As PMQ celebrates its 20th anniversary, we honor the past and look forward to the future in this special oral history.
PMQ’s founders and longtime team members reflect on two decades of progress, pranks, pitfalls and pizza.
(page 5 of 10)
Linda: In 2006, we decided to do a Christmas cruise with our family to take Steve away from his computer and phone. But he immediately thought of the pizza industry: What if we do this with our readers, with workshops and fun presentations? Two years later, we did our first Pizza Cruise and continued to offer them for years, until the recession hit. It’s a great opportunity to relax and share with operators, learn about their concerns and understand what they’re looking for. We need to bring it back—maybe in 2018!
Liz: I'm grateful to work with a group of people who are open to suggestions and excited about change. When I took over from Tom Boyles as editor-in-chief in 2007, Steve Green embraced my editorial ideas and gave me the power to make changes. That included bringing on the best copy editor I knew, Tracy Morin, and reorganizing the general flow of the magazine. I took the great content we were already producing and repackaged it. Since then, PMQ has only gotten better, thanks to a well-chosen team of editors, designers and support staff.
Tracy: I remember the exact phone call when Liz told me she'd decided to take the editor-in-chief position, and that she needed another editor on board. The timing was perfect, and I'd already worked with Liz at a magazine publisher in California. We have totally different, complementary skill sets. After meeting with Steve and Linda—and after Liz convinced them to hire me—I immediately set to work on perfecting the magazine and immersing myself in the industry. I'd spend every free minute at work reading stuff like Jeff Varasano's insanely complicated pizza recipe.
Liz: With pizzerias, there’s so much history, and an advertiser had sent some nostalgic newspaper to Linda. We also needed something for the back page of the magazine, so we started Time Capsule.
