By Charlie Pogacar
For David DeSantis, pizza has never been just a business—it has been the throughline of his life. It started modestly when he began delivering pizzas for Domino’s at age 16 and worked his way up to store manager. In adulthood, DeSantis built multiple successful pizza brands, scaled and sold them. Now he’s leading a tech company aimed at solving the supply chain headaches he once faced—as he teaches classes at Pizza University and works as a brand ambassador for Marra Forni on the side.
It’s fitting that DeSantis has become a master instructor at Pizza University, where he teaches students business acumen on top of culinary skills. Looking back, DeSantis sees his career as a progression, one rooted in constant education and never settling for “good enough.”
“I tell people all the time—if you want to succeed in restaurants, you’ve got to embrace the grind and keep learning,” DeSantis said. “The minute you stop learning, you start falling behind.”
Born For This
When DeSantis thinks about the success he’s had in the industry, two mentors immediately jump to mind. Without them, he wouldn’t have been able to open 17 restaurants—most of them pizzerias—and six distinct restaurant brands.
The first is his father, John, who was the first franchisee to open both a Dunkin’ Donuts and Blimpie location in the South. He moved the family from Boston to Atlanta where he trained his son, David, to use a cash register at age 8.
DeSantis remembers a day when his future in restaurants came into focus: His father had left him—age 10—a fry cook and one other front-of-house team member in a Dunkin’ Donuts while he ran an errand. The fry cook burned his hand in the deep fryer and needed medical attention. DeSantis sprang into action, seeing the employee off prior to training himself how to cook a new batch of donuts via a paper training manual. He received an assist from the one remaining team member, who helped him lift the boxes of dough that were too heavy for a 10-year-old. When his father returned, a young DeSantis told his father the bad news and the good news: They were down a man, but ready for service.
“I’ll never forget how proud he was of me,” DeSantis said. “He was proud that he had a son who cared enough to take the time to make sure the business was taken care of. And that’s my first memory of doing something that I thought was pretty incredible in food.”
Gatordom
The second mentor is John Gillespie, who founded Five Star Pizza in Gainesville, Florida, in 1988, and eventually took DeSantis, and his brother, Richard, under his wing. The brothers started at the University of Florida together—DeSantis had driven delivery for Domino’s and worked his way up to manager prior to deciding to go to college at age 20. On the first day in town, DeSantis picked up a Five Star Pizza flier promising a 16” pepperoni pizza delivery for $3.99. Naturally, he ordered one.
“And when I tell you they were there in 12 minutes,” DeSantis said, “I’m not lying. I couldn’t believe it. The pizza was delicious, too, and we got one like 3-or-4 days in a row.”
DeSantis eventually approached Gillespie seeking jobs for him and his brother, and Gillespie hired them on the spot. Richard delivered pizzas while David managed the store. It was a high-volume operation—in fact, according to DeSantis, it was one of the highest volume pizza shops in the country at the time. He estimated they were doing $85,000-$100,000 worth of pizza deliveries at $4.79 a pop by the time he left.
“We had a triple stack conveyor belt Middlebys with a double stack of conveyor belt wide body [Middleby ovens] right next to it,” DeSantis said. “And on game days, we would make 32 batches of dough if a team like Tennessee was coming to town, all rolled by hand. We had a team of guys that were made of steel—they could just do it, man. They’d roll dough like their arms were on fire.”
After leaving Gainesville, DeSantis tried his hand in the insurance industry in South Florida. Almost as soon as he had entered that career, he couldn’t wait to leave it. He expressed his dismay to Gillespie, who encouraged him to come back to Gainesville to manage one of his shops for a year. If DeSantis did that, Gillespie said, he would help him open his own pizza shop in Atlanta.
Gillespie fulfilled that promise a year later. He gave David and Richard DeSantis a 60-quart Hobart mixer and some other equipment to start All Star Pizza in Atlanta in 1996—just before the Olympic Games were coming to town. It was something the DeSantis brothers couldn’t have done without Gillespie’s mentorship and generosity.
“John Gillespie is one of the greatest people I’ve ever known in my life,” DeSantis said. “He’s everything to me—as close as family could possibly be.”
Building Brands
Over the next two decades, DeSantis poured his energy into concept creation. He launched and operated numerous brands, including Peace Love & Pizza, The Jammin’ Pie, Bulldawg Pizza & Wings and Bring the Smoke BBQ.
Each concept reflected his business instincts and creative streak. “I’ve always loved building brands,” DeSantis said. “For me, it wasn’t just about the food—it was about culture, community and creating a place people felt connected to.”
Peace Love & Pizza, for example, wasn’t just a pizzeria—it was a vibe, an identity that resonated with families and younger customers alike. Bulldawg Pizza & Wings tapped into the college-town energy of Athens, Georgia. His ventures weren’t cookie-cutter—they were tailored to their markets, and that ability to adapt helped fuel his growth.
Through it all, DeSantis never stopped learning. Even while running multiple locations, he pursued his Executive MBA at Kennesaw State University, further sharpening his strategic and financial skills.
Seeing the Industry from the Inside
What made DeSantis’ career especially impactful was the vantage point it gave him regarding the challenges operators face every day. Managing restaurants meant dealing with slim margins, rising costs and complicated supplier relationships.
“I was in the trenches,” DeSantis said. “I know what it feels like to be worried about whether you can cover payroll, or if a supplier is suddenly going to raise your prices. That’s real anxiety operators live with.”
It was those challenges, in fact, that planted the seeds for his next chapter: Founder and CEO of WookAI.com. After years of navigating supplier contracts, invoices and fluctuating food costs, DeSantis realized there was a gap in the industry: Operators lacked a streamlined way to manage their relationships with suppliers and keep costs under control.
“I needed a system that would automate pricing, track rebates and give transparency to contracts,” he explained. “When I looked around, nothing existed. So I decided to build it.”
That decision led to WookAI.com, a supplier relationship management and food cost control platform designed specifically for restaurants. The software helps operators communicate with suppliers, manage inventory in real time and protect margins in an increasingly volatile industry.
For DeSantis, the shift from pizza ovens to software development wasn’t as radical as it sounds. “At the end of the day, it’s still about solving problems for operators,” he said. “Technology is just the new way to do it.”
Even beyond Wook.AI’s relationships with pizzerias, DeSantis hasn’t really left the industry. He serves as a brand ambassador for Marra Forni, the pizza oven company, and a master instructor for Pizza University. With WookAI.com, DeSantis hopes to give operators a fighting chance in an environment where margins are thinner and supply chains are more complex than ever. And while the technology may evolve, his approach remains rooted in the lessons he learned while standing behind the counter of his first pizza shop.
“Pizza gave me everything,” DeSantis said. “It gave me a career, it gave me friendships, it gave me purpose. I’ll always be tied to this industry.”
