Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Slices of Success: Ryan Donovan on Building Community through Ian's Pizza Milwaukee | Restaurants & Franchises Series

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Slices of Success: Ryan Donovan on Building Community through Ian's Pizza Milwaukee | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:03
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
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where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:10
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
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adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi,
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and today's guest is Ryan Donovan.
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Ryan serves as Managing Partner at Ian's Pizza Milwaukee, a
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business specializing in local craft quality pizza made from
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fresh ingredients. Ian's Pizza was founded in 2001
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in Madison, WI and has grown by focusing on community driven
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values and creative flavors like their famous Mac and cheese
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pizza. They now have multiple locations
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in Madison and Milwaukee, each devoted to high quality pizza
0:45
and neighborhood involvement. They offer delivery, carry out,
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and curbside service, making it easy for customers to enjoy
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their unique slices. Ian's Pizza is recognized for
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it's commitment to local collaboration and initiatives
0:58
that support nonprofits through fundraisers and donations.
1:02
Under Ryan's leadership, the Milwaukee location continues to
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emphasize friendly service, operational excellence, and
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strong ties to nearby events. Ryan brings years of experience
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in restaurant management, helping Ian's Pizza maintain a
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welcoming atmosphere and consistent quality.
1:19
He also engages with the community, ensuring customers
1:22
feel valued both inside and outside the store.
1:26
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1:58
All right, back to our guest today, the managing partner at
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Ian's Pizza, Ryan Donovan. I appreciate you making the time
2:03
to Share your story today. Hey, thanks for having me,
2:06
Anthony. So every story has a beginning,
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Ryan, what sparked your journey in the industry and what moments
2:13
along the way made you realize this was your calling?
2:16
Well, I I left Fond du Lac, WI to go to college at University
2:21
of Wisconsin Madison in Madison, WI and 2003 I began there as a
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student at Madison. Ian's had a following pretty
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quickly. Everyone knew about Ian's.
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It was pretty close to the dorm I lived in.
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Come my sophomore year I lived a block away.
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There was a hiring sign on the door and I decided it was, it
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was toward the end of my sophomore year actually, because
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I was going into summer and I was looking for a summer job to
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kind of coincide with the part time gig I had, which was
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calling alumni's and asking for donations, kind of like
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telemarketing, but you're not even selling anything.
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So sometimes you'd have great conversation, but for the most
3:00
part it was a lot of hang ups and a lot of people like don't
3:03
bother me. So I, I was like, you know,
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this, this pizza thing. As soon as I started working
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there, at first I thought, you know, I, I would, it would just
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be a summer job. And within a few, I mean, within
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a month of that summer, I realized actually, like, you
3:15
know what, when school starts back up, I'm not going to be
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doing this. Calling alumni is asking for
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donations, saying I'm going to be sticking with Ian's pizza.
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I enjoyed the, it's working with fellow employees, like meeting
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people that I, I probably went to met at Madison, being such a
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huge campus, it's really a tight, a tight knit staff at
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that time with the single location and, and just the
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different challenges in any day, you'd have great customers,
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you'd have the challenging customers.
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And I really enjoyed that aspect.
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And just like every day was slightly different, very
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fast-paced. So it never felt like sitting
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there watching the clock waiting for time to go by because it was
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like, especially on a busy night when you're delivering, it was
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just like that excitement of like, oh, another delivery going
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to make more money. Like usually people are tipping.
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That's, that's how you made your money as a delivery driver.
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Ian's provided a car at the time too, which helps.
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I didn't have a car in college. So it's like we're able to use
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their vehicle to deliver their pizzas, make pretty good money
4:07
and tips and had a pretty good time while doing it.
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And so as my colleges went, that was 2005.
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So the company was just celebrating their four year
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anniversary a few months after I started.
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And yeah, I, I, I began the passion in the food industry.
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I even remember the first time, like when in my interview they
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kind of had that comment of like, hey, you know, we're
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trying to grow as a company. Would you ever have that
4:30
interest? And I was like, yeah, I remember
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telling my parents after the interview like, hey, you know,
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maybe I could end up being in the pizza business someday.
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And I think they kind of laughed because at the time I had 0
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experience in this idea to be in a pizza business.
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Like what? Like where did that come from?
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Right. But it's just like it kind of
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got planted in that interview. And I think within the 1st
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you're working there, it really started to like settle in like
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this. This could be something I could
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I could continue to pursue. So I mean, Fast forward, I
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think, I think that was OO5. Like I said, I started, I
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graduated College in O 8 and by January 1st of 2010 I was
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opening the store in Milwaukee, WI.
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And so you're an owner in the Milwaukee store?
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Yes, so I'm a managing partner. So basically I'm like the owner
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that makes all the decisions. A lot of the other owners are
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just investors. Some are actually my really good
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friends that are currently working with me here in
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Milwaukee as well. So again, obviously they're very
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much hands on in the decision making process.
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But even people that aren't owners like my my managers at
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every store, I, I don't tend to make any decision without, you
5:32
know, consulting them, getting their opinions.
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You know, it's, it's really, you know, put the minds together
5:38
and, and, and, and then kind of go from there on on path
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forward. So everyone that's involved with
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the company does have some say, but when it comes to ownership,
5:49
there's a few owners that are more just silent partners in the
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background. And So what was it like opening
5:55
your first store? Open the first store was was an
5:59
experience. So when I started with Ian's in
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Madison, we only had one location.
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I was part of the hired group like a month or so before we
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were opening our second location on State Street that.
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So I kind of had that experience of being involved in a very
6:16
startup of a store. You know, the struggles that a
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new store has, even when you have an established brand in an
6:21
area, you still have to have people realize like, oh, we're
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here now and, and you know, establish those like trends of
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like, oh, let's go to that one versus that one sort of
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situation. So I had a little bit of that,
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that experience of open and store, but going to Milwaukee
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and being at a manager level was quite a bit more than just a
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general front of house employee. And yeah, it was, it was moving
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to Milwaukee toward the end of December of 2009.
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I think about 5-6 days of very much hands on in the store,
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trying to get everything together, get another final
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inspections and permits and things all in line so we could
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open those doors because our goal is always to open.
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I'm like January 1st or like New Year's Eve that night at like
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midnight when the ball is dropped, we're going to open our
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doors to the customer. And you know, even that, you
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know, leading up that day, I think it was 2318 hour days in a
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row just trying to get everything in line that morning.
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I mean, we, we were signed off for the permits at like 4:00 PM
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that New Year's Eve. I think for, for one of our
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final like things that we need to get signed off on the, to get
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it. Yeah, at the, at the City Hall
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licensing building, getting the, getting the piece of paper in
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hand that we needed from after that site, that last sign off
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from the, from the building inspector, code inspector.
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I think, I think he was actually involved with like the health
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department even was like the final, final like sign off
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person. So you guys have a total of 6
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locations now, three each in Milwaukee and Madison?
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Yeah, brick and mortarwise, we have 3 locations in Milwaukee,
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three locations in Madison. Actually both Milwaukee and
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Madison, we kind of opened our third locations within like a
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month apart in 2019. So you know, it's definitely
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those thoughts of #4 even. But here in Milwaukee, we've
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definitely made more of the approach of off site events and
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things like getting into professional baseball stadium
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here in town. I sometimes have to be kind of
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careful on on what we say because we're not partners
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technically we but we are in there again this year.
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We are also in other like the Panther Arena where where people
8:23
like the Milwaukee Wave, which is a professional indoor soccer
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team, the Admirals, which is ACH.
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So it's like a a step below the NHL.
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They're actually a farm team for the Nashville Predators as well
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as like UW Milwaukee basketball plays their concerts and things.
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And then Summerfest, like that was a really big ad two years
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ago. People that aren't from this
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area might not know a Summerfest, but it's actually
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the world's largest music festival.
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It used to take place over about 10-11 days straight.
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Now they've actually during COVID day after it came out of
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COVID and and reopened, they changed the format.
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Instead of being like 11 days straight, they break it up over
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three weekends. So it's like Thursday, Friday,
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Saturday, 3 weeks in a row. I believe this year it's like
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the last two weekends of June, 1st weekend of July.
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And so it's just a massive festival out on the lakefront.
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There's 5-6 different free stages.
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So they have all sorts of bands, many famous bands.
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You know, the headliners usually on nights are, are bands yet are
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very famous that you've heard of.
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But then there's always also the Amphitheatre stage, which is
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kind of like the upgraded stage. You know, you, you pay extra to
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get the Amphitheatre stage tickets and that's where they
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get the, you know, the current biggest headliners there is.
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I I, you know, they're currently announcing those.
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I think this next, the most recent one they announced was
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The Killers. One of the nights, Sting, Sting
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and somebody's performing one of the nights.
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So it's, it's, yeah, it's a big draw.
9:46
I think it sounds great. Over over a million people.
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Yeah. This is continuing to be a big
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part of your growth plans is to look for more of these sort of
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community events or community locations, the stadiums, the
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arenas to do more business in rather than maybe opening up new
10:02
physical locations. Yeah, I mean, we had like
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catering off site and we, we kind of made that push as we got
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into like doing more of those things.
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And as we even even doing full service weddings where we we
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bring the bring the people and do everything from bussing
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tables to serving pizza with our ovens.
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And and so that kind of grew into this and these
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opportunities. You know, it was like you get
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into one place and some of these people that work there end up
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moving jobs and getting and that that's kind of how we got into
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the professional baseball stadium here.
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You know, in the American Family Field was just due to a contact
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we had from working at another venue and they they saw what we
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can do and saw saw how well we run things and brought us in
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there and. And so are you using the
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kitchens at your three locations or do you have another location
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that you use for the all the catering set up?
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So when it comes to some of them, like the Summerfest, we
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have a massive set up there where we're we're full on
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production there. Everything we do everything
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there for making our dough and sauce and all of it just to
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really, it'd be hard for the volume we have to do there not
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to have that because the store just have a really hard time
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making all that dough on top of making what they need.
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But for an event like that American Family Field there, we
11:17
do not have the ability to produce the dough, the sauce and
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stuff. So that requires the store
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that's closest. I'm actually sitting at it right
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now. It's in the Story Hill
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neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI. Actually, if you would look out
11:30
the window here in the winter, you can actually see the
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baseball stadium. And so, yeah, we, we make this
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the raw product here and, and have like the ovens and stuff
11:38
there to actually cook it. So we get the raw product there
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in the coolers before the series of, of the home series and or,
11:45
or concerts and such and, and do it from there.
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So it kind of depends on the venue.
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Same with the Pantherina, that one, we have very little space.
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We only have enough for our finishing ovens.
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So for that location we actually have to make the pizza at,
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depending on the event, it could be all three stores in Milwaukee
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helping contribute because of the volume of an amount that
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needs to get there at once. And so we get those pizzas
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there, we finish them just like we would at the store.
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So the quality you're getting there is the exact same quality
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you're getting at the store. It's made by the same cooks with
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the same standards. So same recipes.
12:17
Tell us about the food. What's different about the pizza
12:19
that you guys make, Ryan? Well, when we first, like when I
12:22
first became involved with Ian's and Madison, the idea of like
12:25
New York's pizza by the slice was a pretty Novell concept here
12:29
in Wisconsin. Like you didn't see much of it
12:31
in a lot of cities you went to. I mean, I think back to my like
12:34
hometown mall, maybe Sabaros was or Sabaros, however you
12:37
pronounce it was like that was like where you saw that.
12:40
And again, I don't know that their quality was to our level.
12:44
I think many people would probably agree with that.
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But for the most part, people didn't understand that like walk
12:49
in, see pizza in the window, like what?
12:51
Heat it up. And so we kind of like that.
12:54
That was kind of the niche that that got brought by Ian himself,
12:57
who started the company, who was the founder of Ian's Pizza.
12:59
He went to college out in the East Coast.
13:01
He, he was, he spent most of his life living in the Massachusetts
13:05
area and went to UMass and, and again, I think he got his go
13:11
because he knew this guy that owned this pizza shop spoke
13:14
Italian and he was taking Italian in college and just
13:17
wanted to go in and practice speaking Italian with him.
13:19
So he'd go and have conversations with the guy and
13:21
then realized like, hey, that's pretty cool what you're doing.
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Why don't I come home work with you?
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I get to practice my Italian. He's I'm I'm super into food, so
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I get to learn about making pizza And for him that's what
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involved into going out and starting the Ian's Pizza in
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Madison, WI. So he brought that New York
13:38
style pizza by the slice idea to Midwest there.
13:42
And yeah, he brought the New York style idea.
13:45
He brought the, you know, a New York style dough recipe.
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You know, a lot of people we get coming in from New York, they're
13:51
always questioning, oh, New York style pizza, like nothing's ever
13:54
as good as home. And then like every now and then
13:56
you'll have that person that's like, tell him, tell him the
13:59
wife's like going to the husband.
14:00
Tell him what you just told me. And he's like, I actually think
14:03
this is just as good or maybe even better than my home spot.
14:07
He's like, I, it hurts me to admit it.
14:09
Like he, they like, they're like blown away.
14:10
Like how can a place in Wisconsin do New York style
14:13
pizza? And I was like, well, you
14:16
realize most of the cheese that those top places are using come
14:18
from Wisconsin, right? That's, that's always kind of
14:21
how I lead into that with, with those people that are like, how
14:24
can Wisconsin do it as good as New York?
14:27
Well, the cheese is a big part of it.
14:29
And that comes from from here in Wisconsin, at a lot of the top
14:33
places in New York, I hear water part.
14:36
Of it too. What do you guys?
14:37
Do dough is a huge part of it and a lot of the dough is in the
14:39
water and a lot of people in the dough industry will try to say
14:43
different things, but like it's clearly there is a mineral
14:46
content that really helps you produce like the best New York
14:49
style pizza dough. So much so that they make
14:52
equipment now where, wherever you are in the world, you can
14:55
get New York water or whatever. Like they, they have different
14:59
settings. You can do if you want water
15:00
from a different region and you can set it so it puts that
15:03
mineral content into your water. And I mean, you can even set the
15:08
temperature it's going to come out into your bucket that you're
15:10
going to put into. Is that the setup that you guys
15:12
use? Here in Milwaukee we do not use
15:14
that setup. Actually we were lucky enough
15:16
that have really good water in Milwaukee.
15:20
I think some of the national polls put us in like some of the
15:22
top five like locally sourced waters you can get in the
15:26
country. And in Milwaukee, we luckily
15:29
have I think a lot of those same mineral contents that that New
15:32
York has. But in the future as we look to
15:35
expand, those are definitely options we are looking into.
15:38
When we built some of our stores built out it, it really requires
15:41
space. And some of my places here in
15:43
Milwaukee, I just don't know that we would have had that
15:45
space or maybe even the resources when we were
15:48
originally opening our stores to to get that equipment.
15:51
Some of it didn't even exist till I didn't even know about it
15:54
necessarily to more recently as well.
15:56
So I think as the future goes, you know, looking at other
15:59
areas, those will definitely be thoughts of like how do we keep
16:01
our product consistent? Well, if we get this system, we
16:04
can mimic our water here in Milwaukee or mimic our water in
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Madison. So Ryan, thinking about post
16:10
COVID, I'm curious to hear maybe percentage breakdown, what your
16:13
business looks like dine in, carry out and off site and maybe
16:19
you think about it in different categories.
16:22
Yeah, we kind of separated off site almost its own own thing in
16:25
some ways because it just really depends on the time of year.
16:27
Right now we're in the slow season when it comes to off site
16:30
things. There's no all those like events
16:32
I named that were big parts of not a lot of those happening
16:35
outside of the the Panther Arena and those those hockey games,
16:39
indoor soccer games, basketball games.
16:42
There's not the outdoor festivals and things where we go
16:44
set up and invent. You know, we, we do quite a few
16:48
of those in the summer as well, whether it be things like the
16:51
pet walk, which is a, a fundraiser for the, the
16:54
Wisconsin Humane Society, or even every year we're, we're
16:57
invited to Brewfest, which is a big beer tasting festival that
17:01
we get to set up, invent pizza at for all those that are there
17:03
for their free beer samples. And so those type of events, you
17:07
know, the park, beer gardens and things like that are all non
17:11
existent in the winter. So, you know, it's kind of our
17:13
our slower time where we focus on stores.
17:15
I think delivery in the in this time of the year tends to be a
17:18
little higher percentage than it would be in the summer where the
17:22
foot traffic like offsets that. It's not that there's more
17:25
delivery right now. I mean maybe a little bit some
17:27
days, but for the most part it's pretty consistent year round.
17:30
It's just a matter of when the in store foot traffic slows
17:33
down. Obviously that shifts the
17:35
percentages a little bit. You know, when you hit the
17:37
slower months, sales are lower. I mean, we just are getting
17:40
through our, our slowest time of the year, December, January, and
17:43
then coming up, February, always the three slowest months for US.
17:47
March, it always starts to pick up the events like Saint
17:49
Patrick's Day that get a lot of people out and the way they do
17:52
it here in Milwaukee, there tends to be like numerous
17:54
weekends of celebration. There's like the weekend of the
17:56
parade. This one outfit tends to
17:59
organize a bar crawl. That's like 2 weekends before
18:01
Saint Patrick's Day. Then there's Saint Patrick's Day
18:04
itself that tends to draw a lot of people.
18:05
So March tends to be where we start wrapping up and seeing
18:08
that like, all right, we're picking up into like the busier
18:10
season. Then April hits, weather's
18:12
getting warmer, things pick up foot.
18:14
And stretch out those holidays there in Milwaukee, don't you?
18:17
Oh yeah, I would say like the Bar district by a lot of our
18:21
stores definitely appreciates it too.
18:24
So why do people go nuts for your signature Mac and cheese
18:29
pizza? What's the big deal here?
18:31
You know, I think, I mean, I hate to say it, I think the Mac
18:35
and cheese on my end is somewhat overrated.
18:37
I think we have a lot of slices that are actually better than
18:40
the Mac and cheese. But I think we were one of the
18:42
originals. Like I look back to when I first
18:44
started, you'd see these executives from other companies
18:47
coming through and you knew there was because they were
18:49
wearing their button up polos with the the company's logo on
18:53
them. And then all of a sudden a month
18:54
later, what do you know? They have Mac and cheese on
18:57
their menu too. And you know, the people are
18:59
trying to like, we like, you're so much better.
19:00
I've tried Mac and cheese pizza here and Mac and cheese pizza
19:03
there and I like Ian's the best. And it, you know, I think some
19:06
of it's just a mindset you come into, like when you're with your
19:08
friends having a good time and you come in and and eat
19:10
something, it often will taste better than if you're in a bad
19:13
mood, you can eat that exact same product.
19:16
But like the mood can change your experience of that food.
19:19
And I think a lot of times people are coming to Ian's but
19:21
in in great spirits after a fun night out or a fun event they
19:25
just did. Whether it's, you know, we, we
19:26
tend to our Madison's original store is right by the Kohl
19:29
Center where a lot of events happen at UW Madison store here
19:33
in town. We're right right up from where,
19:35
where the bucks perform in, you know, a lot of foot traffic
19:38
there. And you know, people are in that
19:39
positive spirit and they come and have that that food and it
19:42
just kind of goes hand in hand and it's like you're having a
19:44
positive experience and you eat something that tends to even
19:47
make that product you eat a better experience.
19:50
And I think that helps a lot too.
19:51
A. Lot of times it's hard for
19:55
vegans to find good pizza options.
19:57
What can they find at Ian's? Yeah, so that is one of the
20:01
things here in Milwaukee especially, I know our Madison
20:03
stores do some of the vegan stuff as well.
20:05
But Milwaukee, we were the big push behind that.
20:07
And it started a few years after we opened, a couple of vegan
20:10
people coming in asking what we could do.
20:12
And at that time, one of our locations was right across from
20:14
the Whole Foods. They had some vegan cheese
20:16
options we could get. They had some vegan meat options
20:19
we could get. So we would actually go over
20:20
there and be like, yeah, we'll, you know what, we'll we'll try
20:23
this out for you. We'll go get the cheese.
20:24
Like if you're willing to, or bring it to us, bring us the
20:26
products. We'll we'll whip you up the
20:28
pizza. And that slowly turned into US
20:30
sourcing those ingredients. I would say when it comes to our
20:34
product and changes, the vegan seen the most, the most change
20:38
from like what we were serving on day one doing vegan pizza to
20:41
what we're serving today is leaps and bounds different.
20:44
But even the products available like the vegan following the,
20:47
the, the, you know, the false meat, the different meat options
20:52
they have now. Are you off the fox Meeks As I
20:55
would say, you know, the, the the different cheese options,
20:59
even they have obviously vegan cheese.
21:00
It's not actually cheese. And it's really helped us be
21:03
able to try to get as close to our non vegan product with vegan
21:07
ingredients as we can. And vegans notice that like any
21:10
V almost every vegan that comes in reviews we get from vegans
21:14
are just like by far some of the best vegan pizza I've ever had.
21:17
And I would say a lot of that's due to our efforts of trying to
21:19
improve that product. Because the original vegan
21:22
product we have most of us that weren't vegans would take a bite
21:24
and be like, I can't even believe people want to eat this.
21:27
Like, I mean, like the, the meats and the things just we're
21:31
not I, I, we didn't get it. Like, why wouldn't you just put
21:34
veggies on there? Why would you put these fake
21:35
meats on there that aren't even that tasty?
21:37
But now it's like some of these meats.
21:39
It's like we do a euro. It's like hard to tell the
21:41
difference between our vegan euro and our regular euro except
21:44
the texture still isn't quite 100%.
21:47
The same with the vegan cheese and the to real cheese, but for
21:52
the most. That's saying something.
21:53
Tell me about some of the other flavor innovations that you guys
21:56
have done and and where do the ideas come from?
21:58
I mean, the ideas a lot of times come from employees.
22:01
We have our own commissary kitchen based on the Madison
22:03
area. So like they do a lot of the
22:05
main raw prep for ingredients just so keep everything
22:08
consistent between stores when it comes to like different meats
22:11
that need to be cooked and things like that, creating a
22:13
sausage that is our own proprietary sausage ingredients
22:18
and such. But I would say it's like the
22:21
the never ending innovation of, of trying to produce better
22:24
products. Even some of the slices we've
22:26
done for many years, we've tried to make changes in tweets to
22:29
make them better, improve the quality.
22:33
I think most recently, some of it was even like our chicken.
22:35
We used to do more of this kind of like chunk chicken and, and
22:38
now we found like the sliced version is just so much better.
22:41
It creates like a, a more moist and, and tender chicken finish
22:46
than what we had before, a better covering of the pizza
22:49
and, and just little things like that, just little tweaks over
22:51
the years, you know, trying to never just coast along with
22:54
exactly what we were doing, but trying to improve.
22:57
One thing that's never changed really is our dough.
23:00
We pretty much have have a product that I, I don't think
23:02
that will ever change. There's no reason to change
23:04
something that, you know, it's not broke, don't fix it.
23:06
We get so many compliments on, on our, on our quality of our,
23:09
our product when it comes to dough and our crust.
23:12
And you know, those are kind of that's kind of one of those that
23:15
it won't be touched probably ever.
23:18
But some of the other things, you know, like I said, improving
23:19
ingredients we're using even, you know, over the years we've
23:22
we've experimented with different mozzarella's.
23:25
I mean, one time I believe we spent over a year just
23:28
constantly when we were in company wide meetings in Madison
23:31
once a month, sampling, sampling, sampling.
23:33
It finally got to the point where like when they brought it
23:36
in blind from the cheese, we were using the cheese.
23:37
We weren't, it was like, well, this one melts a little better.
23:40
I can't tell anything different in taste.
23:42
Like none of us could even tell which one was different other
23:45
than sometimes by the melt in in other pieces.
23:48
So, you know, making little changes like that to try to even
23:50
just improve, improve one. Percent 1% tweak you turn the
23:54
dials and. You turn the dials we have and
23:57
the the leader of our commissary kitchen, her name's Alicia.
24:01
She often helps come up with some of the new recipes with
24:03
ideas for employees. Even some employees will come up
24:05
like, Hey, I had this idea for creation and they might
24:08
experiment at home, you know, bring some stuff in and like we
24:12
try some experimenting at the store for, you know, it's kind
24:14
of dialed in a little bit. And then we kind of send it off
24:16
to her. Hey, we have this idea for a
24:18
slice like, and since there where they'll be doing the main
24:21
production of it, she might make some more tweaks to it and her
24:24
team and then they bring it. So like once, at least once a
24:27
quarter, we have like our, our Wisconsin food meeting where we
24:30
get everyone together from all the different stores, all like
24:33
all the managers at the food level and, and sample things
24:36
that are either going to be like the next creations to come out
24:38
or, or, you know, hey, offer pointers on like how to tweak
24:43
them a little bit before we're releasing them.
24:45
And so where we really get to have that experimentation is we
24:47
have biweekly specials. So every, every single Tuesday,
24:50
a new special starts that runs for two weeks.
24:53
So as one special ends, a new one begins and that will run for
24:57
two weeks. And so that really allows us to
25:00
kind of push the boundaries of, of, of what you think of pizza,
25:04
you know, and you still get those people like, oh, do you
25:05
have any normal pizza? Like, yeah, sure.
25:07
What do you want? We, we do the basics.
25:09
We can do anything. We have all the ingredients for
25:11
that, but we're more known for those out there varieties.
25:15
You know, one of our big ones that we do all the time is
25:18
Smokey the bandits, the BBQ chicken, cheddar bacon with our
25:21
homemade ranch. And again, that's that's just a
25:24
head Turner. Well, and that's got to be fun
25:26
for the customers too, if they know that every couple of weeks
25:29
there's going to be something new that's on special, Hey,
25:32
let's go see what Ian's has got on tap today and like what?
25:35
What kind of fun things did they come up with?
25:37
For sure. And employees, I mean, you know,
25:39
we, we eat this. I mean, I, I still eat pizza
25:41
five days a week and I, I never get sick of it because as soon
25:45
as soon as you like would think you might get tired of a slice.
25:48
Well, I'm not eating that one slice all the time.
25:49
Today I might feel like a pepperoni.
25:51
Tomorrow I might feel like a four cheese.
25:54
A lot of times I'm trying the specials because they're only
25:56
around for such a little bit of time.
25:58
And a lot of times the specials are there ones around like I
26:01
love this slice. I'll be eating it for five days
26:03
straight because it's only going to be around for two weeks.
26:07
Ryan, you're still a pretty young guy, but you've achieved a
26:09
level of success that you know a lot of people would aspire to.
26:13
What do you feel are some key decisions or actions that have
26:17
helped you get to this point? You know, I think part of it is
26:21
like Steven hearing that I, I don't feel that way.
26:24
I've, I've always had that drive.
26:26
I can attribute it to my parents.
26:28
My father and mother were very good at installing a work ethic
26:31
on me, especially my dad, seeing his work ethic my whole life and
26:34
just kind of always having that structure and, you know,
26:39
attribute a lot, you know, to that at a young age.
26:42
I, I was helping my dad. I think a lot of young boys are
26:45
there watching their dad do something, wanting to help and
26:47
he was very part of my life and teaching me those things and
26:52
encouraging me to pick up a wrench or, or whatever it was
26:56
helping them and all the things. And even to this, you know, I,
26:59
it's made me more of a handyman and, and in the industry that
27:02
I'm in, in a small business like this, I'm sure people, anyone
27:05
watching this that runs their own small business, especially
27:07
restaurants, can attribute to especially when you're, when
27:11
you're a small shop, it's, you got to learn to do a lot of
27:14
things on your own because otherwise you're going to have
27:16
expenses that just get out of control sometimes.
27:19
And so, yeah, I would say that that that work ethic and that
27:22
drive, it just kind of pushed me.
27:24
And I, I think in college, I, I really started to have that
27:27
thought of what do I want to do with my, like what I want to do
27:30
after this. And I think for a long time, I
27:32
thought I'm going to be going to, from here to law school and
27:34
I'm going to go on to become a lawyer.
27:36
But as I started working at Ian's Pizza, I kind of started
27:39
to change that. It's like, you know what, I
27:40
could always go back and go to law school if that's something I
27:42
want to do. But I, I love this idea of like
27:45
trying to go create something. I work for myself, you know,
27:49
along with my friends and and family at times.
27:52
So. Ian, what do you think is the
27:57
growth strategy that's been most successful for your business?
28:03
I think a, a big success of our growth has been like the growth
28:07
from within, you know, and really getting people to realize
28:10
that you go work at a job. I think a lot of people go work
28:12
at a restaurant and you think like where we consider ourselves
28:14
fast casual, so not quite fast food, but close to it.
28:18
I think most people would get a job there.
28:19
Don't expect to be like, oh, I'm going to get a job here and like
28:23
stick with this for the rest of my life.
28:24
Possibly. I think that's one of the things
28:26
as a company, we really try to hear like, Hey, you, you come in
28:29
at ground level. We're looking for you to do this
28:31
and nothing more. But if you want more, like we're
28:34
here to get teach you more, we're here to get you more in
28:37
it. And if you want to someday own
28:39
an Ian's pizza and operate an Ian's pizza in a different
28:41
territory, hey, maybe it even might be in this territory as we
28:44
expand. Like we'd like to make that
28:46
option available. But again, it takes time, it
28:48
takes effort, and it takes it takes an individual that's
28:52
willing to make some sacrifices. Talk more about that option for
28:58
employees to potentially become owners partners.
29:02
Well, yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm standing here right in front of
29:04
you as a managing partner. I started as a general frontal
29:07
house employee slash delivery driver in Madison, WI.
29:10
I did that for three plus years before I I even stepped up to a
29:14
supervisor level role. Now, I may have behaved like a
29:17
supervisor prior to having the label, but yeah, I was, I was
29:21
3-4 years just a general employee and realized, hey, that
29:25
like this could be like a step forward.
29:26
As I graduated college, I stepped more into a leadership
29:29
role around the same time. It was kind of a transition.
29:32
Graduating and leadership were kind of in the same, I would say
29:35
semester or year of college. And then I kind of had that year
29:39
of trying to develop myself as much as I could to go on to
29:42
Milwaukee to open a store as we were getting our location,
29:46
scouting, doing a build out. Luckily, I was able to bring
29:50
some people from Madison with me who had who were already going
29:53
to be making the move to Milwaukee due to different
29:56
dynamics, whether it be their significant others or wife's
29:59
going to medical school. Here I was a couple of guys that
30:02
that came with me or people that were just also looking to kind
30:05
of take that step up for Madison into like a higher level role
30:09
from what they were doing there and wanted to make the move and
30:11
make the change. And so is this something that
30:14
you talk to employees about as they're coming in for the first
30:17
time, Like, hey, you know, here's sort of a carrot out
30:20
here. This might be a possibility down
30:21
the road. Yeah.
30:23
We, you know, we try to address that regularly with our
30:25
employees. You know, again, I try not to
30:27
think of it as dangling a carrot, running away, that
30:30
you're right, that is kind of how it is when when you hear
30:32
that, that this could just let them know.
30:33
That the possibility exists. So for sure, for sure.
30:36
And that I mean it is what it, I mean that is kind of what it is.
30:38
And, and yes, we, we definitely are trying to get that, that,
30:42
that vision out there to our employees.
30:44
You know, we have our, our 2030 vision that is on our website
30:48
that anyone can see. You know, we had that posted for
30:51
our employees on the break rooms and for people to read and see
30:53
and really kind of try to plant that seed of like, hey, if this
30:57
is something you could see yourself doing long term and,
31:00
and want to be more involved, want to make it something where
31:03
you can really build a career off of it, you know, support a
31:06
family off of it. Like we're here to make that
31:09
happen. But again, it's not easy like
31:12
that. That's the one caveat I just got
31:14
to toss in. Like it's going to take time,
31:16
it's going to take work and it's going to take effort by by any
31:19
individual. And obviously those that come in
31:20
with more, more skills from outside maybe and maybe have
31:23
some more experience in leadership and stuff are able to
31:26
excel quicker than some of those that have none of that
31:29
experience. Some people are just young and
31:31
they don't want to take on that, that that extra responsibility
31:34
right away, that they'd rather get their feet wet at A at the
31:37
general level. But I feel like most employees
31:40
that stick around tend to start having that like, hey, yeah, I'd
31:42
like to step up more into a leadership role.
31:44
I'd like to, you know, it usually starts with stepping
31:46
into a shift lead or learning to cook, you know, from being a
31:49
basic front of house employee. And then it kind of just it can
31:53
go up from there. Ryan, what's 1 tool software
31:58
framework that has contributed to your success that would be
32:01
interesting to talk about? I don't know that necessarily
32:06
there's one single tool. I think when it comes to
32:09
organization and stuff, Google, Google has a lot of tools that
32:13
really help us in our business. We, we very much operate off of
32:17
Google Hangouts. Our Google meets Google
32:20
document, like our, our server, you know, all that is Google
32:24
based. So employees are need to try to
32:26
make a new template for something and link it up into a
32:28
meeting, our meeting docs and our agendas for different
32:31
levels, whether it be a manager meeting, a shift lead meeting,
32:34
or an all staff meeting or even up to like the board level and,
32:38
and, and meetings there. It's, it's all, it's all
32:42
intertwined. And you can have links to these
32:45
docs here and links to those docs there.
32:47
I'm not too much of an aficionado when it comes to
32:51
Excel, but luckily my wife is she, she's ACPA accountant.
32:56
And when I need something, I explained to her what I need a
32:58
doc to do. She often is the one that helps
33:00
me does the groundwork for creating what I need and I help
33:04
her make the tweaks and my recommendations.
33:06
How do I do this or how do I make it do this?
33:08
And, you know, really create those things that help control
33:11
tracking and and just follow up with employees and how things
33:15
are going. Even to like the off site things
33:17
we do, you know, trying to predict how many pizzas we need
33:20
to get there for an event that really helps having the data
33:22
points or be able to plug in. All right, they're estimating
33:25
7000 people tonight put in 7000 and it kind of spits out you're
33:29
ideal. Ideally the pizzas you bring and
33:31
the amounts of them you bring to help reduce waste because again,
33:35
the last thing you want to do is have waste.
33:36
Not only is this like a sustainability thing, I hate
33:39
waste. I'd rather, you know, the
33:40
companies that throw their extra products in the trash because
33:44
they don't want employees to possibly steal or make extra to
33:47
take home like that. Just like for our company,
33:50
that's just like, why, why would you do that?
33:52
Like try to do some good with it.
33:53
If anything, try to get it to a food bank.
33:56
But I, we're always on the thing of I'd rather have that pizza go
33:58
in a belly than the trash any day.
34:01
And so we do a lot here in Milwaukee with taking those
34:04
slice when we do off site events, especially where we
34:07
have, you know, it's, it's sometimes harder to judge what
34:10
the volume is going to be. And when we have extra, we're
34:12
stopping by the Milwaukee rescue mission that we've had a really
34:14
good partnership with and, and dropping those pizzas off to
34:17
them to help serve to, to the people that are staying there.
34:20
And, and I, I know more recently it sounds like they're, they're
34:24
attendance or the, the people that are, are reciting there and
34:27
on any given night has increased dramatically.
34:30
Again, I don't know if what, what all the reasons are for
34:34
that. Some of the landscapes and you
34:35
know, more homeless population maybe more seeking the help or
34:39
are finding help than in the past.
34:41
This time of year, especially it's cold.
34:43
We're in Wisconsin. We don't have much snow this
34:45
year, but we have had the bitter cold.
34:47
And I think that also helps really drive some of those,
34:50
those with homeless issues into the warming shelters, into these
34:54
places where they they can have a safe warm night to sleep.
34:58
Coming up here is Pizza across America.
35:01
So National Pizza Day is February 9th this year.
35:04
It falls on Super Bowl Sunday. So kind of the Pizza Across
35:07
America group is like that next week.
35:09
We understand the actual day is probably not the best day with
35:12
the volume that you already have, but it's the goal of pizza
35:15
companies across the country signing the pledge to donate at
35:19
least 10 pizzas to helping feed the hungry or helping feed for a
35:23
good cause. And so every year they really
35:25
make this push. And you know, here at IANS,
35:28
we're really proud to say we've been part of that now for years.
35:31
Milwaukee and Madison, every store at least doing that 1010
35:35
pizzas this year all each store in Milwaukee is going to be
35:37
doing 15 to the Milwaukee Rescue mission to make sure we have
35:40
enough to feed everybody that's there that dinner that night.
35:45
And you know I I think those type of initiatives are like
35:47
what really kind of set us apart from other companies.
35:50
You know any, any given month we have a donation doc online
35:53
through our website. People can, you know, put into,
35:57
hey, I'm looking for a donation for this.
35:58
And a lot of times it's like fundraisers and us giving out
36:01
gift cards to like add to a basket or, or we, we don't give
36:05
a gift card with a shirt and some, some different items just
36:08
kind of have that Ian's pizza basket to raise money for
36:11
whatever different funds that they're going for, from
36:14
childhood leukemia or cancer initiatives to, to, you know,
36:19
helping get people off the streets.
36:22
You know, and some things are, are even beyond those, beyond
36:24
those when it comes to organizations and fundraising.
36:26
You know, it can be organizations like Big Brothers,
36:29
Big Sisters and and things like that, that we'd love to get
36:32
involved with community things. That's a lot.
36:35
That's a lot of different things that you've just rattled off
36:36
there. And, and I think it's great,
36:38
like that level of community involvement, when it feels good
36:41
to do, it's the right thing to do.
36:44
But people in the community, they notice those things, right?
36:47
They notice. And it goes a long ways towards
36:49
building your brand. It it does and you know it, it
36:52
creates that like people appreciation, especially with
36:54
these organizations and they getting the word out on that
36:57
even year round. Right now we we sell churro and
37:00
puppy chow and as to me, a lot of people don't know what that
37:03
is like. Puppy chow is like the peanut
37:05
butter chocolate Chex mix covered in powdered sugar.
37:08
And I think some places people call it mud buddies and some
37:10
people are like, I've never even heard of this.
37:12
It is not for dogs. Obviously it has chocolate in
37:14
it, but that is non vegan product.
37:17
And like you mentioned earlier, we have quite a vegan following.
37:19
So at one point we're like, Hey, we need, we have this puppy chow
37:22
is like our dessert option. We need like a vegan version or
37:26
something. And, and an employee at the time
37:28
and his brother were like they, they took it upon themselves to
37:31
make create churro chow, which like a churro, you know, a
37:35
cinnamon sugar coated it. It's like the puppy chow with
37:37
the checks, but a vegan version because, you know, we, we don't
37:41
use any animal products or any butter or things like that, that
37:45
that would prevent the vegan from, you know, so we have the
37:47
puppy chow and the Cheerio chow options.
37:49
And actually we donate 10% of all those sales to a local
37:53
animal initiative. You know, it it, we kind of go
37:57
quarterly. So it's like 1/4 we might be
37:59
doing the Wisconsin Humane Society.
38:02
We're donating 10% of all proceeds from the chows, the
38:05
Cheerio and puppy chows to that. Another one we did was called
38:09
Rescue Gang here in Milwaukee. Again, another organization
38:11
that, you know, gets pets off the streets or like helps
38:15
people, you know, get pets in their families and homes.
38:18
And so, you know, it's different, different ones around
38:20
here. Maddock and other ones.
38:21
We're, we're, you know, constantly looking and we tell
38:24
people, hey, if you have one of these initiatives, let us know
38:26
because you could be on our next quarter of that donation.
38:31
What is donation nights? So donation nights happen a
38:36
little more few and far between. We've had some success and some
38:39
negatives, but it's kind of this the idea of like a a business
38:44
organization or usually it's nonprofits looking to raise
38:47
funds for XY and Z initiatives that are usually all, you know,
38:52
supporting initiatives that are for a betterment of the
38:54
community. And yeah, they drive people into
38:57
a store on a given night when it's going to be there, like
38:59
donation night. Maybe it's a certain time frame.
39:02
Anybody that comes in for in, whether it be with this flyer or
39:06
mentions that they're here because of this donation night,
39:09
a certain percentage of those proceeds are of that sale will
39:12
go directly to that organization.
39:17
Brian, growth often comes from some of our biggest challenges
39:21
in life. What's a serious challenge that
39:24
you have worked through, whether it's personal or professional?
39:28
What was it like getting through that, and what did you learn
39:31
coming through the other side? I apologize, Anthony, 1 moment.
39:35
I just got to plug in. I just realized my battery's
39:37
draining rapidly. No problem.
39:38
Sorry about that. Obviously running a small
39:54
business, there's many challenges you got to wear a lot
39:58
of I, I mean for me, especially I, I mentioned, you know, I had
40:00
some learned a lot as a young kid and that that problem
40:04
solving ability, I think is one of the most important
40:06
characteristics of a, of a strong leader in, in our
40:09
industry, especially being able to either try to tackle a
40:12
problem. You know, today YouTube's a a
40:14
huge help when it comes to basic fixing things that you might not
40:17
be sure of or at least looking to see, Hey, is this something
40:20
I'm capable of? But when it comes to like.
40:23
Like really those challenges, like some of those pressing
40:25
things, you know, opening a new store really takes a lot out of
40:28
you. It takes, you know, if, if, if
40:30
you're really concerned about your work life balance, it's
40:35
probably not for you, at least in the start.
40:37
You know, I'm in a position now where it's like that work life
40:40
balance is really based on my leadership and setting it up for
40:43
that success. But there's times where it's
40:45
just it's not feasible or you lose, you lose people that
40:48
you're not expecting and it's it becomes a grind.
40:51
Opening a new store, you're always pulling some really
40:53
strong leaders from another. When some of those leaders leave
40:56
to go open a new store in a whole nother territory, you'll
40:59
lose them completely. And it's like starting from
41:01
scratch, trying to get people to that level as quickly as
41:04
possible. That can really create some
41:08
difficult times. You know, for one, for a while,
41:10
we're really just having trouble with just getting people in the
41:13
door. I mean, we'd go weeks and weeks
41:15
and weeks with these huge hiring campaigns and get a couple
41:19
candidates, only some of them might not even have quite been
41:21
the level we needed. And so that really starts to put
41:24
a drag on you. I mean, attitude mentality of
41:27
like, man, this, you know, working 12 hour days, 80 plus
41:30
hour work weeks, one after another, not really knowing,
41:33
Hey, when, when is this going to end?
41:35
You start realizing it affects everything from your attitudes
41:38
to to how you are treating others at times.
41:41
You know, and, and I think one of my biggest issues at times
41:44
have been trying to coach people or train people, but maybe
41:47
didn't approach it in the right way.
41:49
You know, I just the, the wrong, the wrong words are, are said it
41:53
in the wrong tone and just created a, a, a rift that took
41:58
time to repair. And you know it, it was a
42:01
struggle. I've, I've lost employees in the
42:04
past due to maybe not handling it the best handling in certain
42:07
situations, the best as a leader.
42:09
And then, you know, it, it like it goes from your work to your
42:12
personal because it's, it affects your mentality and your
42:14
attitude outside and your mental health is, you know, it starts
42:19
to struggle. And then next thing you know,
42:21
it's just like the snowball effect of things seem like
42:24
they're going worse and worse and worse and worse.
42:26
And you really got to get out of that funk.
42:28
You know, some, some huge struggles I've had.
42:30
It's like letting go because again, when, when someone makes
42:33
a mistake or you start relying more on others, it, you know,
42:36
it's, it's letting go of some of that responsibility yourself and
42:38
putting it on others. But if the ball's dropped, it's
42:41
like can be catastrophic. Depending on the situations.
42:45
You could lose a really big client that orders, you know,
42:49
trying to feed 250 to 500 people once a month and, and also, you
42:54
know, a mistake there and you lose that that account or you
42:57
lose that product. And it's like that's significant
43:00
when you add it up over a year. And so, you know, it's, it's
43:04
really just trying to balance that.
43:05
And as I've grown as a leader and, you know, read books, have
43:09
other, you know, have other mentors and talk with other
43:12
business leaders and, and developing, you know, it helps
43:14
you really like try to create that psych and, and, and that
43:17
leadership style that that works for the industry.
43:21
You know, read some of these leadership books and, and it's
43:23
like it, it doesn't necessarily coincide as well with the pizza
43:26
industry as like, you know, the tech job industry.
43:30
You know, if you, if you read some of that, wrote a book about
43:32
working in leadership at Apple, it might not have all the same
43:36
benefits as somebody that might have wrote a leadership book on
43:39
some restaurants or, or starting restaurants.
43:41
And, and I think those for me is the balance of trying to grow my
43:46
leadership while also trying to keep my new stores and things
43:50
going at the same time has been a struggle at times.
43:53
As we continue to grow and get strong people, though, I find
43:56
myself having more of that time to develop myself, which also
43:59
allows me to develop my leaders into stronger leaders versus
44:03
just trying to catch everything you can and, and fly by day by
44:07
day, just getting through it and making sure we're, we're doing
44:09
the best we can. And it's like really helps you
44:12
plan for the future and plan for that growth as you continue to
44:15
expand. Yeah.
44:16
Thanks for opening up about all that, Ryan.
44:18
A few things I want to unpack there.
44:20
You know, one of the first things that you mentioned was,
44:23
you know, you had these big hiring campaigns before that,
44:26
you know, for days and weeks didn't bring anybody in the
44:29
door. I'm curious what things that you
44:32
have tried and have found have worked to get people in the
44:37
door. Yeah.
44:38
You know what, at that time, I, I, we really, I feel like it was
44:41
just kind of that, you know, really the time was coming out
44:44
of COVID, I think a lot of people were kind of still
44:46
fearful to be in the industry we're in.
44:48
You know, you're, you're around a lot of people constantly.
44:51
I, even during it, you know, the, the idea that everyone, oh,
44:54
my life's changed a lot. Well, in our business, it, it
44:56
didn't change too much for a lot of us.
44:58
Sure, we cut down the level of staff we had at times.
45:00
We had to adapt to different rules and regulations at times,
45:04
but for the most part, like Ian's pizza, the the business
45:07
kept going in much the same way it had been operating prior to
45:11
COVID, whereas a lot of other businesses changed drastically.
45:14
People were working remotely. I think it created a lot of
45:17
people looking for more of those jobs that were didn't require
45:20
them to have to be on a site. You know, it's like you could
45:23
just open your computer from home and and do the things,
45:26
whereas ours, you know, it's you have to be here.
45:29
There isn't too much off site work to be done.
45:31
I mean, yes, at a leadership level and administratively there
45:34
are some things, but not enough to where we're hiring for those.
45:38
I mean, we had our leaders in those positions to do those
45:41
things. So yeah, I, I think as things
45:44
changed, you know, and people got more comfortable, it opened
45:47
up more. But just trying to cast Nets
45:50
everywhere you can, whether it be signage in the store, we, we
45:54
have big, big signs with QR codes that will take you
45:57
directly to an application. We have table tents.
46:00
So, you know, you think of that when you're at those
46:02
restaurants. Those little questions,
46:04
actually, I got 1 sitting in front of me right here.
46:05
I can hold up, you know, think of things like these to
46:07
advertise to customers as they come in, potential people that
46:10
can work for us, you know, and you know, it's every level.
46:13
We're, we're not just looking for full time people.
46:15
You could be a part time person that's looking to work one day a
46:17
week just to stay busy. I think recently, you know, we
46:21
found some success in some retirees.
46:23
We're looking to like, hey, I I've been retired and realized
46:26
and I'm just kind of bored at home looking for something to
46:28
do. 1 gentleman came back to be a delivery driver, you know,
46:31
part time few days a week. And he's like, I love this, this
46:34
is great. And then, you know, compared to
46:36
the industry he was in, he's like, this is so much more
46:38
relaxed and like people around are just so chill.
46:41
And I was like, yeah, it's, it's definitely different.
46:43
I had a few experiences working in factories and that's where he
46:46
came from. He was a Harley engineer for 30
46:49
some years. So, you know, hearing his
46:52
stories and, and his work, work experience, it's just like gives
46:56
you these different perspectives too.
46:57
And like I said, I had a couple summers working in factory, so I
47:00
I have a little bit of that experience as well.
47:03
You you mentioned that sometimes in the past you maybe approached
47:07
an employee issue in the wrong way.
47:09
Maybe use the wrong tone of voice learning from some of
47:13
those experiences. Can you encapsulate maybe the
47:17
single biggest change that you've made in the way that you
47:21
approach employee management? One of the biggest changes I try
47:26
to make is on on certain like pick your battles.
47:30
There are certain things like now might not be the time and,
47:33
and like have to really like realize like certain things to
47:36
address and there's certain time to address them.
47:39
And I, I've really tried to pick my balls and things that in a
47:42
frustrating moment, it's never good to try to call somebody out
47:45
for making a mistake or like you could do this better because
47:48
they're already frustrated. Anybody that's worked in the
47:52
restaurant industry, like the term in the weeds, I would say
47:54
on the in the pizza business, in the pizza industry on a Friday
47:58
night here, especially between 4:00 and 8:00 PM, that's all our
48:02
kitchens. You know, it's like Saturday's
48:04
tends to space out a little bit more because I think people, you
48:06
know, a lot more people have off work and they, they had they eat
48:09
in different regular. But, but on a on a Friday night,
48:12
it's like a lot of people get done with work at a very similar
48:14
time and are looking to eat at a very similar time.
48:17
And it is just organized chaos is often how we describe it.
48:20
You know, we we're fast-paced environment, trying to pump out
48:24
as much pizza as we can, breadstick, salads and yeah,
48:28
have you even have customers write reviews?
48:30
Like, it looked like chaos back there.
48:31
And I was like, actually, that's exactly how we describe it
48:33
sometimes, but we try to have it be organized chaos.
48:37
You know, and I love what you said there about learning to
48:39
pick your battles. That's something as a parent of
48:41
two relatively young boys, 8:00 and 10:00, that I have to remind
48:44
myself of on a regular basis. And.
48:47
Yeah, I think children does help that.
48:49
I I didn't obviously I was stepping in a leadership role.
48:52
Originally I didn't have kids. Now I have a a nine year old
48:55
daughter myself and a three-year old son and it definitely like
48:59
you kind of like go into that parent mode.
49:00
Even my employees like joke like someone was like you're such a
49:03
dad. It's like, you know, like again,
49:05
to a lot of my employees, I like to you like mentioned, like I'm
49:08
I'm fairly young for what I'm doing.
49:09
I just turned 40 last year, but like to some of my employees,
49:14
I'm like almost as old as their parents now and it's like wild
49:17
and I'm like hiring these like people they're working with me
49:19
hand in hand are working with us hand man.
49:21
So I realize, like, your parent comes in and I say hi.
49:23
It's like, whoa, how is your parent like, oh, they're like my
49:25
age, You know, It's like, yeah, I am becoming the old man.
49:29
It's like, this is how things used to be.
49:31
Like, you find yourself saying those things and you're joking
49:34
when your parents said it and whatever.
49:36
And now it's like I'm 40 years old catching myself saying the
49:39
same stuff. Yeah, I'll go through the cycle.
49:41
Yeah. Now your, your employees,
49:42
they'll be in that, that era, you know, before they know it as
49:45
well. You know, you mentioned
49:47
something that I think doesn't get enough quote UN quote
49:52
airtime you talked about, you know, something bad happens and
49:55
then something else bad happens and it cascades into, you know,
49:59
stuff get home and you know, now it just feels like there's this
50:02
dying downward spiral and you're just sort of stuck in it and it
50:06
and it feels like you can't get out.
50:09
And I'm curious to hear when you found yourself in some of those
50:13
really tough moments where it feels like there's no light at
50:16
the end of the tunnel. Where do you go?
50:18
Where have you gone to find a hand up to find a little bit of
50:23
help to kind of get out of that cycle?
50:27
I've turned to friends, family, fellow leaders in the in the, in
50:33
the store. I feel like, you know, talking
50:36
it out, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people that go
50:38
to therapists and it's, it's all about a lot of times just
50:40
talking it out, hearing other people's perspectives, helping
50:44
them like help help you compartmentalize, like the
50:48
things that are happening. And then what can we deal with
50:50
now? What, what, like, what can we
50:51
get off the plate for like start making things better, you know,
50:55
reducing the hours, you know, multiple, I mean, there were
51:00
times where I think I had 20 plus days in a row without a day
51:03
off. And my, my shortest days were
51:04
seven hours and my longest days were pushing 18.
51:08
So like those you need to like get that day off just to like
51:12
breathe, go to go to the beach, relax.
51:18
Yeah. How do you find your peer
51:19
groups? Because I think that's really
51:21
important. I, I hear this from a lot of
51:23
business owners. I know it's been helpful for
51:24
myself in the past to be able to have other like minded folks
51:28
that you can have these sort of open conversations with and get
51:31
support and advice. Yeah, You know, over the years,
51:33
I, I found a lot of people they they assume that like, oh,
51:35
you're a business owner, you know, all these other business
51:37
owners around here. And it's like, honestly, that's
51:39
not the case at all. Sometimes I don't know any of
51:41
them, like some of the, the businesses in some areas or I, I
51:44
kind of know their owner a little friendly with them, like,
51:46
hey, you know, we, we chat and some more than others and I, I
51:50
have more of those conversations.
51:51
I found it one of my stores downtown, there was a bar next
51:56
door. They were running a, a bags
51:57
league cornhole. You might be familiar with it.
52:00
And that league had a lot of fellow bar owners, restaurant
52:05
owners that that was their night like in the bags league.
52:07
And I, I through them, I, I, I met, I met them, I met other,
52:11
you know, friends of theirs come that happened to be also a
52:13
business owner. And you start meeting some of
52:15
these people through events like that or even the bid, the
52:20
Business Improvement District at one of our stores.
52:22
And we have meetings and that that's where I'll meet some of
52:24
these other owners and, you know, start establishing some of
52:26
these relationship ships where you, you know, call them out.
52:29
Hey, let's go grab a coffee or let's go grab a beer.
52:31
I, I for not much of a coffee drinker, but when we're grabbing
52:34
coffees, I'm more of like the Chai latte.
52:36
But but but yeah, you just start kind of establishing some of
52:40
those relationships and then, you know, when you have those
52:42
issues, how do you you ever run into this?
52:44
You ever run into something like this?
52:45
How did you handle it? And you know, you start hearing
52:48
how they dealt with it and, you know, maybe you take a little
52:50
piece of what they did and a little piece of what this other
52:52
person did and you kind of mesh together your own solution.
52:57
Like you said, when you get that download spiral and you feel
52:59
like the world's at the bottom. I mean, sometimes it's been
53:01
like, but then all of a sudden I see the sales for that month and
53:04
it's like instantly attitude improved because you see, all
53:09
that hard work was really worth it because we just did our best
53:11
month ever in sales. Yeah, I'm thinking like it was
53:15
last summer, correct. Yeah.
53:17
When things are good and sales are sales are looking great and
53:20
profitability is looking great, you're able to give bonuses to
53:23
your staff. It it feels good and it really
53:26
helps boost your morale and boost the mood and make you
53:28
realize I hate this. This is why we're doing this.
53:32
Brian, you mentioned that, you know, if you were to read a, a
53:35
book about, you know, tech leadership, you know, Apple or
53:39
Microsoft or something may not be as helpful or as applicable
53:42
to you. I'm curious from your
53:45
perspective there where you sit a particular book or a podcast
53:51
or a course that you would recommend to other folks that's
53:54
been really helpful for you. Well, recently I read a book
53:58
Your Restaurant Sucks. It's a pretty famous, I think it
54:02
was pretty famous book bestseller when it's been out
54:06
for a little bit. I can't think of the author
54:08
offhand. I'd have to search.
54:10
The book's probably in my backpack even right now.
54:12
But there was a lot of great stuff that really just hit home
54:15
in there because it was a restaurant here.
54:18
And I the gentleman now does like he does consulting and like
54:22
helps people like that are maybe hit the wall or trying to figure
54:25
out how to like do stuff better in their business.
54:29
But his book really hit home to our industry because it's
54:32
exactly what it is. It's the restaurant and he
54:35
situations he brings up and like deal with it.
54:37
And I feel like he didn't try to drag stuff out in his in his
54:40
description on things he's really like in your face.
54:43
I mean, this guy has an ex military.
54:46
I think he's a special forces guy before he got into
54:49
restaurants when special forces went back sort of situation, but
54:53
really good book if you're in the restaurant industry.
54:55
Another really good book I read, I think that could kind of
54:58
coincide in any industry is Atomic Habits.
55:01
Kind of that idea of I'm sure you admit you read it, you read
55:04
it yourself. Great book.
55:06
I I was the author, that was Stig.
55:09
James Clear is his name. James actually from the same
55:13
area I am here. I know I'm a little bit.
55:14
He's a good guy. Well.
55:17
Excellent book. I I that one hit home with me
55:20
'cause it personally like that is a lot of the things they've
55:22
done, I found myself doing to improve my leadership over time.
55:27
You know, avoiding things like procrastination and things with
55:30
a lot of the little tips that he gives and like making these
55:33
little changes in your life that will grow and grow and grow if
55:36
you stick with them. I really found that book to be
55:39
one that one and that your restaurant sucks are two that
55:42
for new leaders. I recommend right away.
55:44
Hey, when you have time, read these books So your restaurant
55:48
sucks. The author is Donald.
55:50
Burns and I'm curious if you're familiar.
55:52
With. A book called Unreasonable
55:54
Hospitality actually had one of my guests send it to me.
55:58
Unreasonable Hospitality I. Yeah, I have.
56:01
No, I'm going to have to maybe make a note of that one.
56:04
The author is. I'll find it here in a second,
56:08
but the guest who sent it to me is not even in the restaurant
56:13
industry, but it's it's sort of written from that perspective.
56:16
The the author is Will Guidera, so I highly recommend that one
56:21
as well. I'll check that out because.
56:24
There's one thing I've been trying to do more of is try to
56:27
develop myself as a better leader with other things than
56:29
just doing it and talking with other people I know.
56:32
But actually reading some of these books and seeing them and
56:34
to the comment I made, it's not that the person that worked at
56:38
Apple or whatever, you know, different tech industries that
56:40
writes this book. It's not that they don't have
56:42
great things to say for leadership, but I think there is
56:44
great points to be taken out of most leadership books I've
56:47
written. I've just found that some of the
56:49
stuff they really focus on doesn't necessarily coincide
56:52
with our industry as well as it's not always the crossover
56:55
applications. Yeah, yeah.
56:59
Ryan, I've just got one more question for you.
57:00
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things for everyone
57:03
listening today. I know that you love today's
57:05
content because Ryan's been a great guest.
57:08
Hit the like, follow, subscribe, share button on your favorite
57:11
podcast app so you make sure to get more of these great
57:13
episodes. I'm also going to let you know
57:15
the best way to get in touch with Ryan.
57:18
If you're interested, we've got his e-mail address,
57:20
ryan@ianspizza.com. You can also look for them on
57:25
social media, Ian's Pizza Milwaukee on Facebook and Ian's
57:29
Pizza MKE on Instagram and Blue Sky.
57:34
So last question for you, Ryan. As you look to the future, what
57:38
exciting changes do you see coming, either for your industry
57:41
as a whole or in particularly for your business?
57:47
Well, there's the industry as a whole, there's this, all these,
57:49
these technological changes that are making things this more and
57:53
more efficient in, in some ways. And, and I think some of that is
57:58
just like the idea of like a decade from now, we could have,
58:02
we might not need our own delivery drivers to be out on
58:05
their own. You might have drones that are
58:06
able to deliver this stuff for you.
58:08
And things like that is just always blows our minds.
58:11
You know, you see these pizza robots and things that can work
58:14
in kitchens and help help help expedite things probably quicker
58:18
and more efficiently at times than if you had to constantly
58:22
rely on getting those employees in the door and and training
58:25
them and things like that. So I mean, it's, it's hard to
58:28
say like who knows where the industry could go in the future.
58:32
I think more automation is, is probably going to end up being
58:35
something that does happen, whether it be we have cars that
58:38
can get delivery pizzas for us sort of situations and things
58:41
like that. As far as like the actual
58:45
products we use and stuff. Even when you go to these like
58:48
International Pizza Expo, like getting demos and you see the
58:51
new equipment coming out. So they're always trying to make
58:54
things better and more efficient.
58:56
We do everything by hand. So our cook takes a raw dough
59:00
ball and stretches it out to put it in the oven.
59:01
You know, other industries, they already have people that they
59:04
have machines and presses and things that are constantly
59:07
getting better and getting to the point where it's like harder
59:10
and harder to tell the difference between that hand
59:12
stretch pizza and that pressed out, you know, machine press
59:15
pizza where you can do it a lot quicker than somebody could by
59:18
hand. And so I, I, you know, some of
59:21
those things, though, it's space and, and again, some of these
59:24
pieces of equipment are large, so they might not all
59:27
necessarily work for our industry.
59:29
So I mean, you can kind of see my store I'm in, I mean, it's a
59:31
pretty small, small space. Some of these stores are, are
59:34
little and we're, we're working with very tight parameters in
59:36
kitchen. So again, it, it really just
59:38
depends on what's created and would it, would it work for us
59:42
even to the things like the, the machine that will spit you out
59:46
water that's got the same mineral contents as the ones in,
59:49
in New York or whatever region of the world you want to select
59:52
to have your mineral content be like.
59:55
And you know, and just, and changes in general, I mean, not
59:58
just the changes in equipment, but we were kind of discussing
1:00:01
before we started just changes in the political landscape and
1:00:04
things that are happening. You know, as a company, we're
1:00:06
very. About inclusivity, not just for
1:00:09
our employees, but also for our customers.
1:00:11
We want everyone to feel welcome when they come in.
1:00:14
And unfortunately, we seem to be in a world right now where it
1:00:18
kind of seems to be going the other way in some directions.
1:00:20
And it's, it's, it's sad to see, but as a business, we're going
1:00:23
to keep doing what we're doing and let people know this is a
1:00:25
safe place. Say more about that.
1:00:28
Why is that so important to you? Well, I think I kind.
1:00:32
Of went on it earlier as you know your attitude when you go
1:00:34
into somewhere, especially when it comes to food can play a huge
1:00:38
role in in your experience of that food and somebody might eat
1:00:41
the same food in a bad mood and and it might not be nearly as
1:00:44
good as if they ate that same food in a good mood.
1:00:46
And so, you know, when someone comes into a business,
1:00:50
especially a restaurant, I feel like you should feel welcome,
1:00:53
you should feel accepted. You shouldn't feel like I'm
1:00:56
going to be an outcast here or it's OK for people to
1:00:58
discriminate against me here. And I also feel like the, you
1:01:03
know, the, the laws and regulations in in a city, state,
1:01:07
country should affect that accordingly as well.
1:01:10
Like everyone's a person and everybody should be treated
1:01:12
equally. I think that's something we
1:01:13
learned in grade school, kindergarten.
1:01:16
I mean, as a young child, that's a fundamental thing you've
1:01:20
you've got instilled in you yet doesn't seem to necessarily be
1:01:24
the case right now. What a better way to convey the
1:01:27
warm? Welcoming environment that you'd
1:01:30
experience inside in Ian's Pizza Ryan, any plans on the table
1:01:36
right now for more physical locations?
1:01:39
I don't know if there's anything I can say officially.
1:01:41
I know, I know. Madison, a Madison store might
1:01:44
be close another fourth. Not, not in Madison, but in the
1:01:48
Madison area is some of the big talks I've been hearing recently
1:01:52
here in Milwaukee. I think we're, we're probably a
1:01:55
couple couple years away from our 4th location.
1:01:58
I that would probably also be in more of a, a suburb region of
1:02:02
Milwaukee a a bordering city given our our medicine
1:02:06
connection, probably heading more W from where we currently
1:02:10
are. Obviously we have Lake MI on the
1:02:12
east. There's nowhere to go there.
1:02:15
Well, it's going to be exciting to follow.
1:02:16
What's what's to come for you guys?
1:02:19
Ryan? I want to be the first one to
1:02:20
thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us
1:02:22
today. I really appreciate it.
1:02:24
Well, thanks for having me, Anthony.
1:02:27
Folks, that's a wrap on another. Episode of the Inspired Stories
1:02:29
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:02:31
today.