By Charlie Pogacar
By his own admission, Scott Anthony didn’t know much about the business of pizza when he opened Punxsy Pizza in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in 1994. How things have changed: The pizzaiolo was an early adopter of digital marketing, a skill that has positioned him as a thought leader in the pizza space.
Anthony published a book, Profits in the Pie, in 2011 and hasn’t slowed down since. He’s become a digital marketing consultant and has become a regularly featured speaker at the International Pizza Expo each March.
At this year’s Pizza Tomorrow Summit in Orlando, Scott was helping spread the word about Chefs Feeding Kids, a nonprofit initiative that teaches children how to cook, eat well and understand where their food comes from. Earlier in the year, he hosted a class of his own—one that didn’t go quite as planned but turned into something magical all the same.
Related: After Expanding to Three Days, Pizza Tomorrow Summit Boasts Record Attendance
PMQ Pizza’s Charlie Pogacar sat down at the show to talk about that experience, his approach to marketing, the quirks of the Punxsutawney pizza scene and why Groundhog Day remains his pizzeria’s biggest day of his year. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity—the full interview can be viewed on the PMQ Pizza YouTube channel.
PMQ: Tell me about Chefs Feeding Kids, your role in the organization, and why you’re here.
Scott Anthony: I think Chefs Feeding Kids is a cool concept because it’s something you can do right in your own community with people you know—your customers or even new people who are just getting interested in pizza. It’s all about teaching kids how to eat right, eat healthy and showing them how to make a meal instead of calling McDonald’s or getting on an app and ordering fast food. You want those healthy eating habits. You want to raise your own kids that way.
When I found out about the program and how it worked, I hesitated on how I was going to pull it off. But since we’re closed Mondays, I thought that would be a great opportunity. The kids could come in and take over the store, and I wouldn’t have to worry about the phone ringing or dealing with customers. So I picked a Monday, lined it up with Chefs Feeding Kids and they set up a webpage for people to sign up.
I planned for 12 to 15 kids. Then the counter on the website broke, and instead of 12 or 15, I ended up with 40 kids—and my two sous chefs canceled. I was a little freaked out. I had made a batch of easily digestible dough with Caputo flour so the kids could see the difference—you don’t feel bloated or like you need a nap after eating it. But with the extra kids, I had to pull dough from my other style, and I got some of the moms to help.
They were great. While I did the extra prep, I put on a video from a YouTube cooking show I’d just filmed. The moms brought me five or six kids at a time. We made a little assembly line: push out the dough, add the sauce and cheese, put on whatever toppings they wanted, and then we’d run it through the conveyor oven. I was running back and forth between helping them stretch the dough and making sure pizzas weren’t burning in the oven.
Honestly, I thought people were going to be mad that it was taking so long or that they weren’t getting special attention. Instead of an hour, it took about 90 minutes. But the people were great. The kids loved it. They were showing off their pizzas. The moms thanked me and asked me to do another class. It was wonderful to give back to the community. And they were there not just for free pizza—they really wanted to learn. At the end, we gave them all certificates, and Chefs Feeding Kids sent them swag. It was a great experience.
Here at the [Pizza Tomorrow Summit], they asked me to help them at the booth, and it’s been great telling people about my experience and how they can do something similar in their communities.
PMQ: Is this your first Pizza Tomorrow Summit?
Anthony: It is. I go to a lot of shows, and a lot of the time I’m really busy at them with different jobs, so I don’t get to see the floor. I wanted to come somewhere where I wasn’t going to have a whole lot of responsibility so I could walk the floor and learn something for my store.
I’ve been watching the show on social media for a couple of years, and a lot of my friends come down here every year. I’m pretty impressed. It’s a nice show with a lot of qualified buyers, and the vendors have been really nice and easy to talk to one-on-one.
PMQ: Your bio calls you a marketing guru. What does that mean, and how did you get there? How does that part of your brain work?
Anthony: When I first got into the industry, I didn’t know anything about it. I knew some business principles, but I didn’t know how to market myself. And I was in a town with four times the amount of pizzerias per capita, so it was tough. I started reading PMQ Pizza…and other foodservice magazines, looking for ideas. I tried a lot of trial and error.
Around 1999, I started attending trade shows and learning more. I tried hard to be a leader in my community. It’s a small town, and we’re not always the first to embrace technology. But my big break was through email marketing. I set up a program where if you went to our website and signed up for our newsletter, you’d get a bounce-back coupon for an anniversary promotion—like $2 for a medium pizza. Everybody wanted the coupon.
I was one of the first in the country to have a really successful email marketing campaign and to build a database. Then I started coming up with creative ideas to promote my business. Other people saw what I was doing, and we’d tweak those ideas to fit their businesses and demographics. That led to speaking engagements and consulting opportunities. I tried to stay on top of my field and measure return on investment.
Eventually, I was getting so many calls that I couldn’t spend all my time helping people one-on-one, so I wrote a book [Profits in the Pie]. Consulting is great, and I love helping people, but people usually come to you when they’re down to their last penny. A book let me share it all in one place and made it easier on both sides.
PMQ: You mentioned Punxsutawney has a unique pizza scene. What’s it like?
Anthony: There’s pizza in Punxsutawney that is truly Punxsutawney pizza—what people grew up on. It’s not like my pizza, and you wouldn’t bring it to a competition and expect to win. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. People like it, and you want to serve what your customers want to eat. Sweet sauce is popular. Cheddar cheese on pizza is popular. There are a lot of different styles, and only two franchises in town.
In the last 10 years, I’ve tried to up my game and educate the town on what pizza is meant to be. I’ve gone to Italy, taken classes with the International School of Pizza and we host dinners with really authentic Italian pizzas. We usually pair with others in the community—local cider makers, microbreweries. We teach people about San Marzano tomatoes, why certain cheeses are better, how aging affects Parmesan, and the importance of digestibility.
Americans think of beer and pizza, but in Italy it’s wine and pizza. When you pair beer and pizza, your stomach bloats with all the yeast. We try to show people that less can be more, and you can really enjoy and taste all the flavors.
PMQ: Last question: What’s your busiest day of the year?
Anthony: Usually it’s Groundhog Day. This past Groundhog Day in 2025, we had 52,000 people come into our town of 5,000. It was the busiest day I’ve ever had. It grows a little every year, [especially] when it lands on a weekend. People come from all over the world. We don’t have the infrastructure for crowds like that, but people don’t mind waiting. They think it’s great to be in a small town. The prices are cheap, they’re buying like crazy, tipping like crazy, and everyone’s having a good time.
At my place, everything on tap is local—local breweries and cider. We carry the other beers, too, for out-of-towners, but we want to give people a taste of Punxsutawney. Normally we’re about 12% dine-in, but that weekend we were like 90% dine-in. It totally flipped. We washed dishes constantly and even went down to paper plates a few times. It was super busy and super loud, but the people were awesome.
Charlie Pogacar is PMQ’s senior editor.
