By Alexandra Mortati | Photos courtesy of Andrea MacLeod
Andrea MacLeod, now the owner of the Famoso Pizzeria + Bar location in Vancouver, Canada, was approached about owning a franchise by a headhunter who found her resume on indeed. “They said, ‘I need to talk to you about this opportunity.’ A few months earlier, I had made a deal with myself that I would apply for jobs out of my comfort zone and would say no to offers only when I knew exactly what I was saying no to. I realized that, in the past, I was saying no too quickly and judging opportunities before I really knew the entire picture. Now, I was approaching 50, and I knew I needed to change my game a little bit.”
MacLeod is a Red Seal Certified Chef with more than 30 years of commercial kitchen experience. “After hearing about the Famoso Pizzeria being up for sale,” she recalls, “I dove deep into finding out everything I could about the brand and [wondered] why, after 12 years in one of the hottest spots in Vancouver (Commercial Drive), it was up for sale. Every fiber of my being wanted to say no, but the Famoso story is a great Canadian story, and its mission to bring Italy to Canada was a huge success—in Edmonton, anyway. Why had I never heard of the brand until now? That was the question.”
By not allowing herself to say a quick no, MacLeod forced herself to look at the facts and keep her ego and emotions out of it. “I focused on doing more due diligence and called friends that owned restaurants and showed them financials over the course of six months before I decided whether I should buy this restaurant or just go get a J.O.B at some hotel as an executive chef,” she said. “I was at a fork in the road and needed to make a choice about whether I wanted to give 60 to 70 hours a week as an employee or as a business owner. Both options would hone my skills and take me to the height of my career, so I said, F— it. If a bank will give me a small business loan, I’ll do it, and if they won’t, I won’t.'”
Mastering the ‘Blue Jobs’
For three years prior to that, MacLeod worked as a chef in a private school for girls. “It was great because I had summer and Christmas break off,” she said. “I was really coasting, but when COVID-19 hit, all the school kitchens closed down.”
She also had a husband with a disability—due to a massive stroke—at home. “That has been part of [our] life for [more than] 10 years. I had to learn do the blue jobs around the house—the simple things like taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, and using power tools. I had to take a crash course on all the things I had been off the hook for because he handled all that stuff while I homeschooled the kids and worked part-time. That experience helped prepare me for this. Just when I thought I had mastered all the blue jobs, owning this restaurant showed me that I hadn’t even scratched the surface of handling things like broken ovens and compressors, plugged toilets, hanging Christmas lights, protecting my servers from creeps, and dealing with salesmen.”
To be successful as a restaurateur, MacLeod said, she had to hold herself fully accountable. “The biggest thing is taking 100% responsibility for things that cannot be resolved by anyone else. I already have a mindset of being 100% responsible for my own happiness, but this really put me into more of a ‘man’s world.’ I was dealing with contractors and taxes and banks and utilities—things I usually would pass off to someone else who likes doing stuff like that. It took me to the next level of being 100% responsible for everything.”
Taking a Deep Dive
MacLeod’s loan was approved, and she set out on taking over the Famoso store. “Because of COVID-19, construction [for renovations] got delayed. We were supposed to be ready in May of 2021 but didn’t actually open until May of 2022. Being trained on how to run a restaurant was not hard because I already knew the culinary side of being in the back-of-house. But I found learning to be a server was awkward, even though hospitality is one of my natural strengths. Building relationships with people came naturally. The real curve ball—and where it got really hard—was managing the numbers. Some have said, ‘Those who can’t spell, cook.’ I think the same goes with math.”
“The beauty of being part of a franchise,” she added, “is that all it really takes to succeed is to be a good student. Do exactly what you’re told, and it will work. This new venture is like a practical education in how to own and operate a restaurant, and, as a homeschooling mom, I look at this as my practical education: getting my masters degree in restaurant management. “
Prior to working at the private school, MacLeod had worked in private catering and restaurants. “In 2011 my daughter decided to go to public school, and my sons soon followed, so I thought I’d go back to school, too, and get my Red Seal Chef Certification. It was pretty wild to see some of the same chefs at the college who I had [learned under] over 20 years prior, when I did my first year of culinary school back in 1990.”
But MacLeod isn’t afraid of taking a deep dive. “I’m at Famoso pretty much every day. When everyone is there Friday through Sunday, I’m there for a shorter time. I love making dough. It’s a very spiritual time for me as my mind goes blank while I roll the dough into balls for an hour. While I waited for the renovations to finish, I was training at some of the other locations to learn the ropes.”
In taking over an existing business, MacLeod was a newcomer to some of her staff. “I loved that employees were already there when I started,” she said. “I had them train me and show me the ropes.”
Fortunately, she has been blessed with a strong team. “Staffing hasn’t been a problem. I have people drop off resumes every day. I’ve never had to advertise. It’s pretty much all young people, a lot of university students who go to work near campus. Training is expensive because a lot of mistakes happen.”
A Relationship With Dough
MacLeod and her team make 300 to 400 pizzas a week. “It’s fascinating that we are making and going through so much dough,” she said. “It’s a very simple process as far as ingredients, and having the right equipment helps. Making dough is like any piece of equipment—you have to develop a relationship with it. There was a period where our dough over-activated our yeast, and we quickly realized it was the different salt that we were using. Then we realized that that particular salt was better for our gluten-free dough. It made our homemade gluten-free dough fluffier!”
She said her mind “goes empty” when she’s making dough. “I’m just focused on weighing ingredients properly and watching the timer. I put the salt in slowly—these things matter. It’s a stress decompressor. I love to slow down and make a batch of dough. After six months of working here, I remembered seeing guys on YouTube who could double-fist [while] rolling dough balls, so I taught myself to speed-roll the dough balls in half the time.”
Running a franchise location has it difficulties, too “I’ve had people come into my store and say they went into another location that was not hitting the mark. Other stores don’t realize that if they aren’t following the rules, it affects all of us, and that makes me sad. It’s not that I want them to come to mine and not go to the other. I want them to know they can go into [a Famoso location] anywhere and have the same result because [the owners] love it so much. There is still room for growth for some locations to uphold the standards.”
‘It’s Not Emotional in Business’
It’s no secret that the culinary industry is male-dominated. “To be in this industry, you really need to be ruthless. Men like being like that. It’s good for their self-esteem and makes them thrive and work harder. It ends up being good for their business and financial success. But, for women, not so much. I’m not a person who gets mad that often. I’d rather just talk about the solution than get triggered and get angry. Believe me, my kids didn’t want to do the work homeschooling, but I’m not going to spit in their faces and scream, ‘Get your s— together!” like the chef would do when I was working in kitchens in the 1990s. Honestly, it’s very challenging to be a woman in an industry like this, and I’m still trying to figure it out.”
As an owner, it’s important to MacLeod that her staff enjoys their work. “I’m there Monday through Thursday, troubleshooting all the time, so I back off on the weekends when I have a lot of bodies around, which gives them a chance to have fun. I realize that, when the owner is there, it’s a different dynamic, and when I was on the line making pizza with people, I could tell I was making them nervous.”
MacLeod’s advice reflects her process. “Make sure emotions are not involved when making decisions—all decisions, business and personal. It’s not emotional in business. If you think owning a restaurant will be fun, you will go down with 95% of the rest of them. You need to be able to make wise decisions, and you need to have enough money to cover slow revenue weeks. It’s all great until it’s not. It’s all great until it gets really hard. It’s best to know you can get through the hard times ahead of time, and they are almost always financial—like when you lose power to your fridge and lose $10,000 in food, or other equipment breaks. Read books and listen to podcasts. Profit for Restaurants is a great resource as well as the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast.”
After several years in the business, MacLeod is still educating herself. “I’m learning how to be a master financial manager. I’m trying to be a wizard at managing the revenue coming in. My husband did it for years, so it’s still part of my learning process. I’m listening to more podcasts on money management. It really takes at least two years to fully understand the restaurant. You have to put in the time to get the facts for projections and scheduling. Next year is about strategizing so that we’re more prepared and I can hone and tweak my money management skills. Every penny needs to matter, and you can’t be frivolous. It’s all about understanding what money is coming in and where it’s going. There are so many moving parts, and they all have price tags. This really isn’t what I want to focus on because it’s not fun, but I don’t have a choice if I want this place to be profitable. If it’s not profitable, what am I going to do when I want to sell it?”
“This is really only a five-year plan for me,” she notes. “The best time to sell is when you’re at your peak, but that’s also the hardest time to sell because you want to reap the rewards from all of the hard work it took to get there.”
Finally, community is incredibly important to MacLeod. “Connecting with my community is an important factor for me in generating more customers. I’m part of a media group with other business owners and find networking is important. We really want to help each other out, and that is something people really need to realize. We need the support of the community.”
Andrea is wise, strategic, motivated and compassionate. She understands people and creates connections with her staff, community and customers. She dreams big and follows through. And she’s always excited to meet new people and treat them like a VIP. “Everyone’s a VIP in my eyes,” she says. “Everyone.”
Alexandra Mortati is the marketing director for Orlando Foods and founder of Women In Pizza, a not-for-profit organization that empowers women in the pizza industry to share their stories, display their talents, inspire innovations, and connect with one another and the world. This article originally appeared on the Instagram account for Women In Pizza. Click here to learn more about the organization.
