if you know Adam Greenberg of Potomac, Maryland, you know that he is a hands-on kind of owner/operator. And you should know Adam because he graced the cover of our July/August 2004 issue of PMQ. As we continue our yearlong visit with past cover stories in observance of the magazine’s 10th anniversary, we had to check in with Adam who runs four Potomac Pizzas in the Chevy Chase area of Maryland. True to form, we found him busy.

“I just changed all our menu prices,” he told me. “I do it all myself. Went in on the computer and raised the prices at all four stores. Each database is a little bit different. It took me six hours to raise every item. You hate to do it but that’s business. Customers see their gas and heat bills going up too.”

Double Trouble
Back in 2004 when we first talked, Adam had three pizzerias and a deli. In May 2006, he closed the deli. When asked why, he has a reply that will ring true with any operator.

“The rent went too high,” Adam exclaims. “It was $22,000 a month for 3,000 square feet. Ridiculous. We were doing a lot of catering business so we relocated our catering department into one of our other restaurants.” Adam says he “likes to do everything in twos,” so as he closed the deli, he decided to open a new Potomac Pizza in Chevy Chase. It joins the original store in Potomac, and one in Traville, and one in Gaithersburg. Moving the catering operation required expanding the kitchen in Gaithersburg and Adam did most of the work himself. The experience left him cautious.

“Don’t try this at home,” he chuckles. “I did it ‘economically’ and I got burned in the process. After we’d finished all the construction, we were laying down a new floor in the old part of the dining room. I guess a neighbor called somebody because an inspector came by with a cease and desist order. I had to go up to his office at City Hall with a set of modified drawings on Friday and they gave us our final inspection the following Tuesday. At the same time we were putting the finishing touches on the Chevy Chase store. That’s what we call crazy.”

Adam says he built the Chevy Chase store with a little more care in deference to the store’s fancy neighbors.

“My neighbors are Tiffany’s, Louis Vitton, Gucci, Max Mora, Ralph Lauren, Jimmy Choo, LaCoste. We decided to upscale the store a little bit; this is our posh Potomac Pizza. It has all-wood floors, all-granite tables and counter tops, Tumbled marble in the bathrooms. It has a fully exposed kitchen with 100% stainless steel.”

Adam says he spent $750,000 on the construction.

“It probably cost an extra $50,000 to do some of the upgrades. We’re right in the middle of a business district with high-rise apartments and doctors’ offices and a subway across the street. We really have a nice store.”

 The Chevy Chase store opened in June of last year and Adam says business has been “phenomenal.” Potomac offers a varied menu with specialties like linguine with marinara sauce ($8.99), lasagna ($10.99), and Eggplant Parmigiana ($10.99). On the pizza side, among a dozen offerings, there is a vegetable pizza ($9.49-14.99-17.99) and a meat lovers (same). There is also the Nelson Eddy, ($21.99 lg) which offers a “kitchen sink” of toppings. There is also a gluten-free and fat-free which are priced slightly higher than the regular pizzas and are made with skim milk mozzarella and oil-free crusts. The subs and sandwiches are generous and can be as “green” or low fat as you like. The grilled tuna for example -- made, like the tuna salad, with “dolphin-safe white meat” -- comes on your choice of whole wheat, rye, pita, tortilla wrap, kaiser or toasted sub, and with remoulade sauce on the side. Other non-traditional menu items include crudités, veggie burgers and roast turkey. In addition, Potomac does all their frying in canola oil.

Charity begins at Potomac
Potomac Pizza is known partly for its community involvement. Over the years, Adam has sponsored a multitude of events with proceeds earmarked for a variety of charities. For the opening of the Chevy Chase store, Adam said he decided to make a real statement.

 “We did something unprecedented when we opened,” he enthuses. “We decided to take our first five days and donate 100% of our sales, not profits, but sales, to five different charities. We had to work with our vendors to pull it off but that’s what we did.” Adam says he also encouraged the charities to set up a booth in his restaurant and display information.

“Most restaurants don’t like the charities actually being present,” Adam points out. “They say they’ll donate money but they don’t want representatives from the charity in the restaurant. We invited them in each day. That was one of our requirements, that they come in and set up a table and promote themselves.”

Adam says his business is up. Back in 2004, he told PMQ that his three restaurants, deli and catering business were doing $7 million a year. He has approximately 120 employees at the four stores. Each one has three to five delivery drivers, which goes up to five to eight on weekends. Catering is approximately 15% of his overall business, dine in accounts for about 40%, and the rest is carry out.

Swipe your own
Since we last spoke to Adam in 2004, technology has made big strides, even in three short years. Adam finds himself on the forefront of the techno wave. He has agreed for Potomac Pizza, working with his POS provider, Micros, to be the first restaurant in the country to test out a new payment technology that allows customers to swipe their own credit cards rather than hand the cards to their server. The device is called “On-The-Spot” and it is manufactured by Verifone.

“Credit card fraud is a huge issue in the industry,” Adam says. “Eating out is the only time you hand your credit card to a stranger and they disappear. That time period when the server leaves the table with the card to when they come back, is the time when fraud might occur,” Adam says. On-The-Spot aims to put a stop to credit card skimming. The device works like this: When you finish eating, the server pulls up your check information on the device and hands it to you. You then swipe your own credit or debit card. You can add a tip or ask the device to automatically include a 15, 20 or 25% tip. Then, at the push of a button, your receipt is printed. You simply leave the device on the table and you’re on your way. If the Potomac Pizza experiment works, Verifone expects to place On-The-Spot devices in restaurants throughout the country.

“If you go to Europe, this is pretty much a mainstay,” Adam says of pay-at-the-table technology. Adam says servers like it because the device pre-programs gratuities which customers can select automatically. Customers wishing to tip more can do that also.

“Tips have actually gone up,” Adam says. He says the program has been going for six months at his Gaithersburg store and there has been a positive reaction from customers and employees.

“It takes a step out of the server’s job and allows the customer to tip without doing any math,” Adam opines.

Happy in Merry land
Adam says despite the success of his four stores, and his penchant for staying busy, he’s not in any hurry to open a fifth store. “I believe in slow growth,” he says. He points out that right now, all of his stores are a manageable distance from each other. “Chevy Chase and Potomac are seven miles apart,” he notes, “Potomac and Traville are six miles apart, and Traville and Gaithesburg are four miles apart. The further north, the more the population density increases.”

Adam intends to keep his “hands on” his four stores for the foreseeable future. When asked, he offers this advice for business owners.

“Respect your employees because without them, you don’t have a business,” Adam declares. “Also, be active in your community, because without your community, you don’t have a business, plus community involvement is the right thing to do. If you come to work everyday like you’re grateful and excited to be there, you’ll find that feeling can be passed on to your customers as well.” And with that, Adam excused himself and went back to work.