Managing the 10%

We have such great technology now in the food business that there should really never be a problem with the Quality of our products. Because of the equipment we use today, food safety regulation, and wholesale product production and performance, in almost all cases the Quality of food products served to a customer is 90% built in; now it's true we do rely a bit on the other 10% to insure that all these components are working because the other 10% of Quality is the human factor, but with humans comes error! We have checklists in our restaurants that help my managers achieve the 90% built in factor of Quality, but it is the other 10% that I am constantly focusing on - training, working conditions and common sense. Let me give you an example; today I am at my office readying for a meeting with my Restaurant General Managers and needed a quick bite to keep my energy up as I pounded away on the meeting agenda, and while I had pizza the last 3 days, even I needed to change it up a bit. So I reached out to one of my favorite cold sandwich shops (who I won't name, but they seemed to have grown from 1 location to about 8 locations in downtown Seattle overnight) like us they have an easy online ordering program and they consistently deliver quickly; two things I desperately needed at that moment. I always order the same thing so that makes things even easier; I simply hit "repeat last order" and BAM, it's done. Although this time I had to add a note to my order that simply read: "Please use a fresh roll as my last 2 orders were stale". I then hit complete order and I went back to working on my agenda. Sure enough 15 minutes later a gentleman was there with my order, he was very polite, and I tipped him $3 on a $7 order. I went back to my office opened the bag and pulled out a sandwich that was clearly on day old bread... and I even asked politely. I wasn't angry, I ate what I could, but this was the 3rd time and while they get evertthing else right consistently, they always seem to get the bread wrong, and who aer we kidding... the bread makes the sandwich! How many team members overlooked the quality of the bread? What checklist didn't get done this morning to remind the manager to chuck the old bread and use the new bread? Where was the common sense? Was my note read? Does anyone care? We as restaurant operators must use the best equipment, the best products, and hire the best people. It starts with us and if we don't treat and train our team members well and are not completely honest about how we are operating our restaurant we will never achieve our goal of 100% Quality! Needless to say they are out of percentages I and will take my cold sandwich business elsewhere. You can also bet good money that this has been added to my meeting agenda! I want to hear from you if we are falling short delivering on our own 10% - you can visit us at www.tellmadpizza.com and let me know or email me personally at info@madpizza.com. "We're Committed" to getting it right!

Sounders Win at Starfire

The Seattle Sounders had a resounding win last night at the Starfire Sports complex easily beating Chivas USA by 3-1! Go Sounder's. It was a packed house at our Mad Pizza location as well as over 4,500 fans came to the game, and I think half of them stopped in for a slice and a beer. Thank you Sounder Fan's for your love of the game and our pizza!

The Seattle Sounder's advance to the final and will host the Columbus Crew at Qwest Field on October 5, 2010. If you can't make it to Qwest, come down to Mad Pizza Starfire location (or any of our three locations in the City of Seattle) and watch the Sounders FC defend the cup! We will have extended "Mad Hour" specials during the game so get your game face and go a little "Mad"!

Mad Improvement

Well it won't be long now before we open our newest Mad Pizza Restaurant, well new to us anyway. Our lease is up at our First Hill location at 1314 Madison and we decided we need a larger space and more convenient location for our customers, so we searched high and low for the perfect spot. "Should we move to Broadway?" we asked. "Should we get closer to the downtown corridor?" we pondered. Ultimately after much, much, consideration, we decided that we couldn't leave the neighborhood that has been home to us for over 10 years now! So many of of our customers there have been coming in for years and they would be missed. In the end we could only do one thing....Move across the street!

Come visit us this month at our new flagship Pizzeria, in the First Hill Neighborhood of Seattle. Whether its for a quick and economic lunch, and incredibly killer "Mad Hour" from 3pm-6pm or sharing a whole pie for dinner with family and friends (we will be doing table service at this location from 3pm to close and yes we will still do Pizza by the Slice too), I know you won't be disappointed!

We will be located at 1321 Madison - on the corner of Madison and Boylston. We are currently still operating at our old location at 1314 Madison and will be until opening day at 1321 which is scheduled for Monday September 13Th. \

I will keep you posted on our progress. Join us on Twitter and Facebook at http://www.madpizza.com/ to get updates and photos of our new location as we near the end of construction.

Mad About Town

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a charity event to help raise money and awareness for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex or TSC (a rare multi-system genetic disease that causes non-malignant tumors to grow in the brain and other vital organs like the kidneys, lungs, etc.) kids effected with this disease can suffer severe seizures and mental retardation and often the failure of one or more of their vital organs can lead to death.

The event was one of celebration for the progress that has been made thus far, as well as to raise more money and awareness to find a cure. I was impressed with both the turnout and the generosity of the patrons that evening. We at Mad Pizza were fortunate enough to provide food for all of the volunteers and to donate a little money too.

It is important for us to get involved with our local community and to get "Mad" at those diseases that hit close to home for some of our team members. To that end, this event was a pre-cursor to the Slice4Life Campaign that we will start in the fall - starting with Breast Cancer Awareness month in October - Slice4Life is Mad Pizza's "Mad at _____" insert cause, campaign that we hope will allow our team members and customers to come together to donate and/or volunteer for those causes that are important to them. Fall/Winter - Cancer and Muscular Diseases. Spring/Summer - TSC and HIV/AIDS.

So look for our Slice4Life campaign to begin in October and we hope you will join us in working locally to fight disease. Coming Soon: http://www.slice4life.com/ and .net

You can learn more and donate to the cause of TSC at http://www.tsalliance.org/

We're Still Committed

It has been a very busy winter and the blog has been in hibernation. But we are well into spring and it's time to "Embrace the Madness again!"

Much has been happening in the world of Mad Pizza - we have made some changes in recent months to both facility and menu and we will be using the blog to get the word out on what those changes are.

We will also be hearing from our Restaurant General Managers and what is going in their "Mad Capped World."

Just a few upcoming events:
June:
- Madaccini Pasta Roll-out
- Manager and Assistant Manager Team Building Event
- "Mad Hour" - our version of the happiest of hours from 3pm-6pm. Check us out in the Happy Hour guide in the Seattle Weekly. Great specials on Draft Beer - both Domestic and Micro-brews as well as the introduction of 9 new wines. Stay tuned for more to come on "Mad Hour."

River Rats

On July 29Th Tom and I took the management team out to river. Justin, our operations trainer is also a river guide during the summer on his days off from the pizza world. We wanted to do something different as a team building event and this sounded like just he challenge we needed.

Ten of us were sent up the river (really it was down the river) with nothing but a life vest, kayak, a paddle and a prayer. Well... we had two good guides as well. This was our first team building event of the year and I am happy to report that it was wildly successful. Not only did everyone have fun, but we got to experience the relationship between the emotional act and logical act of trust. Trust in our equipment, our guides, each other and ourselves to make it through not only the calm of the river, but the rapids as well. That in itself was no small task and it speaks volumes about the type of people we having working along side us in our restaurants. We had to set aside our own pride and ego and fully trust in the people around us and one of the end results was a new found respect in our abilities to take risks with each other, work hard together, an in the end come closer together as one, which I consider to be Grace. Pride, Respect,Grace, and Fun are 4 of the 6 six core values that we live by at Mad Pizza. The other two are Hunger to be our best and Love of great food. I am sure there were elements of these as well in our experience.

I am very proud of the team for taking on the challenge of this endeavor - for some it was a test of their own will, for other's a boost to their confidence and in the end we accomplished our goal.

Dough Elf Sighting Possible

Well July has been a month already full of surprises. As Tom said we are gearing up for some improvements to our menu in addition to our wine list and we also say goodbye and hello to some of our team members.

Gary our chief Dough Elf at the commissary has bid us adieu as he is getting married at the end of the month and has some new adventures planned (although I am a bit suspicious as we are only a few months away from Christmas and I am convinced he is headed up to the North Pole). Wherever he lands we will miss his cheerfulness and handiness at the commissary and we wish him the very best. We welcome our newest Dough Elf - Christian to the team, he joins Barney at the commissary and they are working like MAD producing the freshest, best tasting dough in the Land.

Everyone loves a parade.... Our Madison Park location was on hand during the children's parade in that neighborhood last weekend to provide some madness for the participants by giving them a slice of cheesy pizza. Everyone had a great time and we were glad to be a part of this neighborhood event. Mitch and his team didn't disappoint.

Fireworks a plenty at Stafire... James and his team took part in the city of Tukwila's annual Fireworks Display at Fort Dent park on the 4th, by having a pizza booth at the event so that those patrons who had already spent the summer barbecuing and were looking for something a little different, could get a slice of cheesy or pepperoni pizza and a soda pop. The weather held up and great fun was had by all. Next year maybe one of the elves will show up!