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!

And We're Back

We apologize for the lack of activity here, but it is not because we have been inactive. We've been really busy.
South Lake Union continues to grow monthly, and we are excited to introduce some cool wine options in the next month.
We've been experimenting with some new Chevre, and boy are we excited about the differences in taste, texture and appearance with some new options. More to come on this in the future.

Team Building with Microsoft

On Thursday May 8Th Mad Pizza had the privilege to be a part of a team building event for 100 Microsoft employees. The idea was, they would break into 20 teams and each team would compete for the most creative and best tasting pizza.

This is how it worked: each team had a few minutes to strategize on what their pizza's would look like - our team had the toppings perfectly portioned out and on display for each team to pour over. Once they had their list they had to return to their table to sauce and cheese their pizza skins (hand tossed by some of our brightest Restaurant General Manager's, right there in front of the contestants). Once that was done their team captains only had a few minutes to race to the pizza topping area and get their toppings, but if they weren't quick that perfectly planned pizza could turn into an all mushroom extravaganza!

A good time was had by all, the contestants were very savvy and creative in the way they constructed their pies... one team constructed the space needle on their pie and some even found a way to mix it up by taking some toppings from the Daniel's Hors 'd orderves table! Can we please get a ruling from the judges on that? All the contestants were great sports and a pleasure to work with we look forward to seeing them as custoemers on our resturants.

Our great thanks to our new friends at Daniel's for putting a great spread out for these folks as well as a bite for us at the end of the event. Yes they got pizza, check out the pie with the Daniel's Logo.

I also want to thank Jodi and her team at the Zella company for getting us involved and putting on such a great event. Nothing says team building like constructing the perfect pie.

Lastly I want to thank my team headed up by Norm from our First Hill location - they did us proud and were true "Mad Performers", great job Norm, Greg, and Nick!

A Weekend of Food in Seattle

I spent the weekend with my good friends Ted and Sara of Berkeley, Aana of West Seattle and my loves Anita and Sam eating our way around Seattle. Tilth on Friday night, an incredible meal with Jeff and Jenny Long on Saturday cooked by Chez Ted from ingredients picked up at the U District Farmers Market and the fish shop in Fishermans' Terminal; oysters at Chinooks; Cafe Campagne for brunch on Sunday; a slice of cheese pizza at Starfire Mad Pizza before the Sounders' game, and, post-Sounders victory, a late dinner at How to Cook a Wolf.
The highlights for me were:
- the fried basil leave on top of a seared scallop by Ted.
- the surf clam ceviche topped with finely diced serrano peppers at How to Cook a Wolf.
- Ouefs en Meurette at Campagne.
- the good times that seem to happen with good food and wine and friends.
It was one of those weekends in Seattle that makes tourists want to move here: U District street fair, Cheese Festival in Pike Place Market; Norwegian heritage parade in Ballard.
As Mad Pizza moves forward, we need to reinforce the localness of who we are; the ingredients available to us is stunning at times, and we will find a way as we move forward to utilize them in more special ways.
Blooming arugula anyone?

Mad Fun in Madison Park

I stopped in our Madison Park location for lunch yesterday and while I always expect to have a good experience, I was impressed that that good experience quickly turned into a great experience. I had some fun too - "Mad Fun".

I walked through the door, the music was providing just the right vibe, and our team was particularly good about adding to that by being what I like to call "Mad Performers" with their guests. You can't beat the feeling you get when you can see that your guests are really enjoying the experience they are having in one of your restaurants.

The great smell and taste of a freshly baked hand tossed pie is always expected, but I was proud of our team for adding to what was already becoming a great experience by really going the extra mile to get their guests to smile. It is always my hope that our guests who come into the restaurants get this kind of experience each and every time, but if they don't we have a place that they can go to get our attention - http://www.tellmadpizza.com/ We all need to be "Mad Performers" and have some "Mad Fun"

A great week

We had a great week at Mad Pizza last week. From a sales perspective, we were able to have a nice increase. From an organizational perspective, we launched on-line sales at two locations and our new website. Thank you to Chris and team for the detailed work at making this new channel fully functional. And a great big Thank you! to our Starfire Staff for their awesome weekend. It is great to see how much value we provide to customers in that environment, and how appreciated we are.

Italian hot spot in Tacoma

Living in the shadow of Seattle, Tacoma has had a hard time convincing people that it has some great eateries. This last year however, it has seen a rebirth as a formidable city for great food and wine.

Recently I had dinner at IL Fiasco, a charming little Italian Bistro located in the 6th ave business district, just a stones throw from my house in the near North end. It was the best Italian I have had in the Northwest. I prefer my Italian food to be simple, but robust. While I could have had the roasted duck breast with a current and port reduction, I opted for the very simple and full flavored Rigatoni Boulognaise - freshly made and cooked to order rigatoni pasta with a sweet Italian sausage ragout. While the sauce was delicious, it was the hotness of the rigatoni noodle that caught my attention. It was piping hot, but still aldente! I had the house greens with this dish which consisted of the perfect ration of dressing to fresh greens. One of my friends had the braciola di cinghiale, wild boar rib chop with marsala and wild mushroom demi-glace - let me just suggest to you that we were wild about!

Paired with two great bottles of wine, a 2001 Costello Di Bossi Chianti Classico and a 2005 Cloudy Bay New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, our meals were pallet satisfying. But beyond the food, the atmosphere was warm and inviting, which lent itself as the perfect setting for my friends and I to have a very intimate evening in the midst of a host of other diners, yet still we felt like the only ones there.

If you have a sweet tooth, might I suggest the canoli with a little espresso - the perfect end to a perfect meal.

Literally translated IL Fiasco means The Fiasco - it was anything but.

Piacere! (Enjoy)

Lunch at Skillet

I enjoyed lunch today at the roving lunch truck named Skillet. Today it was in SoDo, so I took in the excitement. Lemongrass Pork Sandwich with fries. The Lemongrass Pork was very good. I liked the set-up, though I have to say that Skillet has chosen the most industrial spot in the city of Seattle for its SoDo locatoins. Lots of recycling going on down there. But lots of fun.

Long time no post

Time flies when you are working hard. Chris, Justin and the RGM's have begun to utilize the restaurant performance report; Customerville is giving us great feedback; we are preparing for Soccer Season at Starfire with the UEFA cup games. And more to come.

Consistency

Of all the characteristics of a great restaurant that I respect, consistency over time is the highest. Consistent execution of food, service and attitude requires systems, attention, and coaching. We are working hard to put in the systems; we are paying attention to our customers' experiences, and we are pumping up the coaching. Right now, we are working on "coaching the coaches"; this means training our Restaurant General Managers on how to coach their teams effectively to get the results we need.

Faith

There comes a time in every endeavor when the results of your activities are either not yet in or not exactly what you have hoped. At Mad Pizza, we are in the midst of a lot changes and projects. The impacts of these activities are not yet evident. And it is at this exact moment that we need to have the most faith in ourselves and our colleagues; it is also necessary to reinforce that things will be just fine (actually better than fine). As I look at the existing staff and the new colleagues we have added over the last 6 months, I am tremendously confident that their will be a moment of great satisfaction in the next 3 months where the results will show. Until then, we gotta have faith!

Change is just plain scary

We are moving on so many fronts at Mad Pizza that we sometimes scare our colleagues as move forward. We need to be cognizant that more communication is better than less; updating is really necessary; and that our colleagues will read "tea leaves" unless we fill in the blanks.

People love Pizza

A point of personal priviledge: Just got back from a great trip to Roseville, California for a special reason: the grand opening of a new public library named after my mother. My family is intensely proud of her work over the years on behalf of the City of Roseville, and it is a well-earned honor. You can check it out here: http://www.roseville.ca.us/library/locations_n_hours.asp.

Back on topic: still amazed at how much input I get from everyone I tell about Mad Pizza. People feel really strongly when they find a place they like; we need to remember that when we "monkey" with things. There are thousands of loyal Mad Pizza customers who rely on their particular Mad Pizza favorite, and we need to make sure that we keep those customers happy!

Good to Great

We had a great Restaurant General Manager meeting yesterday and introduced a new customer feedback tool to our RGMs. I was extremely pleased to see how our RGMs embraced the opportunity to understand their businesses more fully. I want to thank Max Israel and his team at www.Customerville.com for their good work in rolling this out with us.

One of Max's best points is that the difference between a good ranking and and great ranking from our customers is the difference between a stagnant or shrinking businesses and a growing business. Our Lake City RGM Greg summarized it best by stating, "there is a big difference between good and great."

Whether Greg knew or not, he had given me a new phrase to motivate myself and our colleagues as we continue our journey at Mad Pizza. Simply put: Good isn't good enough.

Welcome to the Mad Pizza Blog

I am Tom Riley. I've been President of Mad Pizza for 5 months now, and this blog will be my chance to communicate to you a number of things.

First, I want to update you on activities that we are engaged in to make our customers' experience at Mad Pizza live up to our mission.

Second, I want to explore the world of pizza, restaurants and food in Seattle.

And, finally, I want to share some of my insights on business management: what I'm reading, who I'm listening to, and what trends I'm following.

And I'll always strive to make it entertaining. Come along for the ride.

TR...