By Charlie Pogacar
Whereas many Americans picture Pizza Hut when they think of quintessential pizza nights of yore, many in the Bay Area think of Round Table Pizza. The brand, founded in Menlo Park, California, in 1959, has established itself as a cultural institution that provides a grade-A pizza-night experience for generations of Californians.
“[It] was where every function happened after we had soccer…and everyone would have their birthday there,” Eidref Laxa of the What’s Good Dough? Podcast recently told PMQ. “I just remember feasting on all-you-can-eat pizza.”
Round Table Pizza has expanded its reach beyond the Bay Area over the years, recently climbing north of 400 locations. It ranked number 12 on PMQ’s recently released list of the Top 30 Pizza Chains in the U.S.
Related: Behind the Scenes at Square Pie Guys, the Little Brand With a Big-Time Innovation Engine
That means Round Table Pizza occupies an interesting space in the pizza segment. The brand is much bigger, and has more operational complexities, than an average mom-and-pop pizzeria or even a decent-size chain. At the same time, it’s a far cry from the Domino’s and Pizza Huts of the world, making it a bit more nimble in a lot of respects.
Take the brand’s menu development process, for example. Lisa Davidson, senior director of culinary innovation at Round Table Pizza, recently explained some of the challenges a brand of her size faces when it comes to designing limited-time offers (LTO)s and new menu items.
“As a larger chain, we have to be very flexible because with changing guests and new locations come different needs,” Davidson said. “You have to be very flexible and quick on your feet to come up with something new for those guests.”
At the same time, as Davidson explained, Round Table’s team has constraints, based on its supply chain, footprint and operational needs, that an independent pizzeria does not face. Here is a lightly edited Q&A with Davidson that illustrates what the innovation process of a 400-unit brand looks like.
PMQ: How does scheduling LTOs at Round Table Pizza work? Do you make a calendar as you head into the year where you schedule out all of your LTOs?
Davidson: We do, and we actually plan the LTOs depending upon the business’s needs. So it may change year-to-year just depending upon needs and what we intend to offer.
PMQ: When you say “needs,” do you mean like, if you need a little extra foot traffic, or if you’re seeing menu gaps?
Davidson: When we consider innovation, one of the strongest things we have to look at is what our guests need. We’re a 60-year-old brand, and, with that, we have multiple generations that love our brand. We have older, middle-aged and younger guests, and each of those demographics have different needs. And we have to consider all of them when we develop menu items.
Also, what comes with that is the economy and the state of the industry, too, right? Like everybody else, we have to take everything into consideration when we’re thinking of direction for innovation.
PMQ: So how does the calendar planning work? Do you have a playbook with, like, four pizzas for Q3, for example, and you end up rolling out the two that make the most sense as Q3 rolls around? Are there other things you’ve got in the holster just in case? How does it work?
Davidson: There are a lot of things in the holster that we can pull from, definitely. We’re always innovating and coming up with new pizzas whether they would actually be considered “innovative” or not. There’s always stuff to pull from, and whenever marketing has a need, we want to be able to have something we can put in play.
PMQ: Which departments are involved in the innovation process at Round Table Pizza?
Davidson: Oh, my gosh, everybody. Culinary, marketing, operations and supply chain. Those four business groups are kind of the main players in anything we do because whatever we do touches all four groups.
For us, marketing is the “what.” But you have to have culinary come up with ideas and get them moving, and we have to work closely with supply chain to make sure we can source key ingredients. And operations has to be involved because if it doesn’t work for the back of house, you’re not going to have success.
PMQ: From which department do innovation ideas typically originate?
Davidson: Ideas typically start either in marketing or culinary. But sometimes you do have operations say, ‘Hey, we’re seeing a need.’ You know, they’re closer to the guests and the managers. So if the managers are hearing that a lot of guests are requesting, say, a pizza with spicy cheese on it, they’ll provide that feedback, and we’ll go take it and see what we can do with it.
So it could truly start anywhere. Even [the] supply chain [team] sometimes has vendors that approach them and say, “Hey, we have this new ingredient. We’d like you to take a look at it and see if that could work for you.”
PMQ: As you know, we mostly cover independent pizzerias here at PMQ. I’m sure a lot of indie pizzeria operators can just decide on a special and slap it on the whiteboard and serve it that same day. What are some complexities you deal with as a 400-unit brand that make creating items more complex?
Davidson: Well, it’s a good question. We are a high-quality pizza company that has to appeal to everybody. The first thing we always want to do is maintain our quality, because that’s really important to us. And so we need to be able to find and source quality ingredients just as much as we need to be able to come up with a quality product idea.
Again, we already talked about how we have to understand our guests because our guests differ not just from generation to generation but from location to location. We have a really strong California presence, which means we have a really high concentration of stores with guests of different ethnicities. So as we grow, we’re looking at, kind of, blue sky global flavors. It’s not even the flavors themselves that are blue sky so much as it’s blue sky for us to be using global flavors at all. So adding those to the menu is something that we’re currently looking at to see if the need is there.
When you have a small independent [pizzeria], they can throw in a global flavor. It’s not going to hurt them because part of the appeal of these independents is that they have people who come and try it and want something different all of the time. When you have a brand that is a chain, a lot of people will go there because it’s comfort food. So, for example, everyone loves our King Arthur’s Supreme [pepperoni, Italian sausage, salami, linguica, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, black olives and zesty red sauce]. So if they come out to Round Table, a lot of the times that’s specifically what they’re coming for. They had it when they were 15, they had it when they were 25, and now they’re 35 and they want it when they come back.
So it’s a different mindset when you have something that’s a chain versus something that’s a single location. In fact, it’s funny, I was looking at [something] today… about [MOTO Pizza] in Seattle. Some of the things they’re doing are way, way out there. And I found it really interesting, but, for us, the other thing we have to worry about is that our pizza is a shareable item, right? So we have to ensure that when a pizza is ordered, when it goes out, whoever is ordering it, it’s going to appeal to not just them but to everyone who is eating with them. Some of these smaller pizzerias have smaller, more individual pizzas. We have pizzas that are large and extra large that you get when you’re having a party. So the 10-year-old has to like it, and the 25-year-old has to like it just as much as the 65-year-old has to like it.
It means we have to be a bit more cautious. We’re developing for the majority of eaters and not just niche eaters. As much as I love working with fun ingredients, we have to be very careful.
PMQ: I assume this is part of the reason you’re reading about indie pizzerias at all, but do you take inspiration from some of the things they or small chains are doing?
Davidson: Oh, of course. Definitely. They have the ability to go out there and be super creative. Larger companies have to look at what small independents are doing because it’s really exciting.
But one more thing I’ll say about us versus the independents is that it goes back to the supply chain conversation. They can bring in unique ingredients and not worry about the supply chain because it’s just one store [or a few stores] they have to worry about. We can’t do that because we have multiple distributors and you can’t always get a unique ingredient across all of them. So we’re limited in that sense.
And the other thing that [MOTO Pizza] is doing is a super crispy, cheesy crust on their Detroit-style pizza. We could never do that. They can manage certain operational complexities that [are more challenging] when you’re over 400 units.
PMQ: Do you ever feel limited by those parameters?
Davidson: I don’t. I like to bring in outside-of-the-box ideas just to talk about them, but I also understand the reasons why they may not work. But, honestly, I like to be challenged. And it’s more challenging to develop [menu items] for a 400-unit chain than it is for a small independent. You have to be much more creative and really strategic.
I like being given a challenge: “OK, we need a value play. I don’t want any new ingredients. Take anything you already have in the store and make me a new pizza our guests will love. It needs to drive sales and traffic.”
To me, that is way harder than saying, “Oh, I want to make this new hand-stretched pizza with stracciatella on it and some chili crisp or whatever combination.”
PMQ: Just as you look at independent pizzerias for inspiration, do you also look at the chains that are even bigger than you to see what they are doing?
Davidson: We look at everybody, including restaurants that are not pizza chains at all. For example, I just saw that Taco Bell has a Cheez-It cracker taco [the Big Cheez-It]. You really do look at everything.
You know, McDonald’s is taking their Big Mac and making it chicken. Now that’s something that might be a bit more our style: taking a beloved menu item and making one tweak to it. All McDonald’s did was remove the beef patty and put in a coated-chicken patty, right? That’s kind of brilliant and simple, I think.
That’s one of the main things that we do in our development. We look at our main products and wonder, what if we keep our traditional products but just add a small twist? Because that’s what really resonates with our guests.
PMQ: Thank you so much for your time, Lisa. Is there anything else you’d like to add, or maybe an upcoming LTO you’re excited about?
Davidson: Our current offering is something that has gone really well and we’re going to continue in Q1, which is shareable [appetizers]. That’s something we introduced that’s not necessarily innovative, but is really appealing to the majority of people. It’s mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers and Parmesan Idaho Potato Wedges. Those [types of menu items] have been around for years, but they fill a gap and a need and they’re doing really, really well for our stores.
And in the future, as I said, we’re going to continue researching global flavors. We’re always looking for that one new ingredient to provide a strong flavor.
