By Brian Hernandez
If you’ve ever worked a pizza line during a Friday-night rush, you know the soundtrack: tickets printing like machine-gun fire, ovens roaring like a jet engine…and the phone ringing nonstop. Now imagine Craig Allenbaugh and Deserai Satullo, owners of Sauced Wood Fired Pizza & Catering, standing in that chaos and calmly thinking, “What if we just…didn’t do phone orders anymore?”
That’s right. They pulled out all the phones at their shop in Fairview Park, Ohio, and they did it for the most relatable reason: labor problems. “Not only were we short-staffed,” Allenbaugh says, “but we were scheduling an employee just to answer the phone.”
The move wasn’t about being trendy or trying to force customers into the digital age against their will. It was simple survival math. If one person’s entire shift is phone duty, that’s one less person stretching dough, topping pies, running ovens or carrying out other essential tasks. So here’s how it works now at Sauced: When customers call the shop, they get an automated message politely directing them to the website, or they can just walk in and order the old-fashioned way…with their mouth and words. Crazy, I know.
And the wild part? Customers barely flinched. “The first week in, we honestly didn’t even notice a change,” Satullo says. “Only a few missed phone calls, then we noticed those same people placing the orders online.” Sure, a few walk-ins complained about not wanting to order online. That was expected. Every major cultural shift comes with at least one person yelling, “I don’t trust this!” But overall? “No major changes in our weekly sales,” Satullo says.
Allenbaugh and Satullo say the biggest benefit is obvious: They no longer need to staff someone just to answer the phone. And when they run tighter crews, everything flows better. “Things tend to run more smoothly when we have less people on a shift,” Allenbaugh noted.
Even better: Online ordering reduces mistakes. “The customer is ordering online…so we are seeing less employee-generated mistakes in the ordering process,” Allenbaugh added. In other words, if someone accidentally orders a pineapple-and-anchovy monstrosity now, it’s not on the staff. The customer has to accept they did that to themselves. That’s personal growth.
Fewer worries at the workplace also ensure that Allenbaugh and Satullo can get away for an adventure or two. For example, they headed off to Rimini, Italy, in late January to compete alongside fellow USPT members at SIGEP WORLD, one of the biggest foodservice expos on the planet. They competed in the Pizza Senza Frontiere—World Pizza Champion Games, organized by Ristorazione Italiana Magazine and hosted inside SIGEP WORLD’s Pizza Arena. It draws pizza pros from 30-plus countries across a ton of categories—everything from classic styles to modern creativity (including dessert pizza), all judged by a panel of industry experts. In other words, this wasn’t a casual trip to take selfies with the Trevi Fountain. This was high-level, international pizza combat.
For Satullo and Allenbaugh, the event turned out to be well worth their time, both as a learning experience and a personal triumph for Satullo; she took fourth place in the Pizza Fritta category—an impressive showing for a first-time competitor. “Overall, it was a good experience,” she said. “However, we were a little unprepared, with some unexpected challenges. No refrigeration, no provided utensils, no ice, but we made it work!
“This competition was way different than any other one we’ve done, from the way you need to pack to the way you’re judged and scored. What we learned and will know moving forward: Definitely over-prepare so you have all the things needed to compete. Do the research into where you’re going so you know what may and may not be available to you. Everywhere you go to compete is different. Never go in with the same expectations.”
Brian Hernandez is PMQ’s associate editor and coordinator of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team.
Postscript: Other U.S. Pizza Team members who competed in the Pizza Senza Frontiere-World Pizza Champion Games included:
- Team Captain Tore Trupiano and his son, Damiano Trupiano (Mangia e Bevi, Oceanside, California)
- Culinary Coach Vitangelo Recchia (Bella Napoli Pizzeria & Restaurant, Port Charlotte, Florida)
- Former Team Captain Michael LaMarca (Master Pizza, Mayfield Village, Ohio)
- Sean Dempsey (Dempsey’s Brewery Pub & Restaurant, Watertown, South Dakota)
- George and Patti Taylor (Taylors’ Pizza House, Endwell, New York)
- Giovanni Labbate (Tievoli Pizza Bar, Palatine, Illinois)
