Story by Rick Hynum | Photos by Bianca Calascibetta

There are two remarkable and gifted young women at the helm of Cam’s Pizzeria, with six locations in Rochester, New York. Giuliana Calascibetta, the district manager, is also the face of the brand, thanks to her enchanting presence on social media, including a one-of-a-kind Twitch account called Pizza Princess G. Bianca, her older sister, works behind the scenes essentially as the company’s chief marketing officer, photographer and videographer and also owns UCO, a creative marketing agency.

Together, they’re a sister act like none other in the pizza industry, conjuring up social media magic every single day on Cam’s Instagram page with ongoing promotions like the Crazy Slice and producing some of the platform’s most entertaining and joyful content. In PMQ’s October 2023 cover story, we could only give you an all-too-brief glimpse inside the Cam’s operation due to limited space. But there was so much more to our lengthy and in-depth interview with these two pizza marketing disrupters. Just because they’re young, don’t kid yourself that they can’t teach OG operators a thing or three (or five), especially about creating a corporate culture that attracts and retains millennial and Gen Z employees. So here’s more of that conversation, edited for length and clarity. Buckle up! It’s gonna be a fun, high-energy and enlightening ride!

Related: Pizza Princess G: The Taylor Swift of pizza takes Twitch by storm

PMQ: So did you both grow up in Cam’s Pizzeria?

Giuliana: Yeah, and this is very much the truth: My earliest memories of growing up are standing right next to my dad on a busy night, making pizza, and I could barely see over the stretching table. And, actually, a fun fact about that is, we use metal dough containers, so my dad would take out the dough, but he’d purposely leave a little bit of dough in there and give it to me. And I would collect that and, by the end of the night, I’d make my own little pizza. So literally one of the earliest memories I have is being in that pizzeria. You know, we would go visit my dad and bring a coloring book. I would color in the lobby. I was always around pizza. It really is where I grew up. It’s like, you know, some kids go to the playground. We went to the pizzeria.

Bianca: We were there whether our father was working or not. I remember, when we opened a new location, he said, “Alright, we’re going to be all computers at this location.” And I don’t know if this is just the millennial mindset, but I wanted to be around those computers. I begged my dad, “Please let me work. I want to be on the computer, taking orders. I want to answer the phone.” My father started opening more stores when I was in high school, and I started getting directly involved and worked at seven different locations at that time. I went from cashier to being in the kitchen and making pizza to managing the front-of-house to training employees for new restaurants to even executive assistant, where I’m looking through the financials and looking at profitability, labor costs, things of that nature.

 

PMQ: So what are your roles at Cam’s today?

Giuliana: So I’m the district manager of the Rochester locations. I’m also kind of the face of the Cam’s brand, and that has a lot to do with my sister being the marketing person. My role also entails going over operational things with our operations director, like should we carry this product?

Bianca: She oversees anything and everything, even new product development, obviously a lot of the operations and the marketing. She has her hands on everything.

Giuliana: I think my biggest role, honestly, is keeping the morale high for all of the stores. I’m basically a pizza therapist. I feel like they know that they can come to me for help anytime. Like, “Are you feeling discouraged this week? How can I help you get through this?”

Bianca: But from an operational standpoint, she’s also actually making the pizzas. She’s in the trenches. I’ve taken more of a marketing role, which has actually been really cool for me because a lot of my love for business and efficiency started when I was working behind the counter. Now I have my own creative agency, so I understand the importance of having a team that’s operating efficiently and that’s trained properly, which is what my sister does now. I trained her, and now I feel like I’ve duplicated myself [in Giuliana], but she took it to a whole new level, which is beautiful.

Related: Read our exclusive interview with Pizza Princess G from November 2022!

PMQ: Giuliana, I’ve seen you on Twitch, and it looks like you’re always in the pizzeria, making pies. Is that right?

Giuliana: That is right, my friend! Yes, I’m always there. After this interview, I’m going to the pizzeria to stream and make pizzas because we’re short-staffed. Who else is going to do it? I’m not going to let it close [for a single night] because we don’t have enough people. No, the district manager has to step in.

PMQ: Finding staff is definitely a problem for everyone.

Bianca: It is so hard to hire people. This is really a trend, and it’s a huge reason why Giuliana has to work so much. But I will say we’ve attracted great people through our culture and the high morale. We’ve done a lot of company outings and summer picnics just to build on the culture. There’s a section our website called “Our Vibe,” and right away, based on that language, you know we’re attracting a younger energy. Yes, there are times when you’re hiring people in their 40s and 50s, but usually it’s younger. Usually we’re talking teens and college students. We’re trying to attract those people. And there’s another section on our website called “Why Cam’s?” Even that section is millennial/Gen Z language. It talks about how Cam’s is a judgment-free zone—we’re not basic—and how we’re using pizza as a tool to help develop people and create good times…We try to make sure it doesn’t feel like work. We’re making it about the art of pizza, experience-oriented, connecting with the community. Our whole focus is on building the people up and making Cam’s a place where it’s exciting to work.

Giuliana: When I reflect on my life, that’s probably the thing I’m proudest of: creating this new culture. I mean, we’ve been in business since 1980, and I’m so proud of my dad, but, for me, it’s like, let’s bring in new energy here. Yes, we’ve been here for 43 years, and we are a credible business, but I want to take it to the next level. And when my sister redid our website (in 2020), it was everything that I envisioned for the company and for the generations to come.

PMQ: And the name Giuliana literally means “youthful,” right?

Giuliana: Yes, and I live up to it. A lot of businesses are, like, “It’s all about how you take care of your employees.” That’s what they always say, but then they don’t walk the walk. They read it in an article or a book. OK, well, apply it! I like to be a woman of my word. I practice what I preach. It’s all about being proud of where you work and who you work with and being proud of yourself. No one cares about the business like we do. It’s our family. But how do you get the employees to care like you do?

Bianca: We’re building a mini-community culture within the business. The philosophy of our company is to not motivate customers with the dollar. That is, from a marketing perspective, I don’t want to track customers through coupons and discounts. I want to attract them with a great product, fun things going on, great customer service, and a great environment. And from an internal standpoint as well, I don’t want to attract employees with the dollar. I don’t want to say, “We’ll give you more money.” We want to attract them by breeding better people, breeding a healthy place where you can be yourself and feel like you want to come to work and you want to wear the logo and you’re proud. So that is a huge thing we live by.

Related: Berwick Pizza: Dessert pies in a land of whimsy and ingenuity

PMQ: The common complaint we hear is that young people don’t want to work anymore, they’re all just lazy. I personally don’t think that’s the case, and you two are living proof. But it sounds to me like what you’re saying is, a lot of it really does come down to creating that kind of culture that draws young people in. Is that safe to say?

Bianca: So millennials and Gen Z very much want to feel like they’re a part of something that’s bigger than themselves. They don’t want to feel like a number. They don’t want to feel like a cog in the wheel. They’re not motivated by money. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but they want to feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves. And a lot of that really comes down to who’s managing and overseeing everything. If that person really cares, they’re going to attract those people and build that really healthy work environment. If that manager or owner is not the right person, if they’re a bad apple, it’s never going to work out. There is always going to be high turnover. And we know that from other restaurant chains, let’s just say. But if there is a deep authenticity and deep caring, you’re going to attract the right people, and that can spill out into social media. For example, on our website, we have pictures of our employees wearing the Cam’s merch, which makes it fun. We actually did a little photo shoot. We picked out some of our star-performing employees, all hand-selected, as a reward and they wore the merch, which they got to keep. I know it seems like we’re going the extra mile for a pizzeria chain with six locations. But, at the same time, these things that pizzeria owners may not see as tangible have long-term benefits that are invaluable.

We also have slideshows that rotate every five seconds or so, just showing employees engaging with each other off work. You know, they’re going to Seabreeze Amusement Park together or they’re eating Thanksgiving dinner together. It just feels kind of like a summer camp.

Giuliana: Why does work have to be a miserable place? Why do you have to look at the clock every second to see if it’s time to go home? I want to encourage a sense of meaning and purpose. I’m so passionate about that.

PMQ: And how does your Twitch stream tie into all that?

Bianca: Just as we want employees to feel like they’re part of something bigger, we also want our customers to feel like they’re part of something bigger. And my sister has built this community where [her followers] also feel like it’s bigger than pizza.

Related: How Erica Barrett is building the quick-service pizza kitchen of tomorrow

PMQ: Right. I know you’ve said that you started the Pizza Princess G stream on Twitch because you often found yourself working alone at the restaurant during COVID-19, and that was hard for you as a people person. How did that take off so quickly?

Giuliana: So I would be in the pizzeria, streaming from there, and then I’d go home and play a video game and stream it too. But I was getting a lot of viewers. In the beginning, maybe it was like three people. But after, like a week, I was getting up to, like, 300 to 500 viewers. But I still didn’t understand the benefits of using Twitch besides talking to people…And there are trolls. You know, I very much trust myself in my craft, and I’m very committed. I’m Sicilian—I have thick skin. But it was tough, especially being by myself. They got to me. I took a little break from streaming, and then I learned more about it—that you could have moderators who will help protect you. So I was like, “Wow, that’s interesting. Okay, maybe there are a couple of friends that I met online who can moderate my channel.” So I got them to moderate, and then someone said, “Hey, G, you should try to be a partner.” And I was, like, “What?” They said that, when more people are watching you, you can get ad revenue, and people are donating to you. There’s a tip jar or whatever. I didn’t even notice people were contributing and thought there was value to what I was doing. So I did some research, and I was, like, wow, I can also make some money here. It’s a win-win. I love to perform. It’s entertaining. It takes a long time to become a Twitch partner, but I think it took me, like, two weeks. They’d never seen anything like it. No one streams in a restaurant!

I was streaming every hour over 40 hours a week, which is not normal. It took a lot of energy. Looking back, it was really hard. It was a struggle for me to do that because it takes a lot of energy, not only to perform and engage with your chat, but also to do your job. But now that’s kid stuff. Now I’m doing seven, nine, even 24-hour streams.

Bianca: Literally! Literally 24 hours! And they pay to watch her content without ads and to use specific emotes, which are pixelated images like emojis.

Giuliana: So they feel like they’re part of something because every month they get a pizza slice by their name. If they’re with me for a whole year, they get a full pizza.

PMQ: So can you gauge how this Twitch presence has affected business at Cam’s?

Giuliana: This is the brilliance of Bianca: If you go to the Cam’s website and scroll down, you can see us literally making pizzas live at the shop on my stream. So peple are always coming in and saying, “I was placing my order and I saw you on the website.”

Bianca: We haven’t sat down and really measured how many customers have come in because of Twitch. We’ve never done any promotions or discounts on Twitch. Because it’s not even about that. It’s something way bigger, and people appreciate that. We don’t want to attract the people who are looking for a discount. But people discover the Crazy Slice because she’s making it live, and then they come in to purchase it…We don’t quantify [Twitch’s impact] through promotions and that kind of stuff. We don’t want to handle it that way. But in terms of customer perception, Twitch has really solidified our image as more of a cutting-edge and forward-thinking brand, especially in our market. It’s signaling to others that we’re very adaptable to trends and we’re in tune with the modern consumer habits.

So we’re not just about pizza. We’re trying to be, in a way, almost a lifestyle/community brand as well. And I think, again, those intangible benefits are really invaluable to the brand. You can’t quantify them. You can’t measure people seeing the real you coming through and feeling more of a connection because they can literally interact with the person making the pizza. It’s just a whole new realm of the brand that we’re building.

Giuliana: There must be a lot of other people who see the value. On Twitch, someone will say, “Hey, I just came in and got a slice. You were great!” And I had no idea who they were [while they were at the pizzeria] because they were afraid to say anything to me. I had two viewers come in last week with their families to try our pizza for the first time. As the leader, knowing that people care that much gives me the fire for my passion to keep going, which I know is beneficial for the company, too.

Bianca: And G is streaming 50 hours a week because she wants to. She doesn’t get paid for it. So she’s our model for how an employee should function within the company. She’s the epitome of it.

Giuliana: Yeah. I mean, that’s what I tell my employees: “I hope you don’t come into work just thinking you’re going to get a paycheck and leave.” The most valuable thing everybody has is their time, right? Their time. So I say to my employees, “You’re working 40 hours a week and making money, and of course it’s great. But what about the value of you working on yourself and your personal goals while you’re at work? Maybe you’re not confident. So let’s work on speaking to customers more and learning their name and having them learn your name?” There’s so much value in that. Money’s replaceable. Your time is not replaceable. And I think that’s the most important thing. I believe that. And my employees know I believe that. So they apply that to themselves.

PMQ: One more thing, Giuliana, I believe you’re a painter, too, right? Tell us about that.

Giuliana: I started painting this summer just as a hobby and as something different to do with my stream and to practice being creative…and without thinking about what I even wanted to paint, I just found myself painting pizzas! Painting allows me to think deeply and connect with myself, but, by painting pizzas, I think about everything I love about the creative aspects of being a pizza maker, which has become very special to me each time I paint now. I express myself through my art creatively, like I do when I make slice pies at the pizzeria. For example, I experiment with different topping combinations for taste with actual pizza at the shop while and I do the same with painting, except with the colors of the toppings! By no means am I a professional artist, but I’d say I’m not too bad a painter! I plan on opening an Etsy shop this fall, where my fans can purchase my pizza art or even special-order with their favorite pizza toppings. And just like my pizzas, all my art is made with love too!