For today's #TinaTuesday, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Kevin Suto, President & CFO of Zachary's Chicago Pizza. Now, if this #TinaTuesday doesn't make you hungry for Pizza, then I've lost my touch.
First off, let me give you a little background on when and how Zachary's was started. Zach Zachowski (hence the name "Zachary's, as I'm sure you already caught that ;-)) and Barbara Gabel opened Zachary's in 1983. They spent several years in Chicago and in that time developed a love for Chicago style "deep dish" pizza. In 1983, they found themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area with the dream of opening their own Chicago pizza restaurant with a California twist. The search for a location began. In their search, they came across a funky little lampshade shop in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland. As luck would have it, the lampshade shop owner was ready to retire, and soon a vision became reality. After much planning and a lot of jack-hammering, Zachary's on College opened its doors for business on July 25, 1983. With the motto "We don't want to be the biggest, we want to be the best," business took off immediately and soon the 900 square foot restaurant with only 30 seats was simply too small. Just over a year later, Zach and Barbara opened a second restaurant on Solano Avenue in nearby Berkeley to meet the growing demand. In 2003, after 20 successful years in the pizza business, Zach and Barbara decided it was time to retire. Instead of selling the company to a third party buyer, they decided to sell the company to their dedicated and experienced crew via an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). Not only did this decision reward long-term Zachary's employees, but it helped to preserve the founders' vision and maintain the Zachary's culture going forward. Together with Zach and Barbara, the employee owners opened Zachary's San Ramon in September of 2006. Zachary's reached a significant milestone when they became 100% employee owned in 2010. 2013 was also a year of milestones for Zachary's. They opened Zachary's Pleasant Hill in February, and celebrated their 30th anniversary in July. They have now won over 175 (and climbing) Best Pizza
awards.
Oh, one more thing...during the month of January, if you mention #TinaTuesday when placing your order at the Pleasant Hill Zachary's, you will get a discount of 15% off of your order of one full pizza (excluding personal pizzas). Now that's some serious dough! Thank you Kevin, for taking the time to fill me in on all the great "stuff" (haha) about Zachary's. If you'd like to know more about Zachary's, visit their webpage
http://zacharys.com or Facebook page
#Zacharyspizzapleasanthill.
I truly have so much fun getting the back story on our local businesses. Now it's time for lunch!! :-)