunch of friends.
Eight hours I meet him and he's my judge's and

(06:00):
competing against Michael Shepherd. And he looks at me and
he goes, put it down, don't throw it again. You won,
and I you over looked at him, like, who the
hell is this guy? And I throw it up again
and I ripped the whole damn thing. Oh my god,
and I lose. No yeah, yeah, yeah, true story. And
I'm like son of them and uh. Six months later,

(06:25):
I was going to compete in the Javit Center for
acrobatics and I had called him for like a recipe
and I'm like, hey, do you remember me? He said, yeah,
you're the prick from New York and I said yeah.
So he very genuinous gave me the recipe and I
tried out and I tied with Silent Chapman for acrobatics

(06:46):
and we went to Italy together, Me Siler, Mike, Tony,
and Tony's wife and me and Tony just hit it off.
I mean, there's he's everything to me, a father, a brother,
a mentor of friend. Like I don't think people realize
how that guy's brain works and how giving he is

(07:06):
to the to the world. And like I said, I
would have nothing every time I failed in a restaurant,
and I failed a lot of times, not afraid to
say it, made a lot of mistakes. He was the
first person I called, and he was like, you'll be fine.
I've never met anybody like you. Your resent list, You're

(07:27):
going to keep going. And he was. He was always
there for me. He's a great, great, great leader.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Now you mentioned the failures. I know that's part of
your bio as well, and we all go through them.
You've come out on the other side, and really, you know, listen,
you've as far as I'm concerned, you've won. You've achieved
many great things. I inspire to get half the way
you've gotten to. I would love to learn a little

(07:55):
bit about your first failure or whatever failure you want
to talk about.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And I mean, do you have time, Yeah, I have
no Listen, I am raw as you're ever going to meet.
I am the Raws person. I will put it right
on the table.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Joe before before you jump in, and I could be
wrong about this from the researcher I was doing. You
started having real success only four years ago with the restaurant.
Is that right or is that correct? Okay, so it's
not like it's pretty new. So I'm curious to know
what happened before that.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
But the rapid success is what's insane in four years,
to be honest. The rapid success.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
All right, let's get to that.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
To that. Yeah, But in the early nineties, I was
in high school and my mother worked at a dry
cleaner's next to pizzeria, which my sister was working at
the time, and I picked up another job doing dishes
like I was like fourteen or fifteen, and they were
right off the boat. You know. They would take off
the sauce labels on the cans. They don't want to,

(08:58):
you know, nothing like how they made it. And you know,
I wasn't much of a school person, a book guy,
you know, so that was always an issue for me.
But I did love to work. I had a great
work ethic, always worked a lot when I when I
got when I went to high school, I worked with
them all through high school. I started delivering, I started
working the counter. And then I went to college and

(09:21):
I just went for a year and it was like
I'm using my own money. What am I doing? So
I come back and they say, hey, we're going to
open another location in Danbury. I said, okay, we want
you to run it. You're going to be a partner.
You don't have to put money in, but you're going
to make X amount work seven days a week. They
overpaid for it because they were from Queens and they
thought they had the best pizza upstate. Long story short,

(09:43):
they come in and they say to me, we're going
to sell it. You want to buy it? I said yeah,
and they said I said how much? Said it's not
worth it, So they throw me. They throw me out right.
So about a mile up the road there's a restaurant
there for sale, and I think the restaurant was probably
doing like ten grand. Now, remember when I grew up

(10:04):
in the pizzeria, everything was on ledgers. I did everything,
you write it down. Everything was cash REPSI came in cash,
credit words, we don't accept it. So I had no
idea of like quick books. Okay, yeah, you know, so
everything's cash. So these people want one hundred grand for
a restaurant. I don't have one hundred grand. I go

(10:24):
to my mom. I said, MA, I need fifty thousand dollars.
My mom's a single mom, okay, with three kids. She
co signs her house and gives me fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right, I have no clue what I'm doing. I know
how to make pizza, or I think I know how
to make it. Even then, that probably wasn't that good.
And I opened this restaurant. And that's when I tried
out for the Javi at Center. I meet Tony and
it catapults my restaurant for like, let's say, six months.
I get all this press, but like I don't know

(10:55):
how to do the books. I have a bookkeeper writing
things down. I don't know what I'm doing, and back then,
I don't even know what it's called. But like you
can give these rewards in the sense of I can
get ten thousand dollars in cash, but I give this
company twenty thousand dollars in like coupons. It went out
of business. I can't think of the name. So I

(11:17):
did that, and I kept getting into holes, in holes
and holes. Now, mind you, when I got the restaurant,
it wasn't worth five dollars, which is nobody's fault but
my own. So what happens. I do not pay the
rest of that money. I got a marshal that comes in.
He says, hey, you know, they come to take the
restaurant back if you don't pay it. I said, well,
this is wrong, this is wrong. So at the time,

(11:40):
I was already feuding with my brother in laws because
they wanted money from me. So I get a visit
from these men in suits because they were connected in
the city to some people. So I get I get
a visit. So now I got a visit for men
in suits and these people that I owe money to
with a court mark with a marshal. So the men

(12:01):
and suits don't leave, and I'm like twenty four years old, right,
and I'm like, with the help, you know, I'm scared
of shit, you know. And I don't really know Tony
that well, but I do, so I don't like fill
him in on everything. So long story short, I give
those guys a check and then I call my attorney
who calls them and said calls me and said after

(12:21):
I called him, he says, cancel that check. I'll deal
with these guys. So I do that, and then the
Marshall says, listen, I got to take this place back,
and I felt like a loser, Like what am I doing?
I thought I knew this, and I started working for carnivals.
You know, I just started doing any kind of work.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Wait, what happened to your mother at that point? With
Coson alone?

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Well, when I left the restaurant, I called my mother
and she said to me, I don't care. I know
how hard you work. Wow, it's X amount of money.
I know you're gonna pay me. I don't know if
you remember him or know him. Big Dave Ostrander was
a big part of my life. No, I don't, okay.
He was a consultant he passed away. Called him, he said, Joe,

(13:05):
everybody goes through it. You'll be fine. Call Tony and
he's like, if you need anything, I'm here. Keep focused,
keep pushing forward, don't worry about it. I know it's
hard to say that. So now I'm like twenty five
with eighty thousand dollars in debt. Right, yeah, don't have
a degree. ADHD can't like put a light bulb in.

(13:26):
Think I know pizza. You always think you know, right,
so I start doing odd jobs. And then I started
working for ATE and T Wireless and Scarsville, New York
on Central Avenue, and I was like the number one
salesman because I could. I could make a rock, you know,
use scissors. I mean, that's how good I am up
talking to people. And I did it for a year

(13:48):
and I got like all these awards and Yankee Stadium,
the Garden like Aruba. But I just and I was
also working part time on the Pizza Ria because I
still missed it as a passion.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Now were you making the actual money from that?

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah? Oh, I made a lot of money, but I
had so much debt that I was living like pennies.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Right, But you were able to pay you off your debt.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, I had so much debt it wasn't enough. I
had two jobs, not right, yep, So I go. So
then as I'm doing this, Tony is getting the World
Pizza Champions, which, mind you, was only four people at
the time or five me, Siler, Ken, Tony, and Michael Okay,
maybe five, right, that's it. And we were going all

(14:30):
over the country, Dominican Republic, Germany, all over the United
States doing Italian festivals. So Tony's like throwing money at
all of us. So I'm using this money to pay back.
And we go to the Javit Center for a pizza
show and this guy comes up to me and says, hey,
I got like six locations in Connecticut. And I'm like okay.
His name's Bruno da Fabio and he's like, man, I

(14:52):
would love to you have lunch with you. I said okay.
So I get back and there was a place in Danbury, Connecticut,
next to all the clubs. It was nine hundred square
feet and I always used to go there as a
kid and be lines out the door. Well came up
for sale. The guy's left, so I go there. I
look at it, and I had a guy that I
met from the landlord that was interested in helping me. Well,

(15:14):
I had lunch with Bruno. He's like no, no, no, no,
no no no no, let me let's go, let me go,
let's go. We look at it. We go look at it,
and he says, i'll do it with you fifty to fifty.
I'll put all the money up. And I'm like okay.
I called Tony. He's like, be careful, be careful with people.
They're gonna want to use your name because I was
already on the Food Network twice with Tony competing. So

(15:36):
in the pizza world I was getting recognition. In reality,
I was a loser. I didn't know nothing. I thought
I was an arrogant New Yorker. So I said, well,
what are we going to call it? And he had
a bag on his floor from Famous Raids and he goes,
let's call it Famous Joe's because you're going to be famous.
And I'm like, okay, you know my ego. So he

(15:58):
puts like two hundred thousand into a nine hundred square
foot place legitly, and I don't know what I'm doing.
So we go in and I'm making a couple hundred
a week, working seven days a week, no life, still
paying back, but I can't keep paying people back because
I'm barely paying rent. I barely can pay an apartment.
So this is in like five and five. At one

(16:21):
of the trade shows, I meet a guy named Joe
Moore that lives in Huntsville, Alabama, and he says, with
you and Big Dave and Tony come down to Huntsville
when I open and consult. And I was like sure,
Now I had done some consulting jobs with Big Dave
because he was Midwest, and he'd be like, Hey, these
guys want to do New York style, could you help me?

(16:42):
So I would go for two or three days and
help them. So I'm like, sure. Well at the restaurant
took so long to open, the famous Jows in Connecticut
and finally open and I think six So I was
there for a year, year and a half, maybe two years.
And then I go down to Huntsville, Alabama. Right. It
was me and Tony. We go down here. Big Dave

(17:02):
gets sick as I'm down here. Tony's like, dude, you
got to calm down. He's like, they're not using people
like you. I'm in the front. He's in the back
teaching them how to cook. He's like, you're gonna get
just killed in the South. He's like, I'm like, I'm
not even screaming. He's like, no, you are. I'm like,
this is how we talk in New York, right, and
he's like, just calm down. So he leaves for five
After five days, I stay for two weeks, right, and

(17:26):
work my ass off, and I go home and my
ex girlfriend had a bag of my clothes in the
garbage bag at the front of Famous Joe's and I
wasn't on any paper with Bruno, and it was just
a complete disaster. And the people in Huntsville kept flying
me back because this guy couldn't camp out boil water.

(17:47):
But he's just a tremendous business guy. He filed everything
Tony told him to do from day one and he's
still he's one of the most successful people I know.
He's got two locations two hundred feet away from each other,
each dune forty k right next to each other. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
So wait, so at this point Famous Joe's threw you
out because you weren't on the paper. He wasn't happy
with you for whatever.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
No, I actually went there. I was like, I can't
do this, and Joe's brother in law and Huntsville was like,
why don't you come down here and do some consulting
with some of the food people, and why don't you
work for Joe? And I'm like, that's a great idea.
And let me just say this right now, Huntsville, Alabama
and Madison is not my cousin Vinnie. It's got more

(18:29):
going on than most of the country.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
And a lot of the cities I like that. They
call them these cities, right, but they got a great
food team. I'm actually exploring it myself. I'm in the
clutter of Long Island, New York, and I'm at the
beginning of my pizza and bread journey. It's only been
about four years and I've been thinking about trying to
do my own thing.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
But my girlfriend lives in West Babylon.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Oh yeah, right near us.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, I come up sometimes I can breathe.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, So what we are considering doing it somewhere else?
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah. So I really embraced when I came down here
and got actually homesick. I go back home and about
I think it was around May, I said I'm out.
So I come down here. And the consultant really didn't
work out because the food people just don't know that
end like the independent food people. It wasn't like I
was working at Cisco US Foods. So Joe's brother in

(19:21):
law is like, he needs you to run the store.
Run the store for him. So I run the store
for Joe. And this is like nine right now, eight
or nine, and it just takes off like a bat
out of help. Wow, And I just run the whole
store firm on the face, Joe's doing dishes. And we
had the best relationship that anybody could.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
You guys complimented each other, right, you to.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
A hundred degree, one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
That's what I mean. A lot of people with ADHD
and I have it. Almost everyone I know that's successful
as it to an extent. Yeah, but it's great to
find and realize that you know you're great at something's
not everything, and if you could find the right partner
to compliment you.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
And I was, I'm like, Joe, you should open another one. Joe,
He's like, no, it's not time. It's not time. And
I started doing CrossFit back then, and I did CrossFit
with these a lot of these high level people like attorneys,
doctors and so forth that came in the restaurant, so
I had a personal relationship. I'd go to dinner with
them on when I was closed on Sundays, and they

(20:24):
would always say, well, why don't you do your own thing?
I said, I would never leave Joe. I never leave Joe.
But I was getting that itch because I always wanted
to prove now this is my ADHD. Let me back up.
When I lost my restaurant. The first one Carlucci's. After
my brother in law threw me out, Tony flew me
to California, to Castro Valley and I stayed with him

(20:45):
and Julie and he said to me, do you want
to move here and work for me? I'll set you
up with everything. And it was a part of me
that really wanted to do it. And then there was
a part of me it says, you can't give up, yet,
this is not who you are. I mean, I would
have loved to do it, and I don't know where
I would be if I did that journey, But I
just I had this thing about myself that, like everybody

(21:06):
thinks I'm going to fail, and I had this chip
on the shoulder when I wake up, like who's against me? Felately,
that's just how I think, like I can do it.
I might take me a thousand times, but I'll never
give up. So I didn't do it. And I'm down
here with Joe and we win best piets in the
country in Ohio and we just get even busier. And

(21:28):
I was at the point where I just wanted to
do it. And I lived with his family for two years,
his sister, me and his brother in law, like I
was over their house two weeks ago, but my daughter,
I'm super close to them, great family, and I pulled away.
I left, and these investors we found a place in

(21:50):
Madison that was already built restaurant and it was a
Cajun restaurant that had shut down because he manager got
raped and murder in Knoxville and training, so the chain
never opened. So basically it was everything was set up,
you know, the the what do you call it? The

(22:13):
sewage was set up, the design was set up. We
had to do very little to get in Righty, I
have a friend or had a friend who passed away
in Baltimore that had nineteen restaurants. Okay, he was a philosopher.
He was like another Tony. He said, uh, be careful.
Tony said, be careful. He says, how many people are
in this this investment group you're doing. I said thirteen.

(22:36):
He says how much money they're raising? I said two
hundred thousand. He goes Joe, thirteen people to raise two
hundred grand. That's ridiculous. That's not a lot of money.
So I go against everybody's wish and command and I
do it. And they make it like a board and
we call it famous Joes. So I have like thirteen

(22:56):
percent right, wow, ownership. Wow. Now this is when there
was cotton Fields where we open up and we're doing
twenty five thousand a week, open the doors, no advertising.
And what I didn't know back then is we weren't
built to do that number. My friend comes down about
four months later and he says, if this kid doesn't

(23:19):
jump off the roof yet, and then we sat in
a boardroom, a literally a boardroom meeting, and they go,
what are you talking about? He says, your infrastructure, your equipment,
your oven. You're not going to be able to keep
this up. Your people are going to get hurt. Your
equipment's going to break down. This store is not built
to do it. He didn't know. It's not his fault.
You guys didn't know, but you built this on the
cheap end. I'm sorry, he said. It's not going to

(23:42):
withstand it. So they're like, well, why don't you come in,
and he says, I got nineteen places in Baltimore, I
got a million things going in. I'll do anything for Joe,
but I can't tell you I'm going to come down here.
I can help. So this is the first year we
do a million dollars. They don't want to advertise. I said, guys,
we've got to advertise now. Again, none of their faults,

(24:03):
this is not their industry, right, They just wanted to
see the numbers. They wanted to see the numbers. Second year,
another piece of place opens, we go down to like
eight hundred. They put in like a liaison guy to
watch over me, which was like the worst thing you
could do because he knew his answering his elbow.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Just some suit guy, an executive to watch over you.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
So at this time I had met my daughter's mother
through CrossFit, and we had went to Italy and I
won fastest feed to make in the world, and we
had a good relationship and then it just we just
disconnected and we separated before my daughter was born. And
there's some some truth that I put all my work

(24:46):
into fighting for half custody because my daughter is my lifeline.
Like without my daughter, there's no reason for me to
be on this earth. That's just how I feel. He's
everything to me, and I put a lot of work
into that, and the restaurant probably suffered a little. I
will absolutely take some blame, but at the same time,
more restaurants in pizzerias were opening, and they didn't see

(25:07):
the vision to say, hey, you got to put the
foot on the pedal. You don't just stop advertising. You
even advertised harder now.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
But you probably also didn't have systems in place to
cover you, right like we.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Had systems, but we didn't have systems to replace me.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Exactly correct.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yes, no, I didn't have that. I did not have that.
So I go through a big core battle and I
lose my daughter as far as seeing her, and that
same time, they make a decision. Now again, we weren't
going out of business. We were we were just not
making money. They make a decision to say we're closing

(25:45):
the store, got it, I said, but why would you?
We went from twenty a week to seven to fifteen.
We can get it back up. We're not dead, we're
not doing five we're paying the bills. God, mind you.
I was making forty fifty thousand, I mean that was
making and still all in debt, paying other things back
and child support. So they said, this is what we're

(26:05):
going to do. We're going to close for two weeks,
freemodel and then we just don't open. And I looked
at the guy said, are you efing crazy? I live
in this town. There's people that work here. He's like,
that's what we're doing. I said, that's going to be
all on me. I'm the face of this place, right,
you know. Now? When we opened, I was the Gordon Ramsay.
I was screaming, throwing metal pants, you know. I would

(26:28):
these kids were like in shop, you know, like parents
would come in and be like, I can't believe you
talked to my kid like that, you know. I mean,
I wasn't the best version of me wow, okay, because
I couldn't handle the volume we were doing, right, Yeah.
And so when we close, I had these two people
her name's Loupe and Loupe and Francisco, who were extremely

(26:50):
close to me and she helped take care of my daughter.
And they were only two that knew, like, hey, we're
closing Saturday, like this is it And they're like, well,
what are you going to do? And I'm like, I
have no idea. I'll figure it out now, mind you.
When I went to all these pizza shows, I was
like a rock star, but I was like inside, I
was like, who what do these people think of me?

(27:12):
Just because they see me on TV. That's why I
hate when people cry with somebody famous eyes. I'm like,
what about the military people that are getting killed save
in our country? Like, I don't get sad over that.
I'm sorry, you know, we don't know anything about them.
So we close and I start catering out of my
house literally, okay, because I'm probably the dumbest person you're

(27:36):
going to ever talk to. I have no skill set
other than pizza, can'cer, a light bulband. You know. I'm
just I'm a one man machine, okay, And I'm okay
with that. I'm fine with that. I learned what I'm
good at, and I try to be the best at
And I start catering. And I have a friend that
is a pharmaceutical WREP and he starts giving me this business.
So I start doing it and yeah, I'm doing okay.

(27:58):
Then I get a private school wants me to do
all their lunches. Mind you, I'm doing this out of
my house. I got out of a you know. So
I do it for a year and now I'm looking
for a commissary a place to cook. And one of
the sales guys like, hey, there's a place down the road.
I'm like, oh, great. So I go there and the

(28:19):
guy's like, yeah, I want to get out of here.
You want to take it over, that's what we need
to take it over. He goes, I just want to
get out. If you could take my lease over, you
could have it.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Wow. The equipment and everything.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah. So all I needed was a pizza oven and
a couple of things. So I called my friend from
Baltimore up and he says, did you have any money?
I said, yeah, but it has a walking cooler. He says,
what about the least in your credit shot? I said, yeah,
I know. I meet I meet the landlord, tell him
everything raw. He says, if your friend in Baltimore will

(28:53):
co sign for a year, I'll sign you for a
three year deal. My friend my friend says, no problem,
I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Go to the food show Pizza show, Francisco. Merrow sees
me walkome by and goes, hey, come over here, because
we want you to have your oven you we want
you to have our ovens. I said, I can't afford
your Robin can't afford it is what can you afford?
I don't even have any money. So I call my
friend up in Baltimore because Francisco is in Baltimore, and

(29:20):
they know he kind of knows them. It's called three Brothers.
They knew each other. I call my friend in Baltimore.
He goes, I'll have a certified check by the end
of the week.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
So wait, this is Francisco from what Mara Forny? Yeah, yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
My friend calls Francisco Francesco and they work a deal out.
So now I have an oven. So I have to
take these outrageous loans from like these financial institutes where
it's like fifty interest. They'll give you four thousand, you
pay nine. Well, I took like three of them. It

(29:53):
doesn't matter what your credit is, right, Yeah. So I'm
not even thinking logically. I just want to get open
to prove to everybody, hey, I can do it. So
I'm already I'm.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Already in debt, right yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
So I get some friends to buy me some tables
and chairs. It was like three hundred bucks. This guy
just gave it to me. So I opened his place.
It's takeout and delivery, and it's in a smaller town
and I don't have a point of sale system. I'm
at the pizza show and Jeff Doyle from Revenge. I'm

(30:26):
sitting down with him at Beer and Bull and I said, hey,
how much it is just one unit? I only need
one unit. I'm opening a chop. I have no money.
Turns around and looks at me, and he goes, what
you have done this for us? And Tony in the
World Pizza Champions. Give him anything he wants, load his
whole place up.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Wow, amazing, And I'm.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Like, not to get emotional, but I'm like, Tony fucking
Tony Man. Without Tony, I would be nowhere. I would
be dead. And I'm like, and he's like, don't worry
about it. We love you, we love the team, everything
you stand for, Tony. So they fly people in, they
get their tech guys, and we do it. And I
hire accountant, I hire a bookkeeper because you know, I

(31:08):
know that's not my strength, but I know I can
get a good one and I'll be fine. So the
first year we're fine. I'm not making money, but I'm
working seven days a week. I mean, I'm not paying
child support, I'm not paying my mortgage every other month,
my truck every other month. So it doesn't go into

(31:29):
repos I'll go into the foreclosure and then the second year,
I just couldn't keep up. I couldn't breathe because I
was never getting ahead because those loans were just outrageous.
Then I was so stupid and ignorant that I would
get a call from the credit card company going, hey,
you process fifteen thousand dollars a month. We can give

(31:50):
you eight thousand, but it will just come out of
your daily sales. You won't really see it. Meanwhile, it's
eighteen percent. So I'm like, okay, more money.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Oh my god, right yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
So like just I'm just trying to get money, but
meanwhile I'm still in debt. I'm just trying to stop
the bleeding. I'm putting a little band aid on something.
So there's a guy that comes in that owns about
a dozen chiropractors in the area offices. He's not a
chiropractice's just a business guy. So I asked him. I said, hey, man,
and he loved my food. Would would you ever want

(32:20):
to come in and maybe we could do something with this?
He says, I'm all liquidated out. I really appreciate your offering,
and I'm like all right. So my hands were kind
of up at this point, and I also had just
took another loan out to buy a food truck from
Mariforne to try to navigate more business. I was just

(32:40):
trying to think. It was like nine thousand for the oven,
and I just went to Republic Finance and got it.
Of course, because I'm going to pay back twenty you know,
they don't care. They're loving me. So the next day
his son calls me and says, hey, my dad told
me what's going on. I would love to come down
and talk to you. Okay, so we sit down. I said, listen,

(33:03):
I could run the store. I know how to run
a store. I know how to run people. If you
want to do the payroll and the books and work
with the accountant and stuff. The account does all the taxes,
I said, I owe zero. I don't know any money
to taxes because my account's good. He says, I can
do that. He puts fifty percent off. He meets the landlord.
We get caught up on rent because I was like

(33:23):
a month and a half behind. So everything's good, right again,
smoke and mirrors. This guy's nowhere to be found. And
he starts saying, hey, I'll do the books. We don't
need the account we'll save money, okay, if you can
do the sales tax every month. Well that didn't work out.
And then I got on like Gordon Ramsay calls me
to do a show his producers. I go out to

(33:45):
do the show. I said, I mean, I need you
to be here. He did like four hundred dollars and
literally I came back in twenty four hours when I
set the Guinness World Record on the F word and
it was like a bomb went off and the Spanish
people were like, he has no clue what he's doing,
and he like ran out of it. I'll never forget.
It was the only day he actually worked in there.
So my goal in my head at that time was

(34:07):
finished the lease. That's that's for me. That was a success.
If I didn't make any money, I filled three years.
I did it. Meanwhile, ten thousand dollars in debt with
child support. Literally my car is now being hidden in
my garage. My house is like in foreclosure in the

(34:29):
sense of I'm two three months behind. And at the
time my partner was like, well, we don't have any
money to pay you because we have to pay everybody
else and then we have all this debt. I'm like okay.
So I was like, like an idiot. I was like,
all right, not even five hundred. So I'm just like,
you know what am I doing? So as that third
year came to close, these two people from Huntsville came

(34:52):
in and they had a food truck in Huntsville and
they were extremely successful and they were going into a
brick and mortar.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
They were pizza people.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
No, they're yeah, they were yeah, they were in the
pizza business from the food and food truck. And they
had asked me, you know, for some help, and I
had told them and they said, well, Redstone Arsenal, which
employees forty five thousand people, has a food lot and
we go there every day, were killing it. Why don't
you just take her slot and then all these weddings

(35:21):
will give you all that. I'm like, okay, So I
tell my partner this is what we're gonna do. He
stole my partner. So we the lease is up, we
get everything out of there. We find a gas station. Man,
I should send you a picture because it was like,
you want to talk about my cousin Vineo Ghetto. It
was like I still can't believe mentally how I did
it in this gas station. It was just off the

(35:43):
beaten path, and I had refrigerator and the dough mixer
and I just did pizza. Right, that's it. And they
start feeding me weddings, feeding me weddings every weekend.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Your food truck oven. Yeah, yeah, that's what you're using.
And the question is, and it's probably different, what about
health department permits and stuff.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I had it because the gas station had a permit
in there and they were allowed to have one more permit.
Oh so when you go to a site, the food,
the food, the health inspector comes out to certain areas.
So they would come out to the arsenal and check
the truck, right, So I was always fine with that,
and then they would go to the gas station and
then they would inspect me. Okay, So I never had

(36:26):
a problem with that. It was just very like get
it ghetto and it just it wasn't it was I
can't even I don't even have a word for it.
So I'm doing that, I'm doing the pizza expol still
going to the shows, and this guy wants to get out,
and this other guy wants to come in because he
was a mechanic. And I don't know about you, but

(36:49):
for some reason, pizza is the only food that I
feel that you can go anywhere in the world and get.
And everybody and their mother wants to be in the
pizza business or restaurant. Everybody wants to own one, whether
they don't know anything about it or not, they want it.
Everybody wants to invest. Oh, I always want to own
a restaurant. I always want. Yeah, that's what all you
don't hear. They want to own a laundry, matt or

(37:11):
bake maybe a bakery, but like a nail salon. But
everybody wants to know, you know, so they can tell
their friends. So this guy comes in and he originally
wanted to buy the location. I just left and I
was like, buddy, I'm out. So he's like, well, I'll
do the food truck with you. I said, listen, we're
about fifty thousand debt because this jackass didn't pay the
taxes and I'm the jackass that didn't check them, and

(37:33):
it should build it up. So I said, why don't
you buy your own food truck and I'll partner with you,
and I'll split with him, and me and him will
split our bills. No, no, no, no, no, I'll buy
from him, He buys it from him, his half and
assumes his debt, literally assumes the debt that he never
even was involved in. So now this guy gets walks away,

(37:55):
stay free. So now it's me and this guy, and
he says to me, we got to get you a truck.
I'll put the money up. You're gonna get more money
a week. You know. I'll do the I'll book the things. Okay,
you know, Still no light bulb going off in my head.
Still no light bulb, never seen my daughter. My house
is in foreclosure, my car is ready to get repoded.

(38:16):
I can't tell you how many times I put a
gun to my mouth and literally wanted to pull the trigger.
Man literally, I cannot tell you, and I can tell
you as God is my witness. The only person and
the only thing that ever saved me was my daughter.
What do I tell my daughter if you fail to
give up? If you fail to give up? And again,

(38:38):
my fault at back then I kind of pointed his fingers,
and there is some other blame.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
So let me ask you another deeply personal question. I
don't know if it's appropriate to ask, but are you
cleaning sober at.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
This point or you've always been cleaning, sob okay, okay,
always I'm a workaholic.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
So that was okay.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
I did all my drugs when I was in college
or high school. I'm not addicted to anything. I didn't
even drink as much then got it. It was more
of a failure and depression now that never that never
got me. Drugs never got me. Never got to that point.
It was more of a workaholic trying to prove to

(39:19):
people because not feeling that I was smart enough because
when I was when I was in high school, I
was in the smaller classes. It took me learning disabilities.
So I was always questioning my worth, you know. I
never had the confidence. So we do this and we
find a fifteen hundred square foot space next to a

(39:40):
gas station right next to my house. I'm talking five
hundred feet and they want like five hundred dollars. So
my partner at the time was like, let's move it
there because this is this is a shithole and sees
my language. This is much better for us. I said, okay,
wide open space. So we do that. But he's booking

(40:00):
gigs in Mississippi and I'm driving three hours and selling
two pizzas like a jackass. I'm driving to Talladega right right,
thinking I'm going to do fifteen thousand dollars this week.
And my friend's like, you don't even have fifteen thousand
dollars worth of product. How are you going to do that?
You know? And I did like three thousand. It was
like what am I doing? So I just started questioning,

(40:25):
like what I'm doing? And I'm going to these pizza
shows and people think I'm the second coming of Jesus
and I'm like, I'm a loser. I'm forty something years old.
What my tax returns I actually got audited because it
said two thousand, three thousand, one year. Like they were like,
and I'm like, no, I sold everything in my house.

(40:47):
My daughter's eleven, and she was in front of us
right now. She would tell you she came home and
I sold her bed, I sold her couch, I sold
her TV, I sold her washer, I sold her dryer.
Literally my house was I would sell stuff to make
I need to pay bills. Wow, And I did whatever.
So and I don't know what I'm waiting on. I'm
waiting on a miracle right because if I don't do this,

(41:09):
I'm going to Walmart. Nothing against it, but like, this
is all I've known for twenty years, right, and I
wasn't shown the right way. So we're doing this and
it's just it's getting worse. And I know a lot
of your listeners are not going to like this. But
for me, I pray every day that COVID comes again
because it was the single greatest turning point of my life.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
COVID happens, I think people could relate to the fact
that it changed your life and changed my life in
everyone's life, So I think we get this sentiment.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
So COVID happens to do a shutdown. I have a
friend that has a Cuban restaurant, a Cuban food truck,
and I had an ex girlfriend that kind of helped
me get some some gigs because right now you're locked down.
So he's like, hey, I'm going to some subdivisions at
night and I just did three grand I'm like, are
you kidding me? He's like, no, call this person. Then
I posted on Facebook, so I start doing that. Then

(42:04):
I'm like, well, screw this, I'm doing lunch and dinner.
No one else was doing lunch. I'm like, I'm double dipping.
So for three months when COVID first hit, I was
doing lunch and dinner seven days a week. He didn't
see my daughter for three months. Okay. My ex ran
the front, just me and her. Zero labor, I mean zero.

(42:26):
My partner was making the dough and prepping whatever we had,
and I would do that too, so I just put
my head down and I'd bust it out right. So
during that when it was almost over, he says to me,
I think I'm gonna open a barbecue truck and I
can kind of help you with this. And I'm looking

(42:47):
and I'm like, you can't even do this, but okay,
best of luck, he said, It's not personal, it's business
for my family. Okay. Meanwhile, still, I could get arrested
any day for child support because I owe it so much.
So I'm like, okay, I said, well, one day, I
would like to use this spot to open a store
for my daughter and me. He'sai, okay, So I said, okay,

(43:10):
So three months goes. My daughter's on the truck with
me now because they're kind of lifting some of the
regulations and we're in July and it's one hundred and
fifteen degrees and I'm selling three pizzas, and to be
honest with you, I had fifty thousand dollars in cash
under the bed right, okay, three months. I'm a memoalist.
I'm saving everything, and I'm like, what are we doing?

(43:33):
She's sweating trying to sell a barbiees. I'm sweating. I
had pictures of it and she remembers it. And I
call my friend in New York and he has kind
of the same story. He's up in Mantros and he says,
what are you waiting on open that damn pizza place.
I'm like, I'm like, they just open if you do
five grande a week. He said, it's right behind your house.

(43:54):
He's like, you're not going to have any debt. I
have a friend that is in an engineer that I
went to dinner with prior to COVID and said, what
do you think of this? He says, how much money
would you need? And I said, I don't know. He
goes he said, if you know how much money, then
you'll know the risk to reward. Well, I had the
money and I talked to him. He's like, it's a

(44:15):
no brainer. He's like, if you lose fifty thousand, you
lost a lot. More. He's like, it's a risk reward.
He's like, I would do it, and then ask him
for money. He didn't offer. He was more of a mentor.
Called Francisco Mara, and I buy the Barifoni one for what?
And I start thinking. I start researching, and I said,

(44:35):
you know, I'm going to change it this time. I'm
going to make it simple and I'm going to make
it stupid. I'm going to be the chick file a
at pizza. That's all I'm going to do. I did
homemade meatballs, some fried Gochi's balls, Salds calzones and sr
curry boards, no pasta, no entrees, nothing right.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
And pie so and pies.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah. So I called my daughter's mother and I said,
would you mind if I need the place Valentina's Pizzeria
and wine bar. He says, I wouldn't care, but you
might want to talk to Valentina. Now. She's like seven
at the time, so I asked her and her face
lit up, just lit up. So I said, okay. So
I opened this store with a negative personal bank account,

(45:16):
not knowing expectations. Close Sunday and Monday only open four
to eight, Saturdays twelve to nine. I have to have
those two days with my daughter. I have to father. First.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
You have no employees, No, I had to find some.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
I got like one here, one there. It was fifteen
hundred square feet, no walking cooler, had a three three
door cooler and a two door. Right we open up, yo,
all right? You know I did a couple of four
thousand and seven thousand. But again I don't have a mortgage.
But again I'm still paying all this debt off. I
have guys walking in sales tax, sales tax from all

(45:52):
my old partners. Now my guy on the food truck
didn't pay taxes that I didn't know about. Right, that's
in my name, right because I was on the truck.
Still my fault, right, because I'm involved. I'm not blaming
one hundred percent of anybody. So the first year, I
do like six hundred thousand in sales, and my profit
was thirty percent. And I made more money in one

(46:12):
year than I did in ten to fifteen years combined.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
But I save it. I take three hundred dollars a week.
I pay back all the money to my child support debt.
By the way, we have one of the best relationships
we could ever have her stepsister is staying at my
house for two weeks. I'm friends with the husband. We
were just oil and water where we are so connected
as a family, and she understood what I was going through,

(46:39):
so she was supportive. When we went to court, it
was more me than my ego. And this is when
I had to come to Jesus. And this is what
I think every restaurant person's problem is is pride. Yeah,
just because you own a restaurant doesn't mean you know
everything right. And it's okay to ask for help or
delegate the right pa people in the right positions to

(47:01):
help you and to help you grow. Well, I didn't
know I was gonna do six hundred thousand go to Vegas.
I win, and right before I won, Derek Santez came
down and goes that Oven is not going to be
big enough. Call a pizza master. It's a thirty thousand
dollars oven. I pay cash for it. I hope this works.
It's in January. In March of twenty twenty two, when

(47:24):
I first won, we came back. We only had forty
two seats inside, that's it, and we had fifty outside.
So there's a line out the door and a line
out the door. So the second year we do nine
hundred thousand.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Right. I go back to Vegas and I went again,
and I went pizza maker of the Year. And a
friend of mine comes in and says to me, I
waited two hours on a Tuesday, about five hundred feet
down the road. There's a half acre. You need to
buy it. You gotta look big. And I said, I
don't want to go back into that. I don't have
to credit. He goes, I'll put everything up. I said, listen,

(48:03):
this is it for me. I'm not asking any more
for help. I'm not borrowing money. I appreciate it. He goes,
at least go see my banker. I said, okay, go
to the bank and I said to him everything I'm
telling you. He says, well, send me your stuff, let
me look at it. I said, okay, I come back
from Vegas. It's good Friday. They call me up. They go,
you're approved for a million dollar loan. We just have

(48:25):
a couple questions. I said, how, we have never seen
a restaurant with your numbers ever, thirty two percent profit
a month and twenty two percent labor, twenty three percent
food cost. Yeah, I said, I did my research. It's
extremely expensive to come to our place, but we use
quality ingredients and I work like a dog right now,

(48:49):
so they give it to me. Now, I buy an
acre of land and I go to the builder and
I say, I want to buy your lot. He says, okay,
but I'm a builder, so if you buy, I build it.
And I said, well, have you ever built a restaurant?
And he goes, no, but how hard could it be?
So at the time, I had a girl working for
me that was a lawyer, and she graduated three years

(49:15):
and she was doing family law and quit. She just
could not take it because of what she saw in court.
So I was like, well, what are you going to do.
She goes, I don't know, I'll figure it out. So
I got some admin stuff. Well, that admin stuff turned
into her being the GC literally because I didn't know
my ask for my elbow. And we didn't get in

(49:38):
an architect because the builder didn't want one. So we
got a designer and she literally built that store. Like
I would assist her, but she would be like, no,
you need this over here for the flow because I'm
not a very good visionary person. It's just not I
could vision it, but so she actually helped me build that.
I said, this is how I wanted to look, and

(49:59):
she said okay, and my girlfriend would send me ideas too,
because I would tell them how I wanted to look.
And I'm using all that cash I had, like probably
two hundred and something thousand saved up. All of it
I'm putting into the restaurant, plus the loan I got
right right now, we don't have enough. So we go
back to the bank and we get another loan for

(50:20):
a small business loan, and they give it to us.
My numbers are insane, so I'm like, hope this works.
So we were in a county that is dry that
means you can't serve alcohol. Okay, the builder builds it
in the county because there's no permits needed. Then the
loan goes into my name. Once we went through zoning,

(50:42):
it went on the fire Marshall's desk. He pops in
and he's like, what's going on here? And I had
a friend from New York putting up some speakers. He's like, oh,
He's like, I'm doing this on the side. He goes, well,
you need a permit for this, but have the owner
call me. So the girl my GM, her name's Cameron,
she's from here, so she calls them.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, he's like, he's like, well.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
There's no hood in the kitchen. He's like, because we're
at pizza place, we don't need a hood.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Well with that, we're not Pacific Oven, right, Well, we.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Had a direct vent a pizza line, but in the
kitchen we weren't doing anything cooking, you know, frying calamari
or anything like that. So he says okay. So the
next morning we get a stop workage from the building spectrum.
I'm like, the building's finished. So they call for a meeting.
I call my banker and I'm like, what the hell
is going on? So they're like, okay, let's set up

(51:31):
a meeting. We want to go check the store out
because you're now in the city limits. We go there
and we get ambushed by seven inspectors. So I lose it.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Okay, I lose it.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
I'm cursing, screaming. She's like, calm down, let me talk
to them. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong.
This is wrong. And they're like, well, why did you
come talk to us? Because I had a patio that
was touching the building. And they said, once you go
over one hundred seats, you need a sprinkle system. We
had one hundred and fifty. I said, well, guys, I'm
I'm all, I'm all banked out, so I'll just sell

(52:02):
the freaking store, and you know, I'll be a landlord
because I'm on the land. I'm like, this is ridiculous.
We called you, guys, she called you, and you know,
your secretary said that we didn't need it. And by
the way, she's an attorney. As soon as I said
that she's an attorney, everything change. And she's Southern. Everything changes.
So there's like the deputy commissioner. So he stays in

(52:24):
the fire Marshall stays and he says to him, because
I said, I'll rip the damn patio down, it's what
I'll rip it down, like I have to open next
week or next month. He's like, the only thing that
you can do, or we can or we can do,
is you find a fire engineer designer to prove to

(52:45):
me that it's a fire happened, which is the Dobbns direct.
Event Uh, there wouldn't be a problem. So when the
hell we're going to find that. This girl's like Dookie howser.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
She sounds amazing.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
She finds one come out and he says he draws
all the plans up. So, because a sprinkless system is
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and you have to
build a place in your parking lot to hold all
the water for the sprinkler system. It's not like it
just comes through the fire.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Wo.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
You have to actually get that water in there. Unreal, right,
So this guy comes out and they can do it
in like a week and it's twenty two thousand. I'm like,
oh my god, but that's the only choice we have.
That's the only choice. So he meets with the fire
marshall and that he knows the fire marshall, so they
love him. So this guy basically is saying that if

(53:37):
there's a fire and someone dies, he takes responsibility not
to sit.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
He's all, it is infying it. Yeah, then yeah they responsibility. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
So this is Wait, it gets better. My oven gets delivered,
it falls off the truck, it breaks, it takes six
months to build. I call Francisco. He's like what it's like.
My friend had a fork. It was a tractor and
he's like, I'm like, we're not opening. We're done. I

(54:05):
told the girl. I was like, go find another job.
I'm done. I'll stay over here in my old store.
It was like one hundred degrees in the in the
summer and fifty degrees in the winter. Because it wasn't
built for a restaurant. It wasn't built to do the
number I did. Right, Yeah, So I'm like, I'm done,
I'm out. What am I doing? Like I have no money,
Like this is ridiculous. So Francisco has a great team,

(54:28):
and he says, send me because the insurance said we're
not covering it. It was on your pro it was
on your your parking lot, it wasn't in your store.
So Francisco says, send me your contract. Don't talk to them.
They look it up. Him and Cameron get together. Long
story short, my insurance sends me the check for the oven.

(54:49):
So now Enzo and Francesco have to figure out how
to get me an oven in four weeks, right, And
I bought every oven that I other than the Pizza
Master because they didn't have their electric at the time.
They've come up with and I don't know how they
did it what they did, but I had it oven
and I may damn sure. It went in there with

(55:10):
like eight people. So now we get that in right, Yeah,
And I'm just nervous, like I don't know what this
store is going to do. My old store was doing
like ten thousand dollars at our busiest time, and I
can't believe no one down or got hurt. Right, So
we get to friends and family and we're still not
past permits, and I have people hanging up exit signs

(55:34):
and all the inspectors are walking in gas, electric, plumbing, fire,
marshal right, they're checking everything. The gas guy walks past
the oven and comes back and looks at the electrician.
He goes, that's wrong, and I'm like, excuse me. I'm like,
are you what are you doing? Like I'm starting to
get into it. She's like, Joe, go over there. So
then the electrical inspector goes, why is that toaster oven

(55:57):
on the table. He says, where's the guy? I said,
we're going against the wall. You want it against the wall?
He goes, yeah, So I pick it up and I
threw it. I mean I literally threw it. I start
cursing at her. I'm like, this is fucking bullshit, Like
they're playing with my life now. So they put me
outside the calm down and they find like another ten violations,
and the deputy directors like, nope, nope, that's not on

(56:18):
your list. You can't come in and keep finding things.
And he's like, you're done. We're passing you.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah. So and then I said to her before all
this happened, I said, listen, this is my vision. I
want to create culture. I don't hobbs get slaughtered, pigs
get killed. This is my vision. I want a breakthroom.
I want a fifty two inch TV. I want a
slushy machine. I want to express a machine. I want
to spend anywhere from three to five hundred dollars a
month on snacks and food at Cospel. I want lockers

(56:49):
for them. I want Employe of the Month at the
end of the year. I want to have a trip
to Disney for somebody. And I want to empower the people.
But I want to be better than every single restaurant.
I don't want white Sox, no cell phones allowed in
the building, no Apple watches, no Hoop earrings. Every single
employee that I have has jeans all the same aprons.

(57:12):
Eye bought them all the same T shirt and shoes
are one hundred percent all the same. Nobody has a
phone sticking out of their pocket at all. Zero That's
what I want. So she goes and gets Chick fil
A and does some research on their culture. Right yep,
So I said, I want it brought here. We have

(57:33):
a two percent and we have fifty two employees. I
have kids that are seventeen that have been working with
me since they were fourteen. So now I'm like, now
I have ten people that are like family to me,
right yep. Now I'm hiring all these people.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
And this woman's still there.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Yeah, oh yeah, I gave her ten percent ownership. Wow, yeah, yep,
she's still there. She's the glue. She runs this. Yeah
we knock heads, we knock heads, but she is the glue.
People come in and praise me, and I'm like, you
praise her, and you praise my staff.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
What's her name?

Speaker 2 (58:07):
I keep? Her name is Cameron Sugs yep. So now
we have ten people at the old store, right, ten fifteen,
and Loupe has been with me ten years and she's
like my third sister. And we have a couple of
other ones. Colin, he's a bartender, he's a degree, but
he doesn't want to leave this woman. Amber has been
over a year. I have some people that have been

(58:28):
with me, so now I'm hiring different people because another
restaurant clothes. So now I see a problem with personalities.
I have to learn how do I get them to
buy in together? How do I fix this? Because they're like,
it's like high school click click click click. So I'm like,
I got to figure this out. So I said to Cameron,

(58:49):
give me two hundred dollars cash. Because it's mostly servers,
I said, put one hundred dollars in each envelope. I said,
every Friday and Saturday, I want you to team up.
The people that don't like each other, don't talk to
each other, and I'm going to tell them whoever does
the most desserts, whoever has the highest ticket average, whoever
sells the most beer wine, you get additional one hundred
dollars cash at the end of the night. And as

(59:11):
soon as I said that, they would start kind of
talking to each other. And then once a month, I
buy about five to seven hundred dollars worth of dinner
on a Friday or Saturday night from barbecue or Mexican
and we all eat together, all of us, everybody, And
as time came along, they also all bought in. But

(59:33):
I also do pre shift meetings every single day, good, bad,
and indifferent. And then I learned to empower the people.
So I said this is not good enough, so I
hired a life coach for myself and for all the employees.
He meets four days a week, every week, and he
talks to them about their mental problems or any kind

(59:53):
of problems outside of work. And the problems were frustrations
inside of work.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Where does that person's comedy? That person comes to the restaurant.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Yes, every Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, and it's it's in a
room for an.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Hour and he does one on one sessions with people.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Yes, yes, every week.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Wow, every week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
If you're having a problem at home, your boyfriend, whatever
it is, whatever it is, is the restaurant. So now
I see, like I say to myself, it's X amount
of months, right, let's say it's two thousand. But at
the same time, if they buy in for four hours
and their ticket average goes up, or they get along
and the service is exceptional, that return that money is nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Yeah, it's paying for itself. And more. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Plus we give them benefits, paid vacation iras you know, spiffs.
So now they're all buying in the problems that we
have here. To be quite honest with you, are like
having a family that pick at things, whether it's brother
and sister. No one comes in drunk. Nobody rarely calls
him sick. Everybody comes in uniform. Everybody he comes in

(01:01:00):
with the shirt press because I have signs before you
walk in, do this. I have signs in the break room.
You mean something, You're more than this. When I win
any award, any award, firsthand, it's Cameron and the staff,
it's not Joe. Doesn't matter how great of a pizza
guy am. But you need to build a team. And
I'm teaching Cameron now. It's like you're overloaded. We need

(01:01:22):
to shift. We need a shift leader, we need assistant manager.
We don't even have a floor manager. On the weekends.
We just and people say, I love how you guys
work together. There's no more Joe yelling. But it took
a lot of failure and a lot of looking in
the mirror to say, Joe, you're the problem. You have
to fix yourself. You have to be better and yes

(01:01:44):
everything's out. Now I'm two million dollars in debt. But
now we're doing I'll tell you this Saturday, Lanst Saturday,
we did twenty one thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
We did five hundred pieces. Wow and yeah and one day.
And to be honest with you, the week before we
did seventeen and I didn't order enough food because I
haven't been in that territory.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Ye would you know?

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
But I knew, But I knew. This week say hey,
let's pump it up. And like other than food being
a little long, I mean I looked at the reviews
even though it doesn't matter. We had seven reviews over
the weekend. Six of them were five stars, one was four.
Because people know how they care. I mean, systems are
everywhere in place here. I tell Cameron, I want every

(01:02:27):
single server to talk to a customer the same way.
When you sit down. If you're new in this restaurant,
you get a red chip. If you second time, you
get a blue chip. If you're third, you get a
white chip. And when we see red chips, extra servers
go over there. I'll go over there. If you see
a blue chip. Hey, thanks for coming back. It's a
white chip. We got them for life. Hey, we really
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Now you thought of all this? Did you come up
with all this or did you have Some of your
friends are pretty good at this stuff too.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
No, I have no clue what anybody does. No one's
told me any of this. This is all me learning
and want them to be better and wanted to be
the best. And when a pizza place opens down the road,
I'm like, guys, we're our own competition. No one's our competition.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
If you need to eat when you get here, you
get a free meal. If you're having a bad day.
I have bad days every day. Tell me, guys, time
to pick her up, Time to pick him up. But
I didn't go and ask Tony or Mike or Nick
or anybody about anything. I just knew what I wanted,
and I wanted not. I'm not failing. Like I told
my daughter, he goes, well, what happens, I said, Valentina,

(01:03:31):
take that out. Take it out of your vocabulary. It's
not going to happen, not this time. And that built
a strong enough team where Cameron, who still practices law,
really doesn't want to leave. Yeah, yes, she still practices
and doesn't want to leave. And we're a family. I mean,
it's hard to have the family of fifty two. I
mean our Christmas parties are insane. I give out crazy

(01:03:51):
bonuses because like it's not I want to make money,
and I'm making great money, but I also want to
take care of everybody. Yeah, everything my life coach says
to me, he goes, everybody loves working for you. Because
I don't talk unless like it really has to say
something and appreciation. I'll be like, you got to be
better than yesterday. Yes, it doesn't matter. I appreciate you. Guys.
You know I can't give you affirmation every day. And

(01:04:12):
then Cameron comes in and she's opposite, so we kind
of work that thing out. But I mean to do
twenty one thousand, have eight hundred people in your restaurant
from twelve to nine, and literally have not a lot
of hiccups. The hiccups that I'm learning now is that
I have to reinvest the money into the restaurant. Like
the ac on the patio, we don't have it. People

(01:04:33):
need it, they're sweating. We don't have the right equipment
in the kitchen. We need to buff that up. The
ovens is the only thing that can keep up.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
But other than that, refrigeration, do you have enough of that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
I have a ten x twenty polar walk and cooler
that I bought for fifty five thousand. That camera's like
you need to get it. I'm like you sure, She's like, yeah,
It's a single unit, no doors on it, no panels.
It just drops down. But everything I'm doing, I learn
from everything I did wrong, and I'm learning how to
build a team. A leader leads people and gives them

(01:05:05):
the right to go do it. I don't do them.
I have no clue what they order for beer and wine.
All I know is I met with my accountant last
week and we're at twenty nine percent profit for the month.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Wow, that's all I know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
And I looked at the numbers for beer, wine, labor
and food costs, and food costs maybe can go down
a little. But I let them handle it and then
they feel like they're a part of it. I have
this young lady. She just came in and she's a hostess.
She's older. I had to pay a lot more because
I couldn't have a kid up there anymore. And she
keeps asking Lupe or Cameron like, how you get in

(01:05:37):
with Joe? How do I get in with Joe? And
how do I get in with the click? So I
said to my life coach, I was like, actions speak
louder than words, and you can't get married after two weeks.
I'm like, it's a marathon. And for the last month
he's talked to her and he's kind of like, listen,
just let your out. Joe loves the way you work,
but you're gonna push yourself out the door. And now

(01:05:58):
she's taken on roles for not extra money, of checklist
and line checklist before we open, going through everything in
the kitchen when they prep. And I said to her
the other day, I really appreciate you. You're kicking ass.
So irate right there alone. I know he's working with
it that alone, because now she allows me to leave
at eight o'clock if I want. Me and Cameron went

(01:06:20):
to New York to the Top fifty Award and she
ran it with another person and it wasn't a flop.
It was no problem.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
So it's hard because I love being there Friday, I
love being in the we in there with them, but
at the same time I have to learn to step
away to let them do it, to let them grow
and be better. So it's been it's I wouldn't change
my journey in any way, shape or form, And you're right,
it's been the last four years. But I believe when

(01:06:49):
you empower people, you treat them with respect and you
believe in them, and you tell them that you know.
And I've had kids here that I made pride literally
for messing up, and they would come in hug me
and say thank you. Right because I'm not cursing at them.
They I know they can do better, and I treat
them like my daughter. I went when Cameron and I
went to New York. Three of the kids that are
in high school that work here slept over my house

(01:07:12):
because I was leaving and took and watch my daughter. Wow,
Like I'm that guy, and I know a lot of
people listening and watching. I'm that owner that gets personal
with my staff, that hangs out with them, that appreciates them.
I just do. I'm not going to change my way. Well,
then sometimes they get too close and they get away
with things or they think they can. I'm always going

(01:07:33):
to be that way. I'm always going to treat them
like family. And if I can help in any way,
shape or form, They're going to go a mole even more. Now.
I'm just I'm not going to change that way. I
know crosses the line, but there's so many other ways
you can cross the line in a negative way, and
I feel that that's a positive way to cross the line.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Well, it's working for you, man, so you got to
keep it going.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
So sorry, rambled down for so long about that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Listen. I appreciate and I know the listeners do you
sharing your store, And I congratulate you for overcoming a
lot of obstacles and being willing to look in the
mirror and say I need to make these changes and
trusting people enough. It does sound like, however it happened,
whether it was luck or was meant to be, you

(01:08:18):
have had a couple of people in your life, more
than a couple that have done the right thing by you. Yeah,
I mean you're fortunately.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I have a lot. I mean I can pick up
the phone called Mike Bosh anytime, and even when I
was doing the store, I had some questions. I mean,
Mike Bosh me is like the real King of Tulsa.
I mean, the guy's just amazing positive energy. He's a
phone call away. He's like a mentor to me as well.
I love the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
And by the way, he does amazing He does that
for people he doesn't know that well, you know, I know, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
What I'm saying. That's that's what's so amazing about him. Yeah,
he cares. Yeah, Mike genuinely cares about people's benefits. You
know what I mean. It's not just he's not doing
it for the buck. If you ever get a chance
to talk to them, so I do. I have a
lot of people in the circle and I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Yeah. Well, listen, thanks for coming on, thanks for sharing
the story. And maybe one day we'll do it again
and go over some other stuff. But this was fantastic
and we all appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Hey, if you're ever in Alabama, come see me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Absolutely