Freestyle acrobatic dough tossing has become a worldwide phenomenon. There are numerous countries competing each year at the World Pizza Championship, and many dough tossers have made this developing sport a part of their businesses. Many of these athletes have come together to form teams, hence the category at the WPC called "La squadra acrobatica" or acrobatic squad. Several members from the U.S. Pizza Team have appeared on national television news and talk shows.

Have you ever wondered how this sport got started in the United States? Well, we found the man behind the magic, Barry O'Halloran. He brought this sport into the spotlight when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986. At the time, Barry was working as a part-time manager for a pizza store. Before going on The Tonight Show, Barry had won the San Francisco pizza spinning competition. He got to that competition by working at pizza spinning for quite some time.

He started as a dishwasher at a Stuft Pizza outlet in 1979 at age 16. Before opening his own store, Barry worked his way up to a regional manager for Stuft. With all this time in pizza restaurants, and by learning moves from his brother, a freestyle Frisbee spinning champion, Barry became quite good at tossing dough. He developed the idea of using wet towels to practice. "I asked my grandmother to piece towels together equal to a 14-inch pizza," Barry says. "I would wet them down, and they equaled the weight of dough."

After he won the San Francisco competition, Barry was invited to appear on The Terry Hogan Show in London, which was a variety show equivalent to The Tonight Show. While on that trip to London, Barry came up with many of the categories of competition you see now for the U.S. Pizza Team. "At 2 a.m., with a couple of drinks in me, I wrote the rules for throwing the pizza highest, stretching it the biggest, and the freestyle."

When Barry got back from London, he competed in a pizza acrobatic competition. The local media covered the competition, and some talent scouts from The Tonight Show saw it and called him to appear with Johnny Carson the next day. "I hung up on them," Barry says. "They called back and said, 'This is real. We are really with the show.'

So, I went on the show and talked with Johnny backstage. I was scheduled to do a five-minute spot, but ended up doing an extra-long performance because Johnny enjoyed it so much."

Right after his Tonight Show appearance, Barry opened his first pizzeria called T-Birds in Los Gatos, California. "Appearing with Johnny Carson definitely increased business," Barry says. He says the popularity really started to strain him because there were people always coming in that knew his family. "They'd say, 'I saw you on Carson, and I know your sister. Would you spin a couple pies for my kids?'" Barry says. "I was performing 10 to 15 times a day, and when we got busy I couldn't keep up. This was a large reason I sold to my partner. That and my being too young to handle so much responsibility."

Barry says he can still toss dough as well as he used to but barely does it anymore because he doesn't want to draw attention away from his pizzas. "I still enjoy talking about it, though," he said. "I was also very honored to be named an honorary member of the U.S. Pizza Team. The award is on the wall in one of my restaurants."

Barry now owns a small chain of four pizza stores called Premier Pizza. He's doing what he loves best—making pizzas. "I like to pride myself on being the best cook in the kitchen," Barry says. "I don't want to spend money on advertising," he says. "I'd rather spend it on the very best product and let the product sell itself."

He says that there's two ways to look at the pizza business. "You can make a mediocre pizza and spend that 3 percent you save on food cost on advertising," he says. "Or you can put that 3 percent back into the product and let the product sell itself."

Barry says that he's done some things in his planning to make sure he's getting good business. One is looking for prime locations when he opens a store. "The locations I pick are about $5 a square foot in rent," he says. "That's about as high a rent as retail as you can get excluding somewhere such as downtown Manhattan. You get what you pay for. It's going to be busy."

Because Barry's restaurants are located in the Silicon Valley, he's in a very business-oriented area. He specializes in corporate deliveries and gives companies the option of opening a charge account and then he bills every 30 days. There's a minimum of two large pizzas for these deliveries because the deliveries take extra time with the drivers having to sign in, get a badge, and go through security. "It's harder to get into these companies than it used to be," Barry says. "Since 9/11 the security is way tighter. To do just one or two pizzas, by the time you look at your labor and your gas costs, you're not making any money, so we limit it."

Barry only offers limited delivery around one of his stores. He says he doesn't want to do delivery for two reasons. "I would rather have them see the restaurant," he says. "Also, I'm always worried about one of my drivers getting held up or a driver hitting somebody. I just don't want to risk it."

The Premier Pizza shops all have a movie theme with 40s and 50s style décor. Most of the specialty pizzas have a movie title or movie term as their title. Some of them include the Premier, the Oscar and the Double Feature.

By just trying something new and different, people develop sports, such as using Frisbee spinning moves with dough. Now, freestyle dough tossing has become an international phenomenon. It could even land you on The Tonight Show.

– PMQ –