Pizza Today - November 2021 - 16

BUILDING BLOCKS N I C K B OG A C Z
him as such, I confi ded in him and
picked his No. 1 - or, my
No. 2 - to be the AM.
At that time, I was already paying
all the keyholders diff erently than
each other based on skill sets, so pay
raises weren't as necessary as titles
that showed proper respect for their
roles. We outlined specifi c duties and
explained the " pecking order " in clear
terms, and everyone was pleased.
Who's Next?
We still required two more manIdentifying
and Growing Your
Management Team
Y
ou probably know the phrase,
" You're only as good as the
people around you. " Th at's
because it's true. I surround myself with
great managers in all my pizzerias.
In the next couple of editions of
Building Blocks, we'll examine the
types of managers, supervisors and shift
leaders any pizza shop needs to succeed.
We can start with the steps I took
in building my fi rst team.
Keyholders
In the beginning, when I opened
my fi rst restaurant, we gave a key to
anyone trustworthy, just so we could
get a break from the strenuous work
of operating the shop. Soon, I found
myself with about fi ve great employees,
or " keyholders. "
Granted, their skills varied, and some
were better at the job than others,
but the biggest problem was no one
knew who was really in charge after
myself, which led to some confusion
and infi ghting. To add some structure,
I needed to create job titles and actual
positions.
GM and AM
Up fi rst: Who was my number one,
or the employee who outranks everyone
but me? I felt it was important to
name this person the General Manager
(GM), because I had worked at
a pizzeria where the owner was the
GM, and for years I was the Assistant
Manager (AM), despite essentially
doing the work of a GM. I eventually
left for another shop where I could get
the title of GM. (If that owner would
have put his ego aside and named
me GM, my pizza journey would
have been much diff erent.) My most
talented and trusted employee was the
natural choice for GM, so after naming
agement positions. Looking at the
store's hours, we were open about
120 hours per week. So even if the
GM and AM were putting in a
50-hour workweek, there remained
shifts that needed a manager. Th e
rank-and-fi le staff had to know who
was in charge during these periods.
So, I named a Kitchen Manager
and a Shift Leader. Both are considered
management-level positions,
even if the Shift Leader is lower on
the organizational chart - and the
word " manager " is left out of the title
intentionally. Normally, the Shift
Leader is a younger, but responsible
and promising, team member who
can open or close the store on their
own yet has other commitments like
school or sports. Meanwhile, the
Kitchen Manager position is reserved
for someone who is all-in, committed
to the success of the store and has
future AM or GM potential.
With my management team in
place and the restaurant growing, the
next step was to defi ne roles more
clearly, beyond just a conversation. It
was time to clearly write job descriptions
- and that's what we'll tackle
in the next Building Blocks.
NICK BOGACZ is the founder and president of Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Pittsburgh. Instagram: @caliente_pizza
16 / PIZZATODAY.COM / NOVEMBER 2021

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Pizza Today - November 2021

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