By Rick Hynum
In PMQ Pizza’s April 2025 cover story, we described Robert’s Pizza and Dough Co., located in Chicago, as an “exemplary restaurant.” But, alas, thanks to limited print space, we couldn’t delve as deeply as we would have liked into everything that makes this single-unit independent pizzeria—named one of the world’s best by 50 Top Pizza last year—so darn impressive. Fortunately, that’s what digital-exclusive content is for. So read the original story here first if you missed it, then hurry back for this in-depth Q&A as owners Dana Hokin and Robert Garvey share more about their pizzeria’s history, their approach to building a thriving company culture (complete with employee benefits), their remarkable ticketed dinner series, and how their disciplined marketing strategy makes every month a moneymaker—even in the dead of a Windy City winter.
PMQ: Tell us a little bit about the early days of Robert’s Pizza.
Dana Hokin: We opened up a small shop, just around the corner from where we are now, in June 2016, and we were there for about a year. I would call it more like a pop-up. We had an opportunity to move into a small space and take the dough to market and really test it. It was a huge undertaking in terms of time, but it didn’t require raising a lot of capital to make it happen. That was our first introduction to the Chicago market, and it was an incredible opportunity to see if we could really participate in the Chicago pizza conversation. Because it’s a highly competitive market. Wherever you are in the country, it’s a competitive market, but especially in Chicago.
Robert Garvey: Indeed, and our pizza is an artisan thin crust. You can’t put it in any particular lane. But we believed in what we were doing. We recognized that we weren’t going to step on anybody else’s toes, so to speak, within the pizza landscape, and we were willing to roll the dice, take the risk, and see if we could actually carve out our own little path within the pizza spectrum of Chicago. And that one year gave us the opportunity to see and determine [customer response].
Related: PMQ’s 15 Pizza Brands to Watch in 2024. Click Here to Download the Free Report!
PMQ: You’ve been in a much larger space since 2019, and it has earned a ton of critical acclaim.
Hokin: We wanted to create a neighborhood location, a place where people could come more than once a week—the kind of place that we wanted to hang out at, because that was key. We lived east of Michigan Avenue in Chicago for 27 years, and there really wasn’t a neighborhood place that this part of the city could call its own. And we thought, hey, let’s see if we can make that happen. Let’s see if we can serve as some kind of anchor in this community, for the people who live in all these high-rises that went up in this area over the last 20 years. We wanted it to be a place that was affordable, where people could go multiple times a week.
PMQ: But it also has a beautiful esthetic and a high-end feel. What’s the story behind that?
Hokin: I’ve often said our restaurant should be like a jewelry box for the pizza. You know, you open it up and go, “Wow!” And, again, our restaurant is beautiful, but it’s not fancy. And it tells a story, and that story is this idea of a journey. We feel like eating a slice of pizza is a journey, and we can speak to that, because from the first bite to the last bite, it’s a very different flavor profile—the experience shifts.
And that was part of why we thought it would be fun to have the restaurant’s esthetic inspired by a series of photos that I took on a road trip we made back in 1997. We have a 1966 Mustang convertible, and we drove her from Chicago out to Montana, and I shot Polaroids, as it turned out, about every 4.5 miles. So I have 1,000 images, and the images from that road trip inspired the palette and the feel of the restaurant.
So why a road trip? We felt that the process of creating the dough was a journey. The experience of eating a slice of pizza should take you on a journey, too. And that’s just how we think. That doesn’t necessarily mean we tell everybody that whole backstory, but that’s what informs the whole experience at Robert’s.
PMQ: Obviously, retaining employees has been a big problem for restaurants since the pandemic. You guys lost employees at that time and had to hire a lot of new ones. Many of them have been with you ever since then. Can you talk about the culture you’ve created for your employees?
Garvey: I think the foundation of the culture that we’ve created is based on our belief that, as a work environment, this should be a place that you want to come to every day. When Dana or I walk in the door, we come in enthusiastic and excited about being there. And we want everybody that works with us to have that same kind of enthusiasm and love for the job. So our work environment is very warm, very friendly. We treat the staff with a lot of respect. We rely on them to create such a great product and a great environment. It’s about building that team, and Daniel, our general manager, is really just incredible. He has helped us put together an amazing team of people who have been here for many years and consider Robert’s a home. Our guests always tell us that not only do they enjoy being at the restaurant, but they can see that the staff really likes being here and enjoys working there.
Hokin: It’s also about establishing very clear standards and expectations. We put the time not only into training, but into explaining why we do what we do. Why is “Love Dough Responsibly” our motto? I mean, it gets a little chuckle, you know, because of the double entendre. But what that means is that we put the effort in way in advance of opening up the restaurant. We put all this time and energy into getting to this point, and now here we are. We have the privilege to share this with the community, and everybody who is part of it makes it possible for us to do that.
So instilling that sense of ownership in the experience that [our employees] are part of delivering is really key. And I feel that we’ve been successful at saying, “Here are our standards, here are our expectations, and here is why we do this. It’s not because we’re telling you to just do it, and you get it done.” It’s taking the time to explain why, and when we have success, it’s sharing that success with everybody.
PMQ: And you share it in tangible ways, too, right?
Hokin: From day 1 we had planned to offer health insurance and a 401(k). We wanted people to feel that they can grow with this business, that they can make a living wage. All of that helps build, I think, a level of loyalty….This is a family. I mean, we’re only five years old, but I like to say that we present like we’re much more mature than we are [as a business]. It’s like an adolescent who’s grown to be six feet tall, but they’re only 14. You know, we’re still growing into ourselves.
Garvey: Obviously it’s very challenging to offer those programs when you’re first starting out. But as you get busier and volume picks up and sales pick up, it’s worth it. Our team has been with us for so long, they’re a well-honed machine. A lot of our guys started as dishwashers. We taught them to do prep work, stretch dough, build and bake pizzas. So they’re growing as individuals, and we’re growing. And they’re getting so much better that the extra couple of dollars an hour for the 401(k) and the medical insurance—at the end of the day, you have really good, productive employees. If you’re not retaining your employees, you’re spending a lot of money on training, and you’re really not getting the quality that you need. But, of course, for a young pizzeria, you may not have the funds to do that….We couldn’t afford a lot of these benefits at first. But now we’re in a different position, and we found that by retaining staff, we have better staff, better quality control and much more consistency.
Hokin: I also think, by offering it, you’re sending a message that we value your time, your work, and your commitment to this business. You have to work 1,000 hours before you qualify. So you don’t get it right off the bat. There’s a qualifying period of time. If they don’t work that 1,000 hours, as an employer, you’re not out of pocket if the person leaves (before qualifying). And for health insurance, you don’t have to pay 100% as an employer. You can offer to pay 10 percent, 20 percent—whatever it is—or not at all. It’s just about making it available and leaving it to their discretion.
PMQ: To me, that’s one great example of how you guys run an exemplary restaurant. But I’ve also been blown away by your marketing and special events. So many events, all planned out and publicized in advance with press releases and beautiful photos. You’ve figured out how to make every month a moneymaker, even in wintertime. Can you talk about that?
Hokin: There is a seasonality to our business. Starting with October, we focus on Breast Cancer Awareness Month and National Pizza Month, and that’s when we always offer our acorn squash pizza. We also do our Pet Parade in October. And I was adamant—we’re doing it every year. And we’re doing our apple pie pizza in November, and then our Nutcracker pizza comes out in December. It’s tied to the Joffrey Ballet. And this is how we define the fourth quarter of the year at Robert’s.
We also launch the dinner series in December and carry it through the winter, because we wanted to create an opportunity for people to experience pizza from a completely different perspective. It’s a way of introducing cuisines from around the world through pizza, and our staff knows, “OK, this is what we do in the winter.” And then we move into the Super Bowl. Then we organize spring around Easter, Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day, and of course, March Madness is in there. And then you get into the summer seasons, and we have various things going on. But it was important to establish that seasonality and having the discipline to do it over and over again. I think that’s what’s really important.
The goal here is to build this seasonality into the culture of the operation so that, when October rolls around, it’s not just Dana saying, “Hey, guys, remember we’re doing acorn squash pizza.” It just becomes who we are. And, trust me, when I bring in some of these ideas, it’s not always met with open arms. It’s like, “Why?” But then, over time, it becomes part of the fabric of our business. And employees see the enthusiasm from our customers, and the customers are putting this stuff on their calendar. They know that they’re going to come for the Pet Parade. They know about our Super Bowl party.
Garvey: It’s also critical to keep the staff working in the off season. The idea is to keep things fresh, keep us in the press, and keep the restaurant exciting. But a big part of it is also trying to keep the staff working fulltime and giving them as many hours as we possibly can. Without these programs, the winter would be very quiet, and, obviously, gratuities and hours would be much lower than they are. So the winter programs generate more business and more time for our staff to be fully engaged and working in a tight season.
So that’s no small part of why we do these projects. If you let your staff off or reduce their hours to such a [high] degree in the wintertime, when the bell rings at St. Patty’s Day, they’re not there or they’re not ready. And you can’t train people in your busy season. So that’s another reason why a lot of our employees have been here for such a long time….And the staff certainly appreciates that. They’ve come to appreciate all of these ideas and events that we do. Initially, I think they thought we were crazy, but now…
Hokin: They still think we’re crazy, Robert….
PMQ: Let’s circle back to the ticketed dinner series that you mentioned earlier. How did the idea come about, what goes into it, and why do you do it?
Garvey: Again, what really excites us is that idea of a journey, and we translated that into a slice of pizza, where the first bite is very different than your last bite. We thought, well, if you [applied] that journey idea to an experience of different cuisines, how could that translate to a pizza? And it came down to trying to push the boundaries of what we think pizza can be. And as I like to say, it’s great food on a great crust. And there’s no limit, really, to what you can do, what kind of food you can serve on a pizza crust. We’ve done lamb vindaloo, Peking duck, butter chicken. And for [a recent] dinner, we had a poached salmon pizza and a foie gras pizza.
Hokin: Well, it’s an adventure, right? We want to create an adventure. When we used to host pizza dinners in our home, we approached them as a pizza flight. We would start with a salad pizza, then move into a charcuterie type pizza, and then another pizza, and then dessert. We wanted to introduce this dinner party experience, if you will, at the restaurant. But it’s also a way to take a particular location or particular types of cuisine and reimagine them on pizza. And it’s a way to have our guests come in and try cuisine that they may not normally gravitate towards, but because it’s pizza—“Alright, let me try it. Let me try this foie gras pizza. You know, I’m never going to eat foie gras, but it’s on a pizza, so let me try it.” What are some other ones from the past?
PMQ: You had a Seafood Shakshuka pizza a few months ago! (Note: It featured a spicy tomato bell pepper sauce, shrimp, lobster, scallops, skate wings, caviar and harissa butter.)
Garvey: Yeah, that was quite the dish, basically with an African influence, and it was just amazing. We also work out wine pairings for the dinners, so all five courses have a different pairing. We’ve done it with tequila, cocktails, wine, etc. As I said, we just push the boundary of pizza expectations. It’s the cheese and pepperoni and sausage pizzas that pay the bills, you know. But doing these other events is just so exciting from a culinary perspective, and it’s a lot of fun. It keeps us sharp, and it keeps us coming up with ideas for our weekly specials that we put on the menu.
Hokin: And I mean, on certain days you could talk to Robert, and he might say, “It takes a lot of time to create these recipes. Is this how we want to be spending our time?” And, of course, I say yes….But that’s why we don’t do it during our busiest periods. But it’s entertainment, right? You know, let’s all take the Orient Express in the dead of winter. You know, for $120 you’re going to be served this very decadent menu and explore this region of the world through pizza. It’s just another way of transporting ourselves out of the doldrums of winter. So that’s part of it. And, you know, some ideas maybe don’t always hit the mark, but we learn from it. So we’re not afraid to shoot for the stars.
Click here and here to learn about recent dinner series at Robert’s Pizza and Dough Co.
