By Charlie Pogacar
Tony Gemignani, the celebrated 13-time world pizza champion, is known globally for his mastery of pizza making. But, in recent years, he’s been navigating a different kind of challenge: turning Slice House by Tony Gemignani, his multi-style fast-casual concept, into a thriving franchise.
It’s been a steep learning curve for Gemignani, who told PMQ Pizza he was smart enough to know all the things he didn’t know about franchising. Instead, he sought out partners who had experience with the growth model and relied on their various areas of expertise.
Gemignani has long partnered with the likes of George Karpaty, Bill Ginsburg and Trevor Hewitt, and each plays an active role in Slice House. To get ready to scale the brand via franchising, however, the team brought on operations veterans like Tom Leeper, formerly of Baskins Robbins.
“You can [franchise] the cheap, easy and faster way,” Gemignani said. “Or you can [do it like us and] spend some money, talk to the right people and then start hiring the right people.”
That’s not to suggest Gemignani isn’t intimately involved in the venture—for him, the kitchen will always be home. He’s spent countless hours—and still does—simplifying the operation as best he can while also seeking to ensure a quality product as Slice House scales.
“The scariest part for me was the product being inconsistent,” Gemignani said on the latest episode of Peel: A PMQ Pizza Podcast. “I’m a [big] critic, and I’m really hands-on—it’s hard for me to be hands-off.”
Slice House Origins
It’s been over three decades since Gemignani first worked in a pizzeria, and 16 years since he opened Tony’s Pizza Napoletana—the iconic pizzeria located in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco and consistently ranked as one of the best in the world. As Gemignani’s legend in the industry grew, so, too, did his portfolio of restaurants.
In 2010, a deli next door to Tony’s Pizza shut down, and the space opened up for a new venture. Gemignani leapt at the opportunity to add a slice shop next to his already bustling full-service pizzeria. A year later, Gemignani, Hewitt and Karpaty opened the first Pizza Rock location in Sacramento (Pizza Rock now has three locations, all of which are located in Nevada). In 2012, Gemignani and company opened Capo’s by Tony Gemignani, a pan-pizza restaurant just blocks away from the original Tony’s Pizza location.
When the pandemic hit, it tested the notion that pizza is recession-proof. It also got Gemignani and his team thinking about which of their concepts could be the most resilient and efficient to grow via franchising. Slice House was the obvious choice.
“If you look at Tony’s, it has all of these pizza styles and all of these ovens,” Gemignani said. “That morphed into my restaurant, Pizza Rock—all of these ovens, all these styles, all of these dough recipes. Slice House was [the answer to the questions]: How do we get several styles with just one oven? How do we get it down to just one dough recipe? How do we do Detroit, Grandma, Sicilian and New York [styles] all out of one concept?”
Related: This $5 Million Pizza Shop’s Secret Weapon: a Vlog
New Territory
For Gemignani, transitioning to the world of franchising meant more than tweaking recipes and paring down ovens. The venture required an entirely new mindset—one that went beyond the scope of what he’d learned as an independent restaurateur and operator.
“It’s not just the business, it’s everything else, too,” Gemignani said. “It’s the franchise law, and there’s a lot behind that to understand—what you can say, what you can’t say, what you can do.”
To navigate the foreign landscape, Gemignani leaned on his growing leadership team. In addition to Leeper, who brought large-scale operational experience, Gemignani emphasized the need to establish systems, infrastructure and layers of leadership. “You just can’t do it all on your own—just like an independent guy,” he said. “It’s the same thing in the franchise world.”
And then there was the matter of figuring out how to ensure franchisees were all rowing in the same direction. To establish brand-wide consistency—in stores operated by entirely different groups of people, states away from one another—Slice House developed a multi-week training process, including two to four weeks of hands-on experience at flagship locations and new stores. The brand also invested in technology-forward training materials. “We’ve been working with a couple other companies just trying to be able to troubleshoot a little bit more… more of a reference point,” he said.
One major emphasis has been simplifying the concept without sacrificing quality. “We still are a pretty strong scratch house, but I have simplified things more,” Gemignani said. One example: a custom-designed sliced sausage that saves more than an hour of labor each day.
Still, maintaining product consistency is an ongoing battle. To address that, Gemignani worked to identify the top challenges operators faced—such as dough stretching and managing par-baked crusts—and implemented systems to train around them.
Growth and Guardrails
As Slice House continues to grow—there are now more than 25 locations—Gemignani has kept a deliberate pace. The newest location, the brand’s easternmost, just opened in Franklin, Tennessee. That partnership, Gemignani said, is an example of the way Slice House goes about finding and vetting its franchisees.
“It’s all about the franchisee and who you meet,” Gemignani said. The Tennessee group came with deep operational experience and local roots. “They knew the brand, they knew the area, they had family [in San Francisco]. So far, it’s one of our top Slice Houses actually. It does really well.”
Gemignani emphasized how picky he and his team are when it comes to selecting franchisees. This goes back to his belief that you can franchise the easy way, or you can be as intentional as possible in growing the brand. “We’ve said no more than we’ve said yes, for sure, 100%,” Gemignani said. “We want to make sure the franchisee understands that this is not easy—it’s hard [compared to other franchise businesses].”
Before deals are finalized, Gemignani and his team vet candidates rigorously. The process involves Zoom interviews, credit and background checks, site visits and culture checks. “It’s like a first date,” he said. “Then we go on another date.”
What matters most to Gemignani is alignment with the brand’s culture and commitment to quality. He lists some aspects of running a Slice House that might intimidate the average franchisee: “You’re going to be making dough from scratch—this is a starter. [I’m] going to teach you how to make it. You’re going to have 38 minimum hires—this many front of the house, this many back of the house.”
The Long View
Long before Gemignani began franchising, he achieved mythical status in the industry. Not only is he a 13-time pizza world champion, he’s also a published author, and Tony’s Pizza Napoletana is known throughout the industry as a trailblazing institution that sits near the top of virtually any list ranking the best pizza restaurants in the world.
But Gemignani is quick to remind other pizza makers how long it took to build everything he has. “I always tell people that I’ve lost more than I’ve won,” Gemignani said. “People say, ‘Oh, he’s this 13-time champion.’ I’m like, yeah, but do you know how many times I competed? They don’t see the losses.”
Adversity, Gemignani might say, is where growth happens. And that mindset is helping him blaze yet another new trail in the pizza community.
“Every road takes time,” Gemignani said. “You always want it now, and I had to learn that [to get to where you want to go] you have to learn how to do it the right way.”
To listen to the full podcast featuring Gemignani, check out one of the following links:
