By Charlie Pogacar
Blue Moon Pizza has been a thriving full-service pizza company in the Atlanta area for over 20 years. Paul and Peter Barli have been investors and owners of the five-location concept since just after its inception in 2003. More recently, the Barlis partnered with Jeff Goldt and Jordan Krolick with aspirations of taking the brand to the next level.
The mission? To begin growing the brand via franchising in 1–2 years. According to Krolick—now Blue Moon’s president—the brand could begin franchising right now without issue. And Krolick would know: He spent time as chief development officer at Arby’s in the 2000s, helping turn the brand into the fastest-growing drive-thru concept in the country during that time period. Prior to that, Krolick spent four years working in mergers and acquisitions for McDonald’s. More recently, Krolick has served as a consultant to Fortune 25 companies and spent time as a professor of franchise management at Kennesaw State University.
Those experiences have shaped Krolick’s perspective on where Blue Moon currently stands. He believes the brand is a special one that is a few tweaks away maximizing its potential as a franchising opportunity.
“Blue Moon already has amazing pizza and great products,” Krolick said. “That’s the good news, because I’ve been involved with brands where people don’t have such a favorable view of the offerings. So our goal is to build on a solid foundation to create what I would call a best-in-class operation. Blue Moon: It’s wonderful, but we want it to become exceptional.”
Krolick has some rules he and the executive team are living by as they evaluate what, exactly, must be tweaked first. He views any change as falling along an x and y axis where the ease with which the change can be made must be weighed against how much potential it has to improve the business. Ideally, the initial changes would be things that are easy and would have a hugely positive impact on the brand. What they won’t touch—at least for now—are things that will take a lot of time and effort but might only yield an incremental gain.
“When you get involved in a business like this, you want to build that winning mentality,” Krolick said. “If people are going to spend more time [at a restaurant] than they are with their own family, you want to make them feel like winners. And building that winning mentality means: How do we pick off the easy things we could do that would have the biggest effect? Then, the second choice in the short term is finding things that are easy—and maybe the bang for your buck isn’t so great—but you’re still laying the seeds to the ones that are a great opportunity but they’re maybe a bit harder.”
Krolick points to a few areas where change is already underway as examples of how Blue Moon is building a winning mentality. First up was partnering with his close friend, Goldt, chief operating officer at Blue Moon. Goldt is a 30-year industry veteran who has served as a multi-concept franchisee, as well as a operational and strategic consultant to numerous restaurant companies.
Another ongoing move: Krolick and Goldt are conducting a granular assessment of various areas of the business including, for example, how Blue Moon is sourcing all of its products and ingredients. Krolick said the team is looking at its 30 most-used products and seeing how much the prices for those things have fluctuated over the past 24 months. The goal is to work with vendors to leverage the brand’s buying power and reduce costs where possible.
“We believe suppliers are wonderful, and they are partners to our business,” Krolick said. “We treat them all like they should be treated—as partners—because it’s a true relationship. But sometimes costs go up, and then they go down. And when costs go up, our costs go up, and then when they go down, we’re a little slow to [see those benefits]. Because that’s how businesses work. So those are the types of things we’re looking at and outlining and doing an analysis segment by segment. We hope we’ll see some real cost savings by doing that.”
The four partners are also revamping the way Blue Moon trains its people. They want to standardize those practices in order to safeguard the brand’s consistency and overall “neighborhood pizza restaurant” vibe.
“That’s something Jeff is working on right now,” Krolick said. “How do we teach things in a way that really speaks to the way our employees want to listen? Because if we don’t get them listening and hearing some of the things that we are teaching them, then it’s pointless to be doing it. But what we can do is talk in the way they want to listen and learn [best practices] to achieve the best results.”
The new approach to training, Krolick hopes, will help team members further develop a passion for the brand. As somebody who spent a lot of time in the quick-service space, Krolick views Chick-fil-A’s customer service, across locations, as a gold standard. While Blue Moon Pizza is not trying to be Chick-fil-A in many different regards—it wants to remain a full-service neighborhood pizzeria, after all—he thinks the brand’s team culture is worth emulating. If that culture can be instilled, it will translate to an elevated customer service experience for patrons.
“I am extremely passionate about the idea that people choose their favorite restaurant for almost every situation based on taste, time and experience,” Krolick said. “So, for example: taste. ‘Hey, I’m in the mood for pizza.’ Time: ‘I’m looking to sit in a restaurant. I want to have [somebody wait on me].’ Experience: That’s the level of food, quality of food, quality of service, of the decor—you’re looking for a certain experience.”
Blue Moon isn’t a fine dining restaurant, Krolick points out. But it’s also not going to be a low-end, cheaper option. It wants to exist somewhere in the middle: Where people can gather to enjoy great pizza, have a pint of beer and create memories together without breaking the bank. Team members—from cooks to bartenders to waitstaff—will be a key component of that dynamic.
That doesn’t mean Krolick and his team are overlooking the lucrative DELCO channels that are the lifeblood of the industry. Quite the opposite. One of the larger, more impactful tweaks the executive team is currently looking at is revamping the brand’s website. Krolick believes there’s a huge opportunity to create a digital transaction that feels much like the one he hopes customers will experience while sitting down and enjoying a meal at Blue Moon Pizza.
“Our job is to sell the way customers want to buy, not sell the way that we want to sell,” Krolick said. “One of the biggest pushes in the next few years—one we’re not quite ready for today—is personalization. Personalization is what I would call a ‘country club feel’ at your local restaurant. It goes back to watching Cheers when everybody would yell ‘Norm!’ when he walked in. How do we do that in today’s age? There’s more information than ever before, yet I believe restaurants can do more in that respect. We’re going to really want to be one of the adopters of that as quickly as we can. And that definitely requires a digital footprint that’s a little more vibrant.”
The reason Krolick, Goldt and the Barlis believe franchising is the best path forward has little to do with the partners’ franchising bona fides and experiences. They believe the neighborhood feel they’re looking to create in every restaurant can’t be done in new markets without franchise partners who live and breathe those locales. The franchising model ensures that each store owner is a local themselves, with deep ties to the community.
“Blue Moon Pizza is a fantastic name, and it’s a great brand,” Krolick said. “But let’s say down the road we want to open in Jacksonville—that’s probably a few years away, but let’s say we open there. Let’s say the franchisee’s name is Susan. We want the franchised location to have such a close connection to the market that it is almost known as ‘Susan’s’ Blue Moon Pizza That’s why they’re coming. ‘Oh, I know the owner!’”
In the near future, though, Krolick, Goldt and the Barlis will be focusing on improving the five existing restaurants and perhaps opening up a corporate-owned location or two to do a trail run, of sorts, with franchising in mind. Why? Because the partners have plenty of experience that tells them how hard opening and running restaurants can be, and they want to ensure Blue Moon Pizza is as turnkey as possible before they begin fielding franchising inquiries.
“Empathy is a big part of my background and my history,” Krolick said. “It’s required if you’re going to be a franchisor. You need to understand what your franchisees are going through.”
