At the edgy &pizza chain in Washington, D.C., several top executives have taken a step to prove they’re all in on a new “shrink-to-grow” mission.
As Eater.com reported, Mike Burns, the “anti-corporate” corporation’s relatively new CEO, has gotten inked with the &pizza’s trademark ampersand tattoo. So have two other highly placed leaders at the company, including Vice President Aaron Archuleta.
For years, &pizza, founded by Michael Lastoria in 2012, has offered the tattoo for free to its employees to build team spirit and togetherness. Some customers have gotten tatted up to show their loyalty to the brand as well. Archuleta figured he needed to take advantage of the offer, too. “So this just shows that, like, ‘Hey, I’m here. I’m here to win. I’m here to stay. I’m here to fight with you guys,’” he told Eater.
Related: &pizza got ‘a little too corporate.’ Can a new CEO make it cool & edgy again?
Lastoria, an outspoken, Jesus-bearded “pizza prophet” who was known for advocating a living wage and other benefits for restaurant employees, quietly stepped down as &pizza’s top executive in November 2023, to be replaced by Burns. That change wasn’t made public until March 2024.
At that time, Burns said the chain had become “a little too corporate” and needed to bring back its loud, raucous, punk vibe.
“All we need to do is go back to what we did—let employees be themselves and crank the music up,” Burns told QSR Magazine. “Let customers come in and feel the vibe. You can go anywhere and get a slice of pizza, but you can’t come anywhere and have loud music and edgy employees that almost have to yell to place your order and the customers have to yell back and it’s kind of like this fun interaction.
More recently, Burns told Eater that the brand has adopted a “shrink-to-grow” mindset and aims to make some changes to &pizza’s D.C. footprint before expanding outside the region. “We’ve got to fix what’s going on inside of our house before we can start to do anything else,” Archuleta said.
He added, “We started here [in D.C.], we grew here,” he added. “And so that’s kind of where we want to be our bread and butter.”
Five &pizza store managers have been promoted to district managers. But instead of overseeing 15 to 20 locations, they will now focus on eight or fewer stores. The company has also scrapped its in-house tech team and turned to companies like Toast, Olo and Thanx for its website, mobile app, loyalty program and POS system, Eater reports. The money saved there went to boosting the Dead Presidents Club, &pizza’s quirky loyalty program.
Meanwhile, &pizza cut staff for some stores to just two employees during peak hours while getting its food, labor and paper costs down under 55%.
&pizza’s website currently lists a total of 50 locations in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
