Pizza Today - February 2017 - 69

Keynote / Michael Lastoria / Wednesday, March 29 / 8:15 a.m.

&insights From the Man Who Founded &pizza
Our Wednesday morning keynote
speaker, Michael Lastoria, wasn't afraid
to break some assumed rules of the business while launching and growing the
&pizza chain, which currently has
20 company-owned stores in and around
Washington, D.C. Thanks to a recent
infusion of $25 million of growth capital,
his unique fast-casual concept now is
poised to enter other major markets,
including New York City. We posed a few
questions to Lastoria about his approach
to business and branding.
Pizza Expo: It appears you started
your career in marketing and later
founded creative agencies in New
York. How did you get from branding
and media campaigns to sausage and
pepperoni?
Michael Lastoria: It wasn't so much
a jump from marketing to pizza as
it was a jump from branding others
to building my own brand. I began
my career building brand-first businesses, and eventually I decided to
stop launching others and just start my
own. &pizza is essentially the manifestation of everything I've learned - by
way of success and failure - in my
years marketing other businesses.
PE: You've said that there is a "ton
of value in inexperience." How did
you use your newness to the pizzeria
industry to advantage while launching
&pizza?
ML: Industries have patterns. They
have rules. They have norms and
standard-bearers. As a newcomer, I
was looking at the industry with
untrained eyes. That meant I could
break the rules without even knowing I was doing something that went

against the grain. Of course, that was
ML: As long as we stay true to our foundthe goal, but it helps to play the card of ing pillars, there's no ceiling on how big we
naiveté when some of the bigger guys can be.
start challenging the way you're changing things.
PE: What should Pizza Expo attendees
who come to your keynote expect to hear that
PE: How did you settle on fast
might impact their thinking about their own
casual versus other concepts? And why businesses?
make it such a point to locate in secML: Not a whole lot about pizza.
ond- or third-choice neighborhoods?
ML: In launching my business, I
didn't 'settle' on any single decision. It
wasn't something I fell into. I studied
the marketplace and the opportunities, and saw a big one. Regarding our
locations, we don't see them as 'second
or third choice' neighborhoods. That's
one of the industry standards that we
don't subscribe to. Everybody eats. And
in our mind, eating should be a shared
experience, something that brings us
together, something that communities can point to and say, 'That's us.'
We built our business in places where
we saw strong senses of community. It
wasn't about income brackets or 'desirability.' We want to build &pizza into
a symbol of something, and to do that,
we have to serve, reflect and augment
community.
PE: So you walk into a financing
meeting with banker types in your
leather vest and ampersand T-shirt.
How do you keep them from leaving
early for the golf course?
ML: &pizza has built a recognizable, strong brand, and with it a thriving business. It doesn't matter what I
wear when I explain that.
PE: Is there a perfect company size
for &pizza - a perfect number of
stores and employees?

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Pizza Today - February 2017

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