Karvelas Pizza Co. focuses on scratch-made meals, customer support

Georgia-based Karvelas Pizza Co. had no cause to fail. Founder Joey Karvelas grew up within the restaurant enterprise, and his father owned a pizza store whereas he was a child. Karvelas washed dishes there when he was 12, and he spent his adolescence working within the pizzeria till his father had a stroke and the pizzeria was offered.

“That is all I actually know tips on how to do,” Karvelas stated. “My dad taught me loads in regards to the numbers, on meals prices and labor prices. I did not actually get it again then. I did not perceive it. However as I obtained my very own alternative, I knew that stuff. That was the glue to being worthwhile and with the ability to make it work.”

Joey Karvelas began Karvelas Pizza Co. in Georgia. Photograph: Karvelas Pizza Co.

Karvelas picked up a expertise for cooking and a style for good meals. He paired that with working for some good businesspeople and proficient cooks from Greece and Lengthy Island, working round eating places within the southeast.

Karvelas’ father handed away in 2013, and the very last thing he advised his son was that he wanted to open his personal pizza store. Karvelas took his father’s recommendation, borrowed some cash, and in 2014 he purchased his dad’s authentic pizzeria again, modified the title, and commenced utilizing the recipes he’d honed.

“Actually, I began crafting it there,” Karvelas added. “It was my store, and I used to be actually in a position to begin homing in on recipes. … We’re speaking about a bit dive. It was a 900-square-foot takeout and supply place and folks began displaying up desirous to eat there.”

He constructed a bar contained in the pizzeria with a number of seats and put picnic tables exterior.

“I lastly decided to chop supply out,” Karvelas stated. “Folks advised me I used to be going to exit of enterprise, however I simply began specializing in dine-in.”

Enterprise picked up, and 4 years into the challenge he talked certainly one of his brothers into leaving a company job at FedEx to come back work for Karvelas Pizza Co. His skillset was individuals, Karvelas stated, and his management skills have been second to none.

Collectively, they moved the unique location to an even bigger spot in Hogansville, Georgia, and located instant success. They opened seven days per week for lunch and dinner, and a yr later opened a second location in Lagrange, Georgia.

A 3rd location opened a yr after the second, and as we speak the corporate boasts 5 eating places. A sixth will open this spring.

On the menu

Karvelas intentionally retains his menu small.

“I take a whole lot of pleasure in my menu as a result of it is unbelievable meals,” he stated. “It is constructed from scratch – there are not any freezers within the eating places in any way. Every part’s constructed from scratch. And it is laborious to scale that. It is easy to do one location, however if you begin attempting to open up a number of, you get nervous that individuals aren’t going to have the ability to make the product proper. That is one of many tips to what we do — that makes us so highly effective.”

Pizza dough is constructed from scratch and has a three-day rise. The staff additionally makes sauce with tomatoes from Italy and makes use of high-quality cheese that Karvelas stated is “the most effective cheese in the marketplace.” It is a conventional New York-style crust and is stretched skinny into 16-inch pizzas. Karvelas stated it is the model he is most accustomed to and has essentially the most confidence in. He is labored in locations that promote Detroit-style, Sicilian, and Grandma pizzas, and there is a whole lot of work that goes into making these.

“I wished to maintain it easy,” Karvelas added. Providing one measurement helps with the convenience of the menu. Pizzas bake in deck ovens.

Hen comes from a neighborhood manufacturing unit in North Georgia and is antibiotic- and steroid-free.

Potatoes are introduced in from Idaho, are lower up in-house, and soak for 3 days. They’re triple fried so that they’re crispy however but creamy on the within, and so they’re topped with a house-made seasoning.

“There’s a whole lot of pleasure and a whole lot of time that goes into this extraordinarily highly effective menu,” Karvelas added. “The flavour, too — it simply explodes in your mouth. Every part is made by somebody with excessive expertise in ensuring every thing tastes scrumptious. And folks purchase into it.”

Hen is hand-cut into tenders which can be just like the model’s boneless wings, and Karvelas Pizza Co. affords 13 totally different wing sauces which can be Karvelas’ personal recipes.

The simple menu additionally helps with retention, as staff grasp the menu higher and do not always want coaching on new menu objects.

“I take pleasure in with the ability to make one thing from scratch that you would be able to’t get wherever else,” Karvelas stated. “It means loads to me, and I wish to share it with the world.”

Consistency is easy: It is retaining the identical kitchen structure if potential and utilizing the identical tools and merchandise throughout the model. Prep cooks and kitchen cooks differ within the pizzerias. Karvelas stated the prep cooks are a “enormous a part of the success,” in the case of continuity throughout the model.

“They’re doing every thing the place the flavour is available in,” he added. “They are going by that recipe.”

Photograph: Karvelas Pizza Co.

Operations

Karvelas visits the eating places and tastes the meals himself, and he stated it is the identical expertise throughout the board. He shoots for 23% in labor prices, and he has weekly conferences along with his managers the place they go over prime value numbers and look at every particular person line merchandise.

“I feel you must set your self a objective each week and be sensible about it,” he added. “What number of proportion factors are you keen to place in the direction of labor? What’s good for your enterprise?”

Karvelas stated his model does not have a whole lot of competitors, as a result of they’re located in small cities and no different pizza manufacturers are doing what Karvelas Pizza Co. is doing when it comes to scratch-made meals and nice customer support. Folks need their meals to be made quick and persistently, and if you happen to can present these attributes, individuals will come eat.

There’s an order to his staff, and he has a stage system within the kitchen. Stage one cooks begin on the fryer. Stage two cooks learn to prime pizzas. Stage three cooks learn to run the fry aspect lead, together with plating and calling out orders. Stage 4 cooks know tips on how to stretch dough, place it on the peel and work the oven. Stage fives are assistant managers, and the ultimate stage are managers.

“When you’re getting on the oven, you are fairly far up the chain,” Karvelas stated, “so you must have a whole lot of expertise, you’ve got seen it in motion loads. So, you are not there day one simply getting pizzas out of the oven. It is a fairly strenuous coaching course of. It takes a few yr to get by way of, if not longer for some individuals.”