By Charlie Pogacar
Before Steve DaPolito opened Bisonte Pizza Co. with his brother, Jim, he managed automotive maintenance centers in his home city of Buffalo, New York. It was there that he learned important lessons in leadership, ones that help shape the culture of Bisonte Pizza Co., a three-location pizza brand in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Managing people is managing people, no matter the industry,” Steve said. “It’s changed a lot over the past five to seven years. When I was a kid—I’ll be 61 in April—people just yelled at you until you did it right. It wasn’t right, but it’s just how people did stuff. And today, there’s a more effective way to manage people.”
Steve calls his philosophy “leadership from behind.” It’s rooted in his experiences as a mechanic. When he started at a garage, he worked hard. The owner of the shop wasn’t always around, and, little by little, Steve started taking on more responsibility. By the time he was named manager, his fellow employees already thought of him that way. Rather than begrudging him for his promotion, they celebrated it.
“The thing that Jim and I learned to do was lead people without authority,” Steve said. “So it’s not that I have the authority to lead you, it’s that if I treat you properly, with respect, and I have a knowledge base that I can share with you in a way that you welcome it, then all of the sudden, I’m a leader, right? So we teach that form of leadership to our people: how to be leaders. And when they achieve certain benchmarks, they are promoted to manager, and their peers are like, ‘Yeah, it’s about time!’”
The back story of Bisonte Pizza Co. further exemplifies the collaborative trust the brothers have in others. It goes like this: Steve’s son moved from Buffalo to Charlotte for college. The young man loved a lot of things about the city, but he found the pizza to be subpar. He half-joked that his dad should come down and open up a Buffalo-style pizza shop. Jim had spent years in hospitality, including a stint making pizza at La Nova Pizza, the famous Buffalo pizzeria. In 2013, the idea became a reality when Jim and Steve opened the first Bisonte Pizza Co. location in Matthews, a fast-growing suburb of Charlotte. The menu included Buffalo-style pizza—similar to New York-style pizza, but with a more defined crust, chunkier sauce and edge-to-edge toppings—and, of course, some killer wings.
Bisonte leans into its Buffalo heritage in ways that go beyond the menu: The word “bisonte” means “buffalo” in Italian. The pizza company’s logo and branding evoke images of Buffalo’s favorite thing: its beloved NFL franchise, the Bills. As a result, Bisonte has quickly become a favorite amongst Bills fans—no small demographic in Charlotte, a fast-growing city with plenty of Northern imports. On Bills’ gamedays, the restaurants make guests order online via a slotted system—there would be no other way for them to keep up with demand.
While the first Bisonte location in Matthews employed a counter-service model—think of a typical slice shop—the second location, located in “Uptown” Charlotte (the city’s central business district), was closer to a full-service model. Located near the Carolina Panthers’ stadium, as well as the city’s minor league baseball stadium, the DaPolito brothers wanted to capitalize on bar sales. This, of course, required a larger team to staff the restaurant. And this is where the “leadership from behind” tactics became hugely important. The culture they bred was one that was contagious, precisely because of the way Bisonte promoted from within.
“The culture we have is not the typical restaurant’s,” Steve said. “It’s not as great as some, but I believe it’s much better than most. What happens when you [promote a team member] to a management position—someone that was actually doing the homework—is, they know the stuff to the core of their bones. To us, the No. 1 reason managers don’t stay successful is because they can’t understand the leadership style. They want to be a drill sergeant, and Jim and I aren’t like that. So if they’re behaving in a completely different way from me and Jim, that doesn’t really work in our stores.”
To help foster their own style of leadership, the DaPolito brothers run classes that borrow ideas from the famous book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. They teach concepts like how to deliver constructive criticism in a way that encourages learning and improvement rather than resentment. The collaborative environment helps build relationships within the restaurant, and it fosters a sense of ownership amongst all team members.
Steve and Jim have also enhanced the employee experience by giving managers less busy work. Managers have little to do with payroll. They almost never sit behind a desk—instead, their duties include moving around the floor, checking in with guests and supporting employees as needed. For that reason, in order to manage a Bisonte location successfully, one has to know the ins and outs of the operation. Each manager is cross-trained on every job within the restaurant, taking as much time as they need until they know each station inside and out.
“Let’s say I’m the manager, and I’m walking around trying to manage people,” Steve said. “Well, when I walk by somebody making a pizza and they’re not putting the Parmesan cheese and oregano over the top of the sauce—which is typical for Buffalo-style pizza—I’m not going to notice it. Well, if you’re forgetting that cheese and oregano, it’s a different product. The guest is going to notice. If you don’t work that [station] and know it to the core of your bones, when your staff forgets to do it, or a new hire forgets to do it, you’re not going to be able to coach that.”
More recently, Bisonte Pizza Co. opened its third shop, a DELCO location in the Ballantyne suburb, a little further south than Matthews. The company’s management processes have led it to become a brand with more than 80 team members. And each person knows the growth opportunities are there if they want them. They know it because they’ve watched as their peers turn into leaders, and then managers, under the Bisonte umbrella.
“What’s kind of interesting,” Steve said, “is that for the size that we are and the things that we do, when I sit down with people and tell them everything we’re doing, they say, ‘You know, that’s not really normal, all of this stuff you’re doing.’ But it’s about having that infrastructure. You have to have that in order to grow.”