February 28, 2025 • 40 mins
🚀 Ever wondered where Detroit-Style Pizza started? In this episode, we sit down with Wesley Pikula, Chief Brand Officer of Buddy’s Pizza, to uncover the history, tradition, and expansion of this iconic Michigan staple. From its humble beginnings as a corner bar to becoming a nationally recognized pizza phenomenon, Buddy’s has maintained its commitment to quality, community, and of course, delicious, crispy-edged pizza. Wesley shares the history, the secret to their famous crust, and why Buddy’s continues to define Detroit-Style Pizza.
🔹 What You’ll Learn:
- The rich history of Buddy’s Pizza and how it started in Detroit in 1946 🍕
- How a tool-and-die shop pan played a key role in shaping Detroit-style pizza
- Why Detroit-style pizza is different from Sicilian and Chicago deep-dish
- The impact of Buddy’s on Michigan’s culture, from the auto industry to sports sponsorships
- How Buddy’s Pizza expanded to 22 locations while maintaining quality
- The role of community and tradition in Buddy’s success
- The best first-time order for new Buddy’s Pizza customers 👀
Links:
- Guest: Wesley Pikula, Chief Brand Officer, Buddy’s Pizza
- Website: Buddyspizza.com
- Order Buddy’s Nationwide: GoldBelly
- Follow Buddy’s Pizza on Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Subscribe to our Email Newsletter: https://totalmichigan.com/join/
Find us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/totalmichigan
Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@totalmichigan
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Guess what?
(00:00):
You get a call at 10 o'clock at night.
Hey, we need 50 pizzas.
Diana Ross is, for her show, orPaul McCarney comes into Fox.
We need 50 vegetarian pizzas KidRock shoots a video at state fair.
We need 50 pizzas.
Eminem launches Eight Milemovie, we need a hundred pizzas.
They're calling Buddy'sand without any notice.
(00:21):
Hello everyone and welcome back toTotal Michigan, where we talk to
ordinary Michiganders who are doingsome pretty extraordinary things.
And if it sounds like I'm stumblingover my words, I probably am
because I am drooling right now.
If there's one thing I loveand that is the smell of pizza.
And today I'm sitting in, Buddy's Pizza,which is home of the Detroit style pizza.
(00:44):
And I want to explore all of thisbecause this is just something
that's known as a national level.
Something that we can definitelybe proud of as Michiganders.
Sitting with me today is the ChiefBrand Officer of Buddy's Pizza,
and that would be Wesley Pikula.
Wesley, how are you?
Hi Cliff.
How are you?
Happy to be here.
Great.
(01:04):
I'm happy to hear you.
And did I get your last name right?
A little bit.
Pikula.
Pikula.
Okay.
Pikula.
Okay.
So Wesley, why don't you tell usa little bit about where you're
from and where you grew up.
Oh, sure.
So I grew up on the east side of Detroit.
Originally our family cameto the United States in 1964.
We left Poland.
(01:24):
Our whole family, I had foursiblings and my mom and dad, their
brothers were in America and they.
Through the years try to get us to move.
And it was very difficult at the time,but obviously they made it happen.
So in 1964 we moved to Hamtramck,which is on a border of Detroit.
And then I, we then moved to Detroitand it so happened that where we
(01:46):
moved, I was probably a mile anda half from what was the original
Buddy's unbeknown to me at the time.
But we only lived a mileand a half from there.
So that's where I originally grew up.
So let me ask this question herejust to explore it a little bit.
Why Detroit?
You got the whole United Statesyou could have moved to, but
your family picked Detroit.
Hamtramck, if anyone knows thehistory of Hamtramck, it was
(02:09):
primarily Polish at the time.
It's actually a hundred percentMuslim now, but back then people
O went to New York, people went tocertain parts of Chicago, and in
Hamtramck is where our family lived.
And that's the areathey were familiar with.
And then of course, We, theyhad a house for us, a flat in
Hamtramck, and we lived on a lowerflat, all of us three to the bed.
(02:32):
Yeah.
So yeah, so that, thatwas how it all started.
And of course, I was sixyears old when I came here.
we had language issues and.
It just so happened my father wasa tailor and he was able to do some
work for the nuns and the priests.
So after hours, a lot of thenuns would teach us how to
speak English at the convent.
That's how we got the schoolingto learn the language and not to
(02:54):
get too far back in the schoolsystem because we didn't speak.
So let's talk aboutthe history of Buddy's.
How did it first get started?
When did it first get started?
Sure.
So Buddy's originated atSix Mount Kona in Detroit.
It was a house bar,what's called a house bar.
It was a bar in front,a house in the back.
(03:16):
People resided there.
So probably in the twenties, between 2019, 20 19 30, it was this little house
bar that eventually became a blind pig.
When they, during prohibition, whenprohibition ended, it became a little
restaurant called Fern's Lunch.
It was just a little fern in awindow, and it was just a little bar.
Around 1946, a gentleman by thename of Gus Guerrera purchased it.
(03:40):
And he was Italian andhis wife and his family.
And, being from Italy and, at thetime there was a lot of veterans
that had served, were familiar withItaly and He wanted to have more to
serve in his little bar than fishand chips and things like that.
So the idea came, maybe we can do pizza.
(04:02):
And of course, because they were Sicilian,They had this version that you can
find, it's called sfincione which islike a dough, and then you would push
meat into the dough and then you maybewould drizzle a little bit of parm
and a little bit of olive oil on it.
And it was usually rectangular inshape, similar to a paca bread.
So then that seems to be theorigin of where the Detroit style
(04:24):
pizza came, because Detroit stylepizza is a little different.
Because you start with dough, thenyou press the pepperoni onto the
dough, and then you put the cheeseon and then the sauce goes on top,
which is basically heresy in a pizzaworld, because the sauce always go.
exactly.
And so what we'll end up doing is itcreated this sort of light crunchy
(04:45):
crust cuz the sauce wasn't on the dough.
So by design the dough was not gummyor wasn't saturated by the sauce.
And the other part that was reallyinteresting was they didn't have any
type of pans at the time cuz there wasno rectangular square pizza at the time.
So up and down the streets inDetroit, they had tool and die shops.
(05:09):
They didn't have the bigautomotive suppliers.
They had these small groups that used todo the work and they had these trays there
that were called drip trays or they usedto be inexpensive metal trays that they
would use to house like nuts and bolts.
Or if there was a drip, they'dput the tray underneath.
So what, anyways, it was.
The dimension was like 10 by14, and then a smaller one that
was like eight by 10 inches.
(05:31):
And so somehow this pan gotinto Gus Guerra's hands.
No one knows exactly how.
And they wound up putting the doughinto this sort of, manufacturing tray, I
guess with maybe two and a half insides.
And they pressed the dough out, andthen they baked in it and it worked.
So to this day, the story of this pan isthat it was not a food service product.
(05:57):
It was basically from manufacturing.
And to this day, we stilluse that type of pan.
So it's made by a fabricator for us.
Certainly.
Now, the question that I got is, And Iappreciate that the, so if I understand
correctly, so it was, the Sicilianstyle has been square all along.
Okay.
And this is dating back.
How far?
(06:18):
As far as you can remember, becauseremember, focaccia was always
part of the Italian cuisine.
It was the type of bread, butthat dough had oil in it, so it
was more of a chewier texture.
Oh, specific to Detroit style and Buddy'sdoes original style because there's a
lot of versions of this pizza today.
But back then when Buddy's was around,it was the only place at the time.
(06:42):
So it was very specific,a saltwater yeast.
There's no shortening in anytype of conditioner in a dough.
So that, again, maintainedthat light, crunchy crust.
So it almost has, it's almost a blendingof the focaccia and Neapolitan style.
Neapolitan style traditionallyis saltwater yeast.
So the magic happens from the flour.
(07:02):
And the simplicity of that product.
And then also great tomato sauce.
So if you talk about Neapolitan, it'sgreat Fresh San Marzano tomatoes, a double
zero flour and a water and then it createsa great pizza cuz great pizza doesn't
have to have, a lot of things on it.
It's just like great bread.
Great bread doesn't have a lot in it.
(07:25):
And I think artisan breads noware really popular these days.
But if you remember in the old days,you had Wonder Bread and Silver Cup.
huh?
Because I gotta say, some of thebest pizza I've personally had has
been over in Italy, and I'm amazedat how often the best pizza has
the least amount of ingredients.
That's true.
Just like even with pasta.
If you have a great pasta,and a great tomato sauce.
(07:48):
It's not like it's layeredwith garlic that you can't even
talk to anyone after you eat.
The show is always the tomatoes.
The tomatoes are generally sweet,so you don't need to put sugar in.
The salt actually enhances thetomato flavor, which makes it sweet.
A lot of people don't knowthat, but when you add salt, it
actually sweetens the tomato.
And then of course it's realsimple, fresh basil, and if there's
(08:11):
any garlic, it's a hint of it.
And.
Again, it's the balance of the foodthat makes it great and it's the
initial ingredients that are great.
So if you want a great tomatosauce, grow your own tomatoes.
Yeah,
absolutely true.
And God, I'm so hungry right now.
Okay, so Buddy's has introducedthis square style pizza, right?
(08:32):
The Detroit style pizza.
Obviously the reaction tothis must have been good.
because business was doing really well.
Talk to us about those, likefirst few years of just getting
it out there, getting the nameout there, building up the brand.
Oh, sure.
So basically, Gus Guerreraowned the business, 1953.
He sold it to Big Jimmy and Little Jimmy.
(08:52):
And they were both Italian.
And they took Buddy'sfrom that point to 1970.
And so again, there wasonly one place at the time.
And so it had a big folklore.
People would follow it.
Again, it's very similar tofamous restaurants like Zehnders
let's say in Frankenmuth.
People know of that place.
So Buddy's had a very, well known, pizza.
(09:13):
And people went there and it had, its own.
Yeah, they were known for it.
It was, they had a huge following.
In 1970, the Jacobsfamily brought Buddy's.
And they fell in love withit just being as customers.
And Big Jimmy and LittleJimmy were getting older.
They didn't want to run therestaurant anymore as much.
So when the Jacobs owned itand bought it in 1970, Detroit
(09:33):
had a, citywide Pizza contest.
They ran in the city.
The Detroit News sponsored it.
It was for the best pizza in Detroit.
And so Buddy's was one of the entriesinto this contest and Buddy's won.
Nice.
And from that point on, Buddy'spizza was Detroit's number one
square deep dish pizza as the, asit was referred to at the time.
And during the, some of those years,different people branched off that worked
(09:57):
for Buddy's, started their own groups.
Later on, probably like maybe10 years ago, Pizza Today, which
is an industry trade magazine,decided to do a pizza contest also
at one of their shows in Vegas.
And they created a category andthey called it Detroit Style.
Because Chicago stylewas already out there.
California style was out there already.
(10:18):
New Haven style, all these kind of styles.
Detroit, because no one waspaying attention to Detroit.
It was the Rust Belt.
Who cared about Detroit?
Yeah.
And so somebody entered it andthen they won the category.
I think they were theonly one in the contest.
And so all the magazines, we neverentered contest, to be honest.
Buddy's just stayed to theirown little niche there.
(10:39):
And then once the contest won, andthen they started throwing it out
there in publications and biggergroups started picking it up.
It became a industry term now.
So it's called Detroit Style.
And I think people haveseen Pizza Hut take it on.
And now, DeJorno has Detroit on their box.
Yes.
So if anyone remembers, probably 20years ago everyone was taking Detroit
(11:01):
off their branding or off their signs.
Now everybody's putting
Detroit on,
And I gotta say that this is actuallyreached like international levels.
And the reason why even Buddy's pizzafell on my radar in the first place
was because a handful of years ago, Igot to meet the world champion pizza
maker, Tony Gemignani He's been onthe Food Network, everything else.
(11:25):
And he and I were talking and heasked me where I was from and I said,
oh, I'm originally from Michigan.
And he goes, oh, you mustlove Detroit style pizza.
And I looked at him, I'm like,how in the world do you know
about Detroit style pizza?
He goes, man, it's someof the best out there.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Cuz you know you don't Yeah.
I was living in California at the time.
You don't drive down the roadand see Detroit style pizza.
You, you saw Chicago style.
That's right.
(11:46):
So all of a sudden now I'm thinkingto myself, there's something going on.
So I did not know about
yeah, he's involved cuz he was alwaysat the pizza shows in the early days.
he used to do the spinning,they used to have like rubber
disks that they used to spin.
Then they would have spinning doughcontests and that was part of pizza Expo.
And he actually has a franchiseein Las Vegas where he has
(12:08):
a Detroit style concept.
And so again, there's a lot ofdifferent characters that left
Buddy's or other ones jumped onboard and created their own versions.
And anything else, it's like when Fordstarted the automotive, automobile,
everyone else created their own.
But he's obviously given thecredit or the Wright brothers or
someone, there's always a first.
(12:28):
exactly.
And then everyone else jumpsin and does their own versions,
does improvements and changes.
But one of the things that Buddy'sdoes that's unique is we've never
really departed from the originalrecipes or what was left at Buddy's
when these different people left.
There was always kitchenstaff that stayed behind.
And so whether someone lefted or achef left or someone else, there would
(12:50):
always be the full kitchen intact.
So Buddy's never moved away from that.
So we build the pizzas the verytraditional way same way we're not
putting, like groups like jets will putsauce on the dough now and cheese on top.
They switch to a mozzarella cheese.
They'll put pepperoni on top.
We will, if a guest wants a pizza madea certain way, we will of course do it.
(13:11):
But generally speaking, ourpizza's still very traditional
in the way that we inherited it.
And I started there in 1975.
And so of course we had what we call theold timers, which were five ladies that
were the gatekeepers of the recipes.
And well.
And their arms are huge.
That's right.
Their arms are huge.
And you could see, Cliff, that I wasn'tgoing to challenge anybody along the way.
(13:35):
I think I weighed 150 poundsand I just, I, there's no way.
And but why would you wanna change it?
Because, when you have a brandlike Buddy's, it's, you're,
you inherit a legacy brand.
And I don't wanna be the first guythat does something where someone
says, what were you thinking?
Yes.
that's not, I don't wanna be that guy.
Exactly.
(13:56):
For our audience, we're gonna takea quick break to you, thank our
sponsors, and when we come backwe're gonna talk about the explosive
growth that Buddy's has been seen.
We'll see after the break.
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Hello everyone and welcomeback to Total Michigan.
I am speaking today with Wesley Pikula.
(15:03):
Yes.
Yes.
And we are talking about Buddy's,actually, we're just talking about pizza
and food in general, but we're talkingabout Buddy's Pizza, the history of it.
Before the break, we were talking about,how Buddy's Pizza really established
a really solid local following.
And this brought us up into the seventies.
Now we're gonna move into the eighties,but the question I got for you first,
(15:25):
Wesley, is when did you join the company?
Sure.
I joined in 1975.
my mother had worked there a few yearsbefore that in the kitchen, and they had
an opening at the time for dishwashers.
I was 16.
And, I'd never washed dishesin my life and I'd never worked
in a restaurant in my life.
I just had a paper route.
So basically I went and applied andof course I applied with my friend.
(15:48):
My friend, couldn't work because itwas close to Memorial Day weekend.
He had a family trip.
So he got called in cuzhe was 18, I was 16.
The manager said, haveyou ever washed dishes?
I said, yes, of course.
I washed dishes at home.
I didn't tell him I neverwashed dishes at a restaurant.
So anyways, he brought me in.
(16:09):
And of course they put me in a dish room,which was about three feet by three feet.
And I could tell you that I had a lotof help for weeks at a time because
people, I'm sure, felt sorry for me.
But at the time, I was in school, Igraduated from high school and then I
went to college at Wayne State in Detroit.
And again, started there in 75.
I think when you talk about Buddy'sand its local following, I think the
(16:31):
next kind of milestone for Buddy'swas in 1980 when, besides winning
the contest in 1970, in 1980, theRepublican Convention was in Detroit
indeed.
At
at Cobo Hall at the time, what itwas called, and Ronald Reagan was
the candidate and Buddy's was askedSt. Stroh's Beer was also asked,
(16:52):
we Stroh's beer was doing a beer.
And then Buddy's Pizza was asked todo the pizza for the press Corps,
the National and International PressCorps in the dining area at Cobo Hall.
Buddy's served and Strau served.
So keep this in mind.
People like, Ted Copel, BarbaraWalters, Huntley Brinkley.
(17:13):
I can go down the list of every singleperson that ever was on air from New
York, California, anywhere you canimagine around the world actually
that was covering the convention waswaiting in line for Buddy's pizza.
And the funny thing about this storyis we did this for the whole week.
(17:33):
And we found out that the gaspressure in Cobo Hall wasn't
strong enough for our pizza ovens.
So the ovens wouldn't run at fullcapacity cuz we had rented ovens because
we were only one location at the time.
And so what we had to do is bake thepizzas off at the six mile store, which
is about 10, 15 minutes from downtown.
We had to transport topizzas from that location.
(17:56):
Then we had to go through Secret service,
then we had.
People or the press corps waiting at timesfor an hour to an hour and a half for
them to deliver Buddy's so they could eat.
Of course, they were drinkingStroh's beer, so it wasn't so bad.
But either way, we hadsignature books that we had the
(18:18):
different press people sign in.
And I can honestly tell you everysingle person that tried the pizza
at the time, always mentioned betterthan anything in New York, have to
come back to Detroit after convention.
We had so many names that we capturedduring that moment, and I think that
was another huge milestone because wegot a lot of press Corps, coverage.
(18:41):
And then we became sponsors of thePistons during the Bad Boy era.
We, they actually, we had a pointpromotion where the one game Chuck
Daley actually put the starters back inso they could hit the point promotion.
And it wound up on the front pageof the USA today where the coach
from the opposing team said thatthe Detroit coach was bush league.
(19:04):
Cuz he wanted to please the crowdwith some local pizza promotion.
And he put the starters in withtwo minutes left in the game.
So this is the powerof Buddy's at the time.
And so we had 17,000 people atthe palace screaming Buddy's.
Buddy's.
So when they hit 130 points, theticket stub was worth for, was worth
(19:25):
a free four square cheese pizza.
And so we did the samething with the Lions.
And the Lions didn't fare as well, butwe did it on a field goal or a touchdown.
And of course, if there was afield goal or a touchdown, there
would be a Touchdown Buddy.
That kind of thing.
So we were very present in thosetwo sporting groups, and of course,
(19:47):
because of national coverageand games and that really kept
pushing Buddy's to the forefront.
And every became a household name.
And of course, the style ofpizza became more relevant.
So as it, as I said earlier from Buddy'sPizza became Detroit style pizza.
And, we were happy with thatbecause we love detroit.
We've operated in Detroit throughthe whole history of buddy's.
(20:09):
So why not give Detroit,it, it deserves it, right?
Because everyone else was knockingDetroit and we always were proud
to, to operate in, Detroit.
And now it's Michigan.
We did our Great Lakes Pizza collection,which we did in honor of the Great Lakes.
So we had that going for many years.
And we, and we donated back to the GreatLakes Alliance, which helps to lakes
(20:31):
and restoration and things like that.
So we've always been involved incauses much bigger than ourselves.
Because we always felt like if wegot involved, other people would see
that you don't have to be the biggestkid on the block to do some good.
If you do a little, like I alwayssaid, to individually, we do a
(20:51):
little together, we do a lot.
Yeah.
So if everybody just adds apiece to it, it's easy, right?
It's like having 10 people lift somethinginstead of one or two people struggling.
Exactly.
Then it becomes easy and then more peoplewanna do it because it's not as difficult.
And speaking of pieces, at some point intime, buddy's decided to start expanding.
(21:14):
Now how many locations are you up to?
You're right.
We're at 22 locations.
We're gonna.
Yeah, so we openedAlpine not that long ago.
Grand Rapids is a greatmarket for Buddy's.
A lot of families, we're franchise,no, these are all privately held.
Capital Spring is our operating partner.
And so we're still involved with Buddy's.
But we have a lot moreexpertise with the group.
(21:36):
it's a large group that came out ofNew York, fell in love with buddy's,
and they support Buddy's in theirgrowth and with all the different,
Technology and things like that.
Operational systems,they're very critical.
But they've been the catalyst for reallyof a more aggressive, growth plan.
And again, we're doingpizzas now in supermarkets.
(21:57):
We do frozen pizzas now.
We do pizzas that we shipnationwide through GoldBelly.
So 22 restaurants, and so we'reprobably putting through probably more
than 2 million people through a year.
And so from a little restaurantthat originated on a corner
that was a house bar.
And again, you could have an veryaggressive growth or you could
(22:19):
have more of a disciplined growth.
Buddy's is always veered moretowards the, more discipline because
of trying to maintain qualityand consistency with product.
And again, as I said earlier, Idon't think anybody wants to be
the first guy to mess this up.
So we have a very special productthat we babysit a little bit
(22:39):
and, and it takes a lot of work.
And I definitely want to circle backto the point you made about quality.
Before I do that, what is itthat explains the growth of it?
Because it's not like youjust did this one time.
You've done it 22 times.
So what is it that, that you reallyattribute to the fact that you're growing?
(23:01):
I think it's really, someof it is guest driven.
people been transplanted fromMichigan all over the country.
And I remember with Chrysler, gm,Ford at the time, everybody got
transplanted all over the country.
Engineers, automotive industry is big,obviously in the United States, and all
those people that worked in automotiveat the time came out of Detroit.
(23:25):
And so when they gotrelocated, guess what?
We were Buddy's.
of course, because chrysler, gm andFord were in detroit in Hamtramck,
all those production plans.
GM was downtown.
Chrysler was in AuburnHills, ford was in dearborn.
There we go.
Every one of those places, youhad ownership, CEOs, founders
always eating at Buddy's.
It wasn't unusual to have what wasconsidered the 11th floor at the time, at
(23:49):
GM headquarters down on Graham Boulevard.
They would come to buddy's, you could seethe suits and back then the wingtip shoes
and the, executives would come in and wehad, it wasn't odd to see Henry Ford, even
Lee Koka go down the list of the CEOs atthe time there would lunch at Buddy's.
So again, lot of this folkloregot transferred about, there's.
(24:14):
There's Detroit style in South Korea.
There's Detroit style in Toronto.
Again, there's people that havegone on and worked, and there's many
people, I'm surprised there aren'tmore in Japan or places like anywhere.
You have Michigan transplantee throughoutthe years, And remember it's 77 years old.
(24:34):
And the folklore was much biggerthan the amount of locations.
Like you could go around the country,say, have you ever heard of Buddy's?
Oh, yeah.
They think we have amillion stores and we don't.
But the brand itself, the name Buddy's,because of all the work that we did, not
only in communities, in sponsorships,and people had a love affair with it
because they had so many great momentsthere, whether it was playing bocce ball
(24:56):
at the original store or coming in andthere was so many proposals at Buddy's.
We'd served so many of the Motown actsthat used to be in Detroit, whether it
was at the Fox or the old Ford Auditorium.
Guess what?
You get a call at 10 o'clock at night.
Hey, we need 50 pizzas.
Diana Ross is, for her show, orPaul McCarney comes into Fox.
(25:18):
We need 50 vegetarianpizzas delivered to the Fox.
Kid Rock shoots a video at state fair.
We need 50 pizzas.
Eminem launches eight mile movie,club blue, we need a hundred pizzas.
You know, they're calling you.
They're calling Buddy'sand without any notice.
And so these are some of the things.
And of course when Michigan was doing alot of the film credits, when Hollywood
(25:43):
was coming into Michigan to shoot,whether it was, whatever the actors were
right.
Miley Cyrus, for instance, one was inGarden City living up in one of the
bars, or whatever they shot Superman.
Anything that they, or Batman,anything they shot here,
Buddy's would get the call.
And in Pontiac they have thestudios there where they do the
(26:03):
editing and things like that.
And so we, again, we get the call.
So I think a lot of that with.
I guess they call 'em influencersnow these days or, but we
weren't paying for this.
These are people from their hearts thatsay We love Detroit and we love the grit.
And people in Michigan are amazing.
It's not just Detroit, but it's Michigan.
(26:23):
Yes.
right.
The greatest people you'llever meet are from Michigan.
And I you any, if anybody travels,you hear that all the time.
God, I love Detroit.
People are friendly.
They're honest.
They're sincere.
You meet people in Detroit oranywhere there, it's just an
honest exchange, which is nice.
Yes.
You don't always get that everywhere.
(26:43):
And I think that's what Buddy's is alittle bit as part of the brand identity.
I guess those are like fancy words, butit's really about the communities you,
serve and the employees that work for you.
They're both aligned.
Yes.
And because you employ people from thecommunity, so it's all intertwined.
Your employees are your community.
(27:04):
That's true.
And if you don't support your community,and let's say 80% of your business
comes from five, six mile radius ofyour space, you'd be pretty silly
not to invest back into the communitythat, that, helps you make a living.
Certainly.
So it, it made a lot of sense, but somepeople lose sight of it and we didn't.
(27:26):
One thing I do want to go back andexplore is the, with the, having the
22 locations, and you've talked quiteextensively about maintaining the
high standards of your product, right?
Whether it's the crust, the ingredients,how you make it, how do you maintain
that quality when you've got all theselocations scattered throughout michigan,
(27:47):
right?
And that's where, Capital Spring comesin and that's where expertise comes in.
Technology obviously makesa big difference these days
because the training material.
It can all be digital.
It can all be on their cell phones.
It could all be on their iPads,whatever people carry around.
Now you can put training videos.
Again, it's maintaining a culturewithin your spaces, right?
Making sure that the people that workfor you are happy and making sure that
(28:11):
there's a lot of discretionary effort.
You have to earn that.
That's leadership, right?
You just, you can't force,today's employee base is
different than when I worked.
You could do control andcommand long time ago.
There's no, no such thing.
It has to be collaborative.
And people wanna do the right thing.
If you hire the right people, they'regonna wanna do the right thing.
Exactly, yes.
But, but, but some people forgetthe fact that you have to retain
(28:34):
people, not just hire people.
And if you lose sight of retention,that's where your trouble starts.
Because when you start losing goodpeople, you start losing culture.
It's like when you lose thegeneration of, let's say the
generation that went through the wars.
There's a certain amount of humilityand humbleness and understanding
(28:56):
of what the world can look like.
And so when you lose those people,you lose some of that wisdom, right?
And so in restaurants, what you have,obviously a lot different scale, but
I'm saying in restaurants, if youlose tenured staff or you lose people
that have
been
here,
you
don't
get that
passing on.
It's
like
great teams
look at
(29:16):
the Celtics, or you look
at teams
that
had
real legacy.
the players socialize
the rookies and
you continue this.
In the
old
days, tigers
had
an amazing
farm system and you
would
obviously always
cultivate
those players.
And the best employees a lot
of times
are grown within your organization.
They're not
because you
went
and paid
an extra $2 for somebody.
(29:38):
That was always the Yankees philosophy.
George Steinbrenner would goout there and pay the big bucks
and they never won back then.
But teams that built theirplayers, through the farm system,
and then you had veterans thatwere very, helpful to rookies.
I always built great teams.
So in restaurants, you have tomaintain a culture of inclusion.
(29:59):
You have to reward theright behaviors, right?
You have to recognize the right behaviors,have to make it part of the system.
And then again, the training is critical.
You train every day.
You train as you go.
It's not a, it's not aclassroom, it's not a, a manual.
It's what you do every day.
(30:20):
So if you're walking in a dining roomand there's something on the floor,
you
pick
it
up
as
a manager
so the employees
can see
that behavior.
Yes.
And then you go to
the busers and say, I went by, let's say
the table's
A one.
I just walked
by A1 paper on
the floor.
You
guys need
to
make sure
you got
your heads
on
the
floor.
Not
just at eye level, but also
(30:40):
looking at the
floors.
that's,
you
just
did.
You just
did it
and
then you
educated
your
busers that
they need
to
do
that.
so
that's
Kenny
Blanchard
wrote
a book
one time,
greatest
book
ever.
The one Minute
Manager.
that was the greatest managementbook ever written to this day.
And all it talked about is these30 second interactions where
(31:01):
you inspect what you expect.
And it
was
real
simple.
And
I
always loved
that when
I
was coming
up
and
I
was an
employee
and
I
had
some great managers at a high
level of
respect
for
guests.
And
they
didn't
care
if
you were
in,
a
Coney
island
or
a
lemonade
stand
or
a
five star restaurant.
Guest service is guest service.
(31:23):
Customers come into yourspace, they're spending money.
You work to the highest levelpossible under that system.
And we always did that.
And whether it was, making sure thesilverware was clean, making sure they
had enough napkins for that pizza,making sure you know that the chairs
were wiped, and making sure that we hadclean bus towels and all those things.
Again, they have to be reinforced.
(31:46):
They have to be trained.
And you have to have, in my opinionanyways, certain non-negotiables that are
in a system that everybody recognizes.
TGI Fridays had a great thing.
They used to have
the
clam
theory, so
the
grains
of
sand were
irritants
to
guests.
And
every time
the
clam got a,
irritant in.
(32:06):
In
the mouth.
Let's say it would open
up
and you wanted
a happy
clam,
so you wanted a closed mouth,so you didn't want any grains
of
sand
in its mouth.
yeah.
So the
grains
of sand
were like irritants,
right?
You
go
in
the
bathroom, there's
no
paper
towels.
There's no soap.
The
garbage can's
full.
There's
water
all
over the
sink.
You go down
the
list.
So
again,
we're not perfect,
but
this
(32:26):
is
where
the
focus
is.
Certainly.
And
without
having
the
commitment
to this
and
the
leadership
that
expects
this,
standards
can go
down pretty
quick.
So let me ask you this question.
For somebody who maybe has neverbeen to Buddy's, but I've listened
to the show and now I want to tryit, and so if they're gonna come
in here, what would be like some ofthe pizzas that you would recommend?
(32:50):
Oh, sure.
if I was a first time customer to Buddy's,just say a great italian restaurant,
I go to a great italian restaurant.
I usually eat their marinarasauce or the bolognese.
And they're pasta.
I never, that's what I start with.
Because I always know cuz a lot of thesebase sauces are used for other recipes.
If they've got a great marinara,chances are everything's great.
If they had a great pasta, it's not gummyand it actually has a firmness to it.
(33:12):
It has some taste, they'rebuying top of the line stuff.
And so with Buddy's, if I was a firsttime guest, I would come in I an antipasta
salad, which is what we're known for.
Our dressing, again, isalmost as famous as the pizza.
Yep.
It's a vinegarette that's aged foranywhere from six to eight weeks.
It's the old traditional recipe.
They're made in gallon containers,shipped to the stores we make.
(33:34):
We have a little guythat makes 'em for us.
Gallon is aged.
You got celery, lemon,spices, things like that.
So you get the antipasta salad,which is salami, ham, cheese, our
brick cheese, in a bowl, you ordera cheese and pepperoni pizza.
Maybe a super with cheese, onion,green pepper, mushroom and ham.
But the reason you order cheeseand pepperoni is because the
(33:56):
pepperoni's under the cheese.
Yes.
The pepperoni juice isbaked into the dough.
And then you order a Buddy brew.
Our Buddy brew, if you're having analcoholic beverage, is made for Buddy's.
It's a beer that we worked with,a company called Griffin Claw that
worked with us to get the right flavorprofile that pairs well with the pizza.
And that would be your traditional meal.
(34:17):
And you'd start with that andyou'd want to really taste
a crust like crunchy crust.
You'd want the sort of thevinegar bite of the apostle salad.
And if you're a real afcienado and
a
lot
of people used
to
do
this,
they would actuallyhave their salad plate,
they would finish
their
salad and
there would be
residue
of,
let's
say
the
little
bit
of
vinegar
oil,
(34:37):
and they
would
take
the crust,
the
pizza
slice,
and
lay
it
right
on
that.
And
get
that
little bit
of
flavor on that
crust Similar
to putting
vinegar on
french
fries,
like
if
you're
in Canada, I don't think
you
can get french fries without
some
kind
of
vinegar, right?
It's just part of eating french fries.
Or you
go
to
carnival,
same thing, right?
they
got, the malt vinegar
right
there.
(34:58):
And
until you've had
it,
you realize
there's
a
flavor enhancer.
And
that
would
be
the
start
of
the meal.
And
then
you'd finish
it
off
with
a,
probably
a
hot
fudge
sundae.
Which is Sanders Hot Fudge Sanders,unfortunately is out right now.
They're,
I've suspended
operations, but that's another product.
The
Sanders
hot
fudge been
around forever.
Or you
do,
if you don't have
Sanders
hot
fudge, you
(35:18):
could do, Vernors
Cooler.
just give Vernor's and
a
scoop
of
ice
cream.
and keep
it,
homestyle.
That's the beauty of michigan.
We have so many cool products.
Do.
And I think again, if you travel thestate, you could probably go anywhere
and find little pockets of, pasti.
There's always stuff yeah.
Little pockets of Wow.
(35:39):
I, yes, that's true.
If you come into Detroit and evensome of the locations we have in the
metro Detroit area, cuz again wherewe open Buddy's was always near,
like Warren is near the tech center.
Yep.
Dearborn is near for Ford headquarters.
Auburn Hills was, near the old Chrysler.
And so every location had aconnection to automotive and six mile
(36:01):
original store at Ford, chrysler,and GM within, a five mile radius.
And so again, and all theengineering tool and die shops.
You didn't have tier one, tier twosuppliers in the forties, in the thirties.
You had little tuin, little shops upand down, all these different areas
(36:21):
that would do contract work for them.
And that
was
a
big
chunk
of
our
business
at
the
time.
But also, kids love Buddy's,
and that's
the
other thing.
They love
our pizza.
It's
not
too
spicy
for them.
it taste like
great
cheese
bread.
I've
heard
kids say,
this
is
the
best
grilled cheese
I
ever had.
No, it's actually a pizza.
a
But you
can call
it
grilled
cheese
if you'd like.
Yeah.
(36:41):
But no
tomatoes.
So
parents
would
order
a
cheese
pizza
with
no
tomato
sauce.
Chop
it
up.
And
the
kids
had
a
meal
and they
loved
it.
Slowly
to get
'em
on
the
apostle salad.
And
then,
when
I was a
manager
in
the
stores,
I
can't
tell
you
how
many
times
the
kids
that
I
would,
let's
say,
bring
breadsticks
out
to
or
joke
around
at
(37:01):
the
table.
When
I did
my
table
visits
later
on, those
kids were
bringing
their kids
in.
you've
been
around
long
enough
cuz that
could,
that's
exactly
what
would
happen,
Wesley.
If
somebody's
listening
to
this
and they
want
to
check
out
what it
is
you're
doing, find
your
locations,
chase you
down
on social media, where's the best place
places.
Sure.
just on our website at Buddyspizza.com.
There's so much information on our site.
(37:23):
You Google Buddy's, all kind of thingspop up and really, whether you're
ordering GoldBelly Pizzas or now we'redoing the all corner pizzas where you
can order basically two smalls together.
So if everyone loves corners,that's something fun.
I mean it pretty muchhighlights the story.
It has the locations you can order online.
(37:43):
You can have deliverynow through DoorDash.
They're
really,
and again,
if
you live outside
of our
market,
you
can't
get to
Buddy's.
Of course,
you
can
order
from GoldBelly
and pretty soon, Buddy'swill be in a lot of
stores around
the country.
So you'll be able
to get
a
frozen
version
of Buddy's
where
you
can just
get it
and get
an
idea.
(38:03):
But if you want original and authentic,just to see where it all began.
Then you come to SixMile, you go to Detroit.
Detroit is, I don't know ifanyone's been to Detroit lately.
I was just there this morning.
But it's an amazing city right now.
It is when you drive through there, andI was driving there probably for the last
50 years, to be honest, to see what'shappened in the last 15 years with dan
(38:25):
gilbert, Mike Gillich, peter caros.
penske, you can go down the listof all these major guys that all
added something to this formula.
And Mike Gillich, and Peter Caroswere the first Doner and Dan gilbert
came in and just put on steroids.
These are great people that, that, andwhen you see the money they invested
(38:45):
and you see the other people theybrought alongside with them to move
this city along and to see how yousee people on the street cleaning up.
I've been to Chicago,I've been to New york.
Believe me, our downtown is20 times cleaner than anything
I've seen in manhattan.
is.
Yeah.
Chicago areas are clean.
Detroit is 20 times cleaner downtown.
You go I drove down Woodward yesterday.
(39:07):
I couldn't, I was staringfor pieces of paper.
I didn't find see one, everybody's walkingaround with a scooper, with a brush.
people are positive, lot ofpride, lot of color down there.
they've enhanced a lot of the buildings.
Now they're doing murals.
The lighting is fantastic.
The restaurant scene is alot of small little places,
(39:28):
chefs really investing, right?
And Detroit always had a great food scene.
I don't know if people realize this,but read about Detroit in the twenties.
It was called the Paris ofthe midwest, believe it or
not The theaters, everything.
Just read about the city and whereit was and you, when you visit it.
We have a store downtown onin the old Madison Theater.
(39:50):
Which was one of the firsttheaters to show mo, action,
motion picture with sound.
it
converted
later.
We Buddy's is in the bottom of it.
Right.
That's our downtown location andwe have our original location.
It's on east side ofdetroit where it all began.
Still very busy there.
It's at six mile and Conant andthat's what I would suggest.
you start with that and it's,when you've been around for
(40:13):
77 years, it's worth a look.
Yes, definitely.
Wesley, thank you so much fortaking time to chat with us today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you very much for havingme, Cliff, and we're proud to
represent detroit and Michigan
represent you.
you for
allowing
us this voice.
We really appreciate that.
Hey, no problem.
It's been great.
And for our audience, you can alwaysroll on over to total michigan.com.
(40:36):
Click on wesley's interview and getall the links that he mentioned above.
We'll see you next time with another greatstory from an ordinary Michigander who are
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
See you then.
Guess what?
(00:00):
You get a call at 10 o'clock at night.
Hey, we need 50 pizzas.
Diana Ross is, for her show, orPaul McCarney comes into Fox.
We need 50 vegetarian pizzas KidRock shoots a video at state fair.
We need 50 pizzas.
Eminem launches Eight Milemovie, we need a hundred pizzas.
They're calling Buddy'sand without any notice.
(00:21):
Hello everyone and welcome back toTotal Michigan, where we talk to
ordinary Michiganders who are doingsome pretty extraordinary things.
And if it sounds like I'm stumblingover my words, I probably am
because I am drooling right now.
If there's one thing I loveand that is the smell of pizza.
And today I'm sitting in, Buddy's Pizza,which is home of the Detroit style pizza.
(00:44):
And I want to explore all of thisbecause this is just something
that's known as a national level.
Something that we can definitelybe proud of as Michiganders.
Sitting with me today is the ChiefBrand Officer of Buddy's Pizza,
and that would be Wesley Pikula.
Wesley, how are you?
Hi Cliff.
How are you?
Happy to be here.
Great.
(01:04):
I'm happy to hear you.
And did I get your last name right?
A little bit.
Pikula.
Pikula.
Okay.
Pikula.
Okay.
So Wesley, why don't you tell usa little bit about where you're
from and where you grew up.
Oh, sure.
So I grew up on the east side of Detroit.
Originally our family cameto the United States in 1964.
We left Poland.
(01:24):
Our whole family, I had foursiblings and my mom and dad, their
brothers were in America and they.
Through the years try to get us to move.
And it was very difficult at the time,but obviously they made it happen.
So in 1964 we moved to Hamtramck,which is on a border of Detroit.
And then I, we then moved to Detroitand it so happened that where we
(01:46):
moved, I was probably a mile anda half from what was the original
Buddy's unbeknown to me at the time.
But we only lived a mileand a half from there.
So that's where I originally grew up.
So let me ask this question herejust to explore it a little bit.
Why Detroit?
You got the whole United Statesyou could have moved to, but
your family picked Detroit.
Hamtramck, if anyone knows thehistory of Hamtramck, it was
(02:09):
primarily Polish at the time.
It's actually a hundred percentMuslim now, but back then people
O went to New York, people went tocertain parts of Chicago, and in
Hamtramck is where our family lived.
And that's the areathey were familiar with.
And then of course, We, theyhad a house for us, a flat in
Hamtramck, and we lived on a lowerflat, all of us three to the bed.
(02:32):
Yeah.
So yeah, so that, thatwas how it all started.
And of course, I was sixyears old when I came here.
we had language issues and.
It just so happened my father wasa tailor and he was able to do some
work for the nuns and the priests.
So after hours, a lot of thenuns would teach us how to
speak English at the convent.
That's how we got the schoolingto learn the language and not to
(02:54):
get too far back in the schoolsystem because we didn't speak.
So let's talk aboutthe history of Buddy's.
How did it first get started?
When did it first get started?
Sure.
So Buddy's originated atSix Mount Kona in Detroit.
It was a house bar,what's called a house bar.
It was a bar in front,a house in the back.
(03:16):
People resided there.
So probably in the twenties, between 2019, 20 19 30, it was this little house
bar that eventually became a blind pig.
When they, during prohibition, whenprohibition ended, it became a little
restaurant called Fern's Lunch.
It was just a little fern in awindow, and it was just a little bar.
Around 1946, a gentleman by thename of Gus Guerrera purchased it.
(03:40):
And he was Italian andhis wife and his family.
And, being from Italy and, at thetime there was a lot of veterans
that had served, were familiar withItaly and He wanted to have more to
serve in his little bar than fishand chips and things like that.
So the idea came, maybe we can do pizza.
(04:02):
And of course, because they were Sicilian,They had this version that you can
find, it's called sfincione which islike a dough, and then you would push
meat into the dough and then you maybewould drizzle a little bit of parm
and a little bit of olive oil on it.
And it was usually rectangular inshape, similar to a paca bread.
So then that seems to be theorigin of where the Detroit style
(04:24):
pizza came, because Detroit stylepizza is a little different.
Because you start with dough, thenyou press the pepperoni onto the
dough, and then you put the cheeseon and then the sauce goes on top,
which is basically heresy in a pizzaworld, because the sauce always go.
exactly.
And so what we'll end up doing is itcreated this sort of light crunchy
(04:45):
crust cuz the sauce wasn't on the dough.
So by design the dough was not gummyor wasn't saturated by the sauce.
And the other part that was reallyinteresting was they didn't have any
type of pans at the time cuz there wasno rectangular square pizza at the time.
So up and down the streets inDetroit, they had tool and die shops.
(05:09):
They didn't have the bigautomotive suppliers.
They had these small groups that used todo the work and they had these trays there
that were called drip trays or they usedto be inexpensive metal trays that they
would use to house like nuts and bolts.
Or if there was a drip, they'dput the tray underneath.
So what, anyways, it was.
The dimension was like 10 by14, and then a smaller one that
was like eight by 10 inches.
(05:31):
And so somehow this pan gotinto Gus Guerra's hands.
No one knows exactly how.
And they wound up putting the doughinto this sort of, manufacturing tray, I
guess with maybe two and a half insides.
And they pressed the dough out, andthen they baked in it and it worked.
So to this day, the story of this pan isthat it was not a food service product.
(05:57):
It was basically from manufacturing.
And to this day, we stilluse that type of pan.
So it's made by a fabricator for us.
Certainly.
Now, the question that I got is, And Iappreciate that the, so if I understand
correctly, so it was, the Sicilianstyle has been square all along.
Okay.
And this is dating back.
How far?
(06:18):
As far as you can remember, becauseremember, focaccia was always
part of the Italian cuisine.
It was the type of bread, butthat dough had oil in it, so it
was more of a chewier texture.
Oh, specific to Detroit style and Buddy'sdoes original style because there's a
lot of versions of this pizza today.
But back then when Buddy's was around,it was the only place at the time.
(06:42):
So it was very specific,a saltwater yeast.
There's no shortening in anytype of conditioner in a dough.
So that, again, maintainedthat light, crunchy crust.
So it almost has, it's almost a blendingof the focaccia and Neapolitan style.
Neapolitan style traditionallyis saltwater yeast.
So the magic happens from the flour.
(07:02):
And the simplicity of that product.
And then also great tomato sauce.
So if you talk about Neapolitan, it'sgreat Fresh San Marzano tomatoes, a double
zero flour and a water and then it createsa great pizza cuz great pizza doesn't
have to have, a lot of things on it.
It's just like great bread.
Great bread doesn't have a lot in it.
(07:25):
And I think artisan breads noware really popular these days.
But if you remember in the old days,you had Wonder Bread and Silver Cup.
huh?
Because I gotta say, some of thebest pizza I've personally had has
been over in Italy, and I'm amazedat how often the best pizza has
the least amount of ingredients.
That's true.
Just like even with pasta.
If you have a great pasta,and a great tomato sauce.
(07:48):
It's not like it's layeredwith garlic that you can't even
talk to anyone after you eat.
The show is always the tomatoes.
The tomatoes are generally sweet,so you don't need to put sugar in.
The salt actually enhances thetomato flavor, which makes it sweet.
A lot of people don't knowthat, but when you add salt, it
actually sweetens the tomato.
And then of course it's realsimple, fresh basil, and if there's
(08:11):
any garlic, it's a hint of it.
And.
Again, it's the balance of the foodthat makes it great and it's the
initial ingredients that are great.
So if you want a great tomatosauce, grow your own tomatoes.
Yeah,
absolutely true.
And God, I'm so hungry right now.
Okay, so Buddy's has introducedthis square style pizza, right?
(08:32):
The Detroit style pizza.
Obviously the reaction tothis must have been good.
because business was doing really well.
Talk to us about those, likefirst few years of just getting
it out there, getting the nameout there, building up the brand.
Oh, sure.
So basically, Gus Guerreraowned the business, 1953.
He sold it to Big Jimmy and Little Jimmy.
(08:52):
And they were both Italian.
And they took Buddy'sfrom that point to 1970.
And so again, there wasonly one place at the time.
And so it had a big folklore.
People would follow it.
Again, it's very similar tofamous restaurants like Zehnders
let's say in Frankenmuth.
People know of that place.
So Buddy's had a very, well known, pizza.
(09:13):
And people went there and it had, its own.
Yeah, they were known for it.
It was, they had a huge following.
In 1970, the Jacobsfamily brought Buddy's.
And they fell in love withit just being as customers.
And Big Jimmy and LittleJimmy were getting older.
They didn't want to run therestaurant anymore as much.
So when the Jacobs owned itand bought it in 1970, Detroit
(09:33):
had a, citywide Pizza contest.
They ran in the city.
The Detroit News sponsored it.
It was for the best pizza in Detroit.
And so Buddy's was one of the entriesinto this contest and Buddy's won.
Nice.
And from that point on, Buddy'spizza was Detroit's number one
square deep dish pizza as the, asit was referred to at the time.
And during the, some of those years,different people branched off that worked
(09:57):
for Buddy's, started their own groups.
Later on, probably like maybe10 years ago, Pizza Today, which
is an industry trade magazine,decided to do a pizza contest also
at one of their shows in Vegas.
And they created a category andthey called it Detroit Style.
Because Chicago stylewas already out there.
California style was out there already.
(10:18):
New Haven style, all these kind of styles.
Detroit, because no one waspaying attention to Detroit.
It was the Rust Belt.
Who cared about Detroit?
Yeah.
And so somebody entered it andthen they won the category.
I think they were theonly one in the contest.
And so all the magazines, we neverentered contest, to be honest.
Buddy's just stayed to theirown little niche there.
(10:39):
And then once the contest won, andthen they started throwing it out
there in publications and biggergroups started picking it up.
It became a industry term now.
So it's called Detroit Style.
And I think people haveseen Pizza Hut take it on.
And now, DeJorno has Detroit on their box.
Yes.
So if anyone remembers, probably 20years ago everyone was taking Detroit
(11:01):
off their branding or off their signs.
Now everybody's putting
Detroit on,
And I gotta say that this is actuallyreached like international levels.
And the reason why even Buddy's pizzafell on my radar in the first place
was because a handful of years ago, Igot to meet the world champion pizza
maker, Tony Gemignani He's been onthe Food Network, everything else.
(11:25):
And he and I were talking and heasked me where I was from and I said,
oh, I'm originally from Michigan.
And he goes, oh, you mustlove Detroit style pizza.
And I looked at him, I'm like,how in the world do you know
about Detroit style pizza?
He goes, man, it's someof the best out there.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Cuz you know you don't Yeah.
I was living in California at the time.
You don't drive down the roadand see Detroit style pizza.
You, you saw Chicago style.
That's right.
(11:46):
So all of a sudden now I'm thinkingto myself, there's something going on.
So I did not know about
yeah, he's involved cuz he was alwaysat the pizza shows in the early days.
he used to do the spinning,they used to have like rubber
disks that they used to spin.
Then they would have spinning doughcontests and that was part of pizza Expo.
And he actually has a franchiseein Las Vegas where he has
(12:08):
a Detroit style concept.
And so again, there's a lot ofdifferent characters that left
Buddy's or other ones jumped onboard and created their own versions.
And anything else, it's like when Fordstarted the automotive, automobile,
everyone else created their own.
But he's obviously given thecredit or the Wright brothers or
someone, there's always a first.
(12:28):
exactly.
And then everyone else jumpsin and does their own versions,
does improvements and changes.
But one of the things that Buddy'sdoes that's unique is we've never
really departed from the originalrecipes or what was left at Buddy's
when these different people left.
There was always kitchenstaff that stayed behind.
And so whether someone lefted or achef left or someone else, there would
(12:50):
always be the full kitchen intact.
So Buddy's never moved away from that.
So we build the pizzas the verytraditional way same way we're not
putting, like groups like jets will putsauce on the dough now and cheese on top.
They switch to a mozzarella cheese.
They'll put pepperoni on top.
We will, if a guest wants a pizza madea certain way, we will of course do it.
(13:11):
But generally speaking, ourpizza's still very traditional
in the way that we inherited it.
And I started there in 1975.
And so of course we had what we call theold timers, which were five ladies that
were the gatekeepers of the recipes.
And well.
And their arms are huge.
That's right.
Their arms are huge.
And you could see, Cliff, that I wasn'tgoing to challenge anybody along the way.
(13:35):
I think I weighed 150 poundsand I just, I, there's no way.
And but why would you wanna change it?
Because, when you have a brandlike Buddy's, it's, you're,
you inherit a legacy brand.
And I don't wanna be the first guythat does something where someone
says, what were you thinking?
Yes.
that's not, I don't wanna be that guy.
Exactly.
(13:56):
For our audience, we're gonna takea quick break to you, thank our
sponsors, and when we come backwe're gonna talk about the explosive
growth that Buddy's has been seen.
We'll see after the break.
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Hello everyone and welcomeback to Total Michigan.
I am speaking today with Wesley Pikula.
(15:03):
Yes.
Yes.
And we are talking about Buddy's,actually, we're just talking about pizza
and food in general, but we're talkingabout Buddy's Pizza, the history of it.
Before the break, we were talking about,how Buddy's Pizza really established
a really solid local following.
And this brought us up into the seventies.
Now we're gonna move into the eighties,but the question I got for you first,
(15:25):
Wesley, is when did you join the company?
Sure.
I joined in 1975.
my mother had worked there a few yearsbefore that in the kitchen, and they had
an opening at the time for dishwashers.
I was 16.
And, I'd never washed dishesin my life and I'd never worked
in a restaurant in my life.
I just had a paper route.
So basically I went and applied andof course I applied with my friend.
(15:48):
My friend, couldn't work because itwas close to Memorial Day weekend.
He had a family trip.
So he got called in cuzhe was 18, I was 16.
The manager said, haveyou ever washed dishes?
I said, yes, of course.
I washed dishes at home.
I didn't tell him I neverwashed dishes at a restaurant.
So anyways, he brought me in.
(16:09):
And of course they put me in a dish room,which was about three feet by three feet.
And I could tell you that I had a lotof help for weeks at a time because
people, I'm sure, felt sorry for me.
But at the time, I was in school, Igraduated from high school and then I
went to college at Wayne State in Detroit.
And again, started there in 75.
I think when you talk about Buddy'sand its local following, I think the
(16:31):
next kind of milestone for Buddy'swas in 1980 when, besides winning
the contest in 1970, in 1980, theRepublican Convention was in Detroit
indeed.
At
at Cobo Hall at the time, what itwas called, and Ronald Reagan was
the candidate and Buddy's was askedSt. Stroh's Beer was also asked,
(16:52):
we Stroh's beer was doing a beer.
And then Buddy's Pizza was asked todo the pizza for the press Corps,
the National and International PressCorps in the dining area at Cobo Hall.
Buddy's served and Strau served.
So keep this in mind.
People like, Ted Copel, BarbaraWalters, Huntley Brinkley.
(17:13):
I can go down the list of every singleperson that ever was on air from New
York, California, anywhere you canimagine around the world actually
that was covering the convention waswaiting in line for Buddy's pizza.
And the funny thing about this storyis we did this for the whole week.
(17:33):
And we found out that the gaspressure in Cobo Hall wasn't
strong enough for our pizza ovens.
So the ovens wouldn't run at fullcapacity cuz we had rented ovens because
we were only one location at the time.
And so what we had to do is bake thepizzas off at the six mile store, which
is about 10, 15 minutes from downtown.
We had to transport topizzas from that location.
(17:56):
Then we had to go through Secret service,
then we had.
People or the press corps waiting at timesfor an hour to an hour and a half for
them to deliver Buddy's so they could eat.
Of course, they were drinkingStroh's beer, so it wasn't so bad.
But either way, we hadsignature books that we had the
(18:18):
different press people sign in.
And I can honestly tell you everysingle person that tried the pizza
at the time, always mentioned betterthan anything in New York, have to
come back to Detroit after convention.
We had so many names that we capturedduring that moment, and I think that
was another huge milestone because wegot a lot of press Corps, coverage.
(18:41):
And then we became sponsors of thePistons during the Bad Boy era.
We, they actually, we had a pointpromotion where the one game Chuck
Daley actually put the starters back inso they could hit the point promotion.
And it wound up on the front pageof the USA today where the coach
from the opposing team said thatthe Detroit coach was bush league.
(19:04):
Cuz he wanted to please the crowdwith some local pizza promotion.
And he put the starters in withtwo minutes left in the game.
So this is the powerof Buddy's at the time.
And so we had 17,000 people atthe palace screaming Buddy's.
Buddy's.
So when they hit 130 points, theticket stub was worth for, was worth
(19:25):
a free four square cheese pizza.
And so we did the samething with the Lions.
And the Lions didn't fare as well, butwe did it on a field goal or a touchdown.
And of course, if there was afield goal or a touchdown, there
would be a Touchdown Buddy.
That kind of thing.
So we were very present in thosetwo sporting groups, and of course,
(19:47):
because of national coverageand games and that really kept
pushing Buddy's to the forefront.
And every became a household name.
And of course, the style ofpizza became more relevant.
So as it, as I said earlier from Buddy'sPizza became Detroit style pizza.
And, we were happy with thatbecause we love detroit.
We've operated in Detroit throughthe whole history of buddy's.
(20:09):
So why not give Detroit,it, it deserves it, right?
Because everyone else was knockingDetroit and we always were proud
to, to operate in, Detroit.
And now it's Michigan.
We did our Great Lakes Pizza collection,which we did in honor of the Great Lakes.
So we had that going for many years.
And we, and we donated back to the GreatLakes Alliance, which helps to lakes
(20:31):
and restoration and things like that.
So we've always been involved incauses much bigger than ourselves.
Because we always felt like if wegot involved, other people would see
that you don't have to be the biggestkid on the block to do some good.
If you do a little, like I alwayssaid, to individually, we do a
(20:51):
little together, we do a lot.
Yeah.
So if everybody just adds apiece to it, it's easy, right?
It's like having 10 people lift somethinginstead of one or two people struggling.
Exactly.
Then it becomes easy and then more peoplewanna do it because it's not as difficult.
And speaking of pieces, at some point intime, buddy's decided to start expanding.
(21:14):
Now how many locations are you up to?
You're right.
We're at 22 locations.
We're gonna.
Yeah, so we openedAlpine not that long ago.
Grand Rapids is a greatmarket for Buddy's.
A lot of families, we're franchise,no, these are all privately held.
Capital Spring is our operating partner.
And so we're still involved with Buddy's.
But we have a lot moreexpertise with the group.
(21:36):
it's a large group that came out ofNew York, fell in love with buddy's,
and they support Buddy's in theirgrowth and with all the different,
Technology and things like that.
Operational systems,they're very critical.
But they've been the catalyst for reallyof a more aggressive, growth plan.
And again, we're doingpizzas now in supermarkets.
(21:57):
We do frozen pizzas now.
We do pizzas that we shipnationwide through GoldBelly.
So 22 restaurants, and so we'reprobably putting through probably more
than 2 million people through a year.
And so from a little restaurantthat originated on a corner
that was a house bar.
And again, you could have an veryaggressive growth or you could
(22:19):
have more of a disciplined growth.
Buddy's is always veered moretowards the, more discipline because
of trying to maintain qualityand consistency with product.
And again, as I said earlier, Idon't think anybody wants to be
the first guy to mess this up.
So we have a very special productthat we babysit a little bit
(22:39):
and, and it takes a lot of work.
And I definitely want to circle backto the point you made about quality.
Before I do that, what is itthat explains the growth of it?
Because it's not like youjust did this one time.
You've done it 22 times.
So what is it that, that you reallyattribute to the fact that you're growing?
(23:01):
I think it's really, someof it is guest driven.
people been transplanted fromMichigan all over the country.
And I remember with Chrysler, gm,Ford at the time, everybody got
transplanted all over the country.
Engineers, automotive industry is big,obviously in the United States, and all
those people that worked in automotiveat the time came out of Detroit.
(23:25):
And so when they gotrelocated, guess what?
We were Buddy's.
of course, because chrysler, gm andFord were in detroit in Hamtramck,
all those production plans.
GM was downtown.
Chrysler was in AuburnHills, ford was in dearborn.
There we go.
Every one of those places, youhad ownership, CEOs, founders
always eating at Buddy's.
It wasn't unusual to have what wasconsidered the 11th floor at the time, at
(23:49):
GM headquarters down on Graham Boulevard.
They would come to buddy's, you could seethe suits and back then the wingtip shoes
and the, executives would come in and wehad, it wasn't odd to see Henry Ford, even
Lee Koka go down the list of the CEOs atthe time there would lunch at Buddy's.
So again, lot of this folkloregot transferred about, there's.
(24:14):
There's Detroit style in South Korea.
There's Detroit style in Toronto.
Again, there's people that havegone on and worked, and there's many
people, I'm surprised there aren'tmore in Japan or places like anywhere.
You have Michigan transplantee throughoutthe years, And remember it's 77 years old.
(24:34):
And the folklore was much biggerthan the amount of locations.
Like you could go around the country,say, have you ever heard of Buddy's?
Oh, yeah.
They think we have amillion stores and we don't.
But the brand itself, the name Buddy's,because of all the work that we did, not
only in communities, in sponsorships,and people had a love affair with it
because they had so many great momentsthere, whether it was playing bocce ball
(24:56):
at the original store or coming in andthere was so many proposals at Buddy's.
We'd served so many of the Motown actsthat used to be in Detroit, whether it
was at the Fox or the old Ford Auditorium.
Guess what?
You get a call at 10 o'clock at night.
Hey, we need 50 pizzas.
Diana Ross is, for her show, orPaul McCarney comes into Fox.
(25:18):
We need 50 vegetarianpizzas delivered to the Fox.
Kid Rock shoots a video at state fair.
We need 50 pizzas.
Eminem launches eight mile movie,club blue, we need a hundred pizzas.
You know, they're calling you.
They're calling Buddy'sand without any notice.
And so these are some of the things.
And of course when Michigan was doing alot of the film credits, when Hollywood
(25:43):
was coming into Michigan to shoot,whether it was, whatever the actors were
right.
Miley Cyrus, for instance, one was inGarden City living up in one of the
bars, or whatever they shot Superman.
Anything that they, or Batman,anything they shot here,
Buddy's would get the call.
And in Pontiac they have thestudios there where they do the
(26:03):
editing and things like that.
And so we, again, we get the call.
So I think a lot of that with.
I guess they call 'em influencersnow these days or, but we
weren't paying for this.
These are people from their hearts thatsay We love Detroit and we love the grit.
And people in Michigan are amazing.
It's not just Detroit, but it's Michigan.
(26:23):
Yes.
right.
The greatest people you'llever meet are from Michigan.
And I you any, if anybody travels,you hear that all the time.
God, I love Detroit.
People are friendly.
They're honest.
They're sincere.
You meet people in Detroit oranywhere there, it's just an
honest exchange, which is nice.
Yes.
You don't always get that everywhere.
(26:43):
And I think that's what Buddy's is alittle bit as part of the brand identity.
I guess those are like fancy words, butit's really about the communities you,
serve and the employees that work for you.
They're both aligned.
Yes.
And because you employ people from thecommunity, so it's all intertwined.
Your employees are your community.
(27:04):
That's true.
And if you don't support your community,and let's say 80% of your business
comes from five, six mile radius ofyour space, you'd be pretty silly
not to invest back into the communitythat, that, helps you make a living.
Certainly.
So it, it made a lot of sense, but somepeople lose sight of it and we didn't.
(27:26):
One thing I do want to go back andexplore is the, with the, having the
22 locations, and you've talked quiteextensively about maintaining the
high standards of your product, right?
Whether it's the crust, the ingredients,how you make it, how do you maintain
that quality when you've got all theselocations scattered throughout michigan,
(27:47):
right?
And that's where, Capital Spring comesin and that's where expertise comes in.
Technology obviously makesa big difference these days
because the training material.
It can all be digital.
It can all be on their cell phones.
It could all be on their iPads,whatever people carry around.
Now you can put training videos.
Again, it's maintaining a culturewithin your spaces, right?
Making sure that the people that workfor you are happy and making sure that
(28:11):
there's a lot of discretionary effort.
You have to earn that.
That's leadership, right?
You just, you can't force,today's employee base is
different than when I worked.
You could do control andcommand long time ago.
There's no, no such thing.
It has to be collaborative.
And people wanna do the right thing.
If you hire the right people, they'regonna wanna do the right thing.
Exactly, yes.
But, but, but some people forgetthe fact that you have to retain
(28:34):
people, not just hire people.
And if you lose sight of retention,that's where your trouble starts.
Because when you start losing goodpeople, you start losing culture.
It's like when you lose thegeneration of, let's say the
generation that went through the wars.
There's a certain amount of humilityand humbleness and understanding
(28:56):
of what the world can look like.
And so when you lose those people,you lose some of that wisdom, right?
And so in restaurants, what you have,obviously a lot different scale, but
I'm saying in restaurants, if youlose tenured staff or you lose people
that have
been
here,
you
don't
get that
passing on.
It's
like
great teams
look at
(29:16):
the Celtics, or you look
at teams
that
had
real legacy.
the players socialize
the rookies and
you continue this.
In the
old
days, tigers
had
an amazing
farm system and you
would
obviously always
cultivate
those players.
And the best employees a lot
of times
are grown within your organization.
They're not
because you
went
and paid
an extra $2 for somebody.
(29:38):
That was always the Yankees philosophy.
George Steinbrenner would goout there and pay the big bucks
and they never won back then.
But teams that built theirplayers, through the farm system,
and then you had veterans thatwere very, helpful to rookies.
I always built great teams.
So in restaurants, you have tomaintain a culture of inclusion.
(29:59):
You have to reward theright behaviors, right?
You have to recognize the right behaviors,have to make it part of the system.
And then again, the training is critical.
You train every day.
You train as you go.
It's not a, it's not aclassroom, it's not a, a manual.
It's what you do every day.
(30:20):
So if you're walking in a dining roomand there's something on the floor,
you
pick
it
up
as
a manager
so the employees
can see
that behavior.
Yes.
And then you go to
the busers and say, I went by, let's say
the table's
A one.
I just walked
by A1 paper on
the floor.
You
guys need
to
make sure
you got
your heads
on
the
floor.
Not
just at eye level, but also
(30:40):
looking at the
floors.
that's,
you
just
did.
You just
did it
and
then you
educated
your
busers that
they need
to
do
that.
so
that's
Kenny
Blanchard
wrote
a book
one time,
greatest
book
ever.
The one Minute
Manager.
that was the greatest managementbook ever written to this day.
And all it talked about is these30 second interactions where
(31:01):
you inspect what you expect.
And it
was
real
simple.
And
I
always loved
that when
I
was coming
up
and
I
was an
employee
and
I
had
some great managers at a high
level of
respect
for
guests.
And
they
didn't
care
if
you were
in,
a
Coney
island
or
a
lemonade
stand
or
a
five star restaurant.
Guest service is guest service.
(31:23):
Customers come into yourspace, they're spending money.
You work to the highest levelpossible under that system.
And we always did that.
And whether it was, making sure thesilverware was clean, making sure they
had enough napkins for that pizza,making sure you know that the chairs
were wiped, and making sure that we hadclean bus towels and all those things.
Again, they have to be reinforced.
(31:46):
They have to be trained.
And you have to have, in my opinionanyways, certain non-negotiables that are
in a system that everybody recognizes.
TGI Fridays had a great thing.
They used to have
the
clam
theory, so
the
grains
of
sand were
irritants
to
guests.
And
every time
the
clam got a,
irritant in.
(32:06):
In
the mouth.
Let's say it would open
up
and you wanted
a happy
clam,
so you wanted a closed mouth,so you didn't want any grains
of
sand
in its mouth.
yeah.
So the
grains
of sand
were like irritants,
right?
You
go
in
the
bathroom, there's
no
paper
towels.
There's no soap.
The
garbage can's
full.
There's
water
all
over the
sink.
You go down
the
list.
So
again,
we're not perfect,
but
this
(32:26):
is
where
the
focus
is.
Certainly.
And
without
having
the
commitment
to this
and
the
leadership
that
expects
this,
standards
can go
down pretty
quick.
So let me ask you this question.
For somebody who maybe has neverbeen to Buddy's, but I've listened
to the show and now I want to tryit, and so if they're gonna come
in here, what would be like some ofthe pizzas that you would recommend?
(32:50):
Oh, sure.
if I was a first time customer to Buddy's,just say a great italian restaurant,
I go to a great italian restaurant.
I usually eat their marinarasauce or the bolognese.
And they're pasta.
I never, that's what I start with.
Because I always know cuz a lot of thesebase sauces are used for other recipes.
If they've got a great marinara,chances are everything's great.
If they had a great pasta, it's not gummyand it actually has a firmness to it.
(33:12):
It has some taste, they'rebuying top of the line stuff.
And so with Buddy's, if I was a firsttime guest, I would come in I an antipasta
salad, which is what we're known for.
Our dressing, again, isalmost as famous as the pizza.
Yep.
It's a vinegarette that's aged foranywhere from six to eight weeks.
It's the old traditional recipe.
They're made in gallon containers,shipped to the stores we make.
(33:34):
We have a little guythat makes 'em for us.
Gallon is aged.
You got celery, lemon,spices, things like that.
So you get the antipasta salad,which is salami, ham, cheese, our
brick cheese, in a bowl, you ordera cheese and pepperoni pizza.
Maybe a super with cheese, onion,green pepper, mushroom and ham.
But the reason you order cheeseand pepperoni is because the
(33:56):
pepperoni's under the cheese.
Yes.
The pepperoni juice isbaked into the dough.
And then you order a Buddy brew.
Our Buddy brew, if you're having analcoholic beverage, is made for Buddy's.
It's a beer that we worked with,a company called Griffin Claw that
worked with us to get the right flavorprofile that pairs well with the pizza.
And that would be your traditional meal.
(34:17):
And you'd start with that andyou'd want to really taste
a crust like crunchy crust.
You'd want the sort of thevinegar bite of the apostle salad.
And if you're a real afcienado and
a
lot
of people used
to
do
this,
they would actuallyhave their salad plate,
they would finish
their
salad and
there would be
residue
of,
let's
say
the
little
bit
of
vinegar
oil,
(34:37):
and they
would
take
the crust,
the
pizza
slice,
and
lay
it
right
on
that.
And
get
that
little bit
of
flavor on that
crust Similar
to putting
vinegar on
french
fries,
like
if
you're
in Canada, I don't think
you
can get french fries without
some
kind
of
vinegar, right?
It's just part of eating french fries.
Or you
go
to
carnival,
same thing, right?
they
got, the malt vinegar
right
there.
(34:58):
And
until you've had
it,
you realize
there's
a
flavor enhancer.
And
that
would
be
the
start
of
the meal.
And
then
you'd finish
it
off
with
a,
probably
a
hot
fudge
sundae.
Which is Sanders Hot Fudge Sanders,unfortunately is out right now.
They're,
I've suspended
operations, but that's another product.
The
Sanders
hot
fudge been
around forever.
Or you
do,
if you don't have
Sanders
hot
fudge, you
(35:18):
could do, Vernors
Cooler.
just give Vernor's and
a
scoop
of
ice
cream.
and keep
it,
homestyle.
That's the beauty of michigan.
We have so many cool products.
Do.
And I think again, if you travel thestate, you could probably go anywhere
and find little pockets of, pasti.
There's always stuff yeah.
Little pockets of Wow.
(35:39):
I, yes, that's true.
If you come into Detroit and evensome of the locations we have in the
metro Detroit area, cuz again wherewe open Buddy's was always near,
like Warren is near the tech center.
Yep.
Dearborn is near for Ford headquarters.
Auburn Hills was, near the old Chrysler.
And so every location had aconnection to automotive and six mile
(36:01):
original store at Ford, chrysler,and GM within, a five mile radius.
And so again, and all theengineering tool and die shops.
You didn't have tier one, tier twosuppliers in the forties, in the thirties.
You had little tuin, little shops upand down, all these different areas
(36:21):
that would do contract work for them.
And that
was
a
big
chunk
of
our
business
at
the
time.
But also, kids love Buddy's,
and that's
the
other thing.
They love
our pizza.
It's
not
too
spicy
for them.
it taste like
great
cheese
bread.
I've
heard
kids say,
this
is
the
best
grilled cheese
I
ever had.
No, it's actually a pizza.
a
But you
can call
it
grilled
cheese
if you'd like.
Yeah.
(36:41):
But no
tomatoes.
So
parents
would
order
a
cheese
pizza
with
no
tomato
sauce.
Chop
it
up.
And
the
kids
had
a
meal
and they
loved
it.
Slowly
to get
'em
on
the
apostle salad.
And
then,
when
I was a
manager
in
the
stores,
I
can't
tell
you
how
many
times
the
kids
that
I
would,
let's
say,
bring
breadsticks
out
to
or
joke
around
at
(37:01):
the
table.
When
I did
my
table
visits
later
on, those
kids were
bringing
their kids
in.
you've
been
around
long
enough
cuz that
could,
that's
exactly
what
would
happen,
Wesley.
If
somebody's
listening
to
this
and they
want
to
check
out
what it
is
you're
doing, find
your
locations,
chase you
down
on social media, where's the best place
places.
Sure.
just on our website at Buddyspizza.com.
There's so much information on our site.
(37:23):
You Google Buddy's, all kind of thingspop up and really, whether you're
ordering GoldBelly Pizzas or now we'redoing the all corner pizzas where you
can order basically two smalls together.
So if everyone loves corners,that's something fun.
I mean it pretty muchhighlights the story.
It has the locations you can order online.
(37:43):
You can have deliverynow through DoorDash.
They're
really,
and again,
if
you live outside
of our
market,
you
can't
get to
Buddy's.
Of course,
you
can
order
from GoldBelly
and pretty soon, Buddy'swill be in a lot of
stores around
the country.
So you'll be able
to get
a
frozen
version
of Buddy's
where
you
can just
get it
and get
an
idea.
(38:03):
But if you want original and authentic,just to see where it all began.
Then you come to SixMile, you go to Detroit.
Detroit is, I don't know ifanyone's been to Detroit lately.
I was just there this morning.
But it's an amazing city right now.
It is when you drive through there, andI was driving there probably for the last
50 years, to be honest, to see what'shappened in the last 15 years with dan
(38:25):
gilbert, Mike Gillich, peter caros.
penske, you can go down the listof all these major guys that all
added something to this formula.
And Mike Gillich, and Peter Caroswere the first Doner and Dan gilbert
came in and just put on steroids.
These are great people that, that, andwhen you see the money they invested
(38:45):
and you see the other people theybrought alongside with them to move
this city along and to see how yousee people on the street cleaning up.
I've been to Chicago,I've been to New york.
Believe me, our downtown is20 times cleaner than anything
I've seen in manhattan.
is.
Yeah.
Chicago areas are clean.
Detroit is 20 times cleaner downtown.
You go I drove down Woodward yesterday.
(39:07):
I couldn't, I was staringfor pieces of paper.
I didn't find see one, everybody's walkingaround with a scooper, with a brush.
people are positive, lot ofpride, lot of color down there.
they've enhanced a lot of the buildings.
Now they're doing murals.
The lighting is fantastic.
The restaurant scene is alot of small little places,
(39:28):
chefs really investing, right?
And Detroit always had a great food scene.
I don't know if people realize this,but read about Detroit in the twenties.
It was called the Paris ofthe midwest, believe it or
not The theaters, everything.
Just read about the city and whereit was and you, when you visit it.
We have a store downtown onin the old Madison Theater.
(39:50):
Which was one of the firsttheaters to show mo, action,
motion picture with sound.
it
converted
later.
We Buddy's is in the bottom of it.
Right.
That's our downtown location andwe have our original location.
It's on east side ofdetroit where it all began.
Still very busy there.
It's at six mile and Conant andthat's what I would suggest.
you start with that and it's,when you've been around for
(40:13):
77 years, it's worth a look.
Yes, definitely.
Wesley, thank you so much fortaking time to chat with us today.
Really appreciate it.
Thank you very much for havingme, Cliff, and we're proud to
represent detroit and Michigan
represent you.
you for
allowing
us this voice.
We really appreciate that.
Hey, no problem.
It's been great.
And for our audience, you can alwaysroll on over to total michigan.com.
(40:36):
Click on wesley's interview and getall the links that he mentioned above.
We'll see you next time with another greatstory from an ordinary Michigander who are
doing some pretty extraordinary things.
See you then.
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