In our Aloha blog we mentioned the companywide contest we hold to sharpen our managers and crew. While the winning General Managers were whisked away to Maui and the Associate Managers flown to San Francisco (blog coming soon), the crew for the winning location is rewarded as well. This year our Ballinger location took top honors and we took them out for a little celebrating. We gave everyone a paid day off and staffed the store with crewmembers from other locations as well as our operations team. The Ballinger crew was tasked with deciding how they wanted to celebrate. We started the outing with a barbecue at Terrace Creek Park. General Manager Brian Youngdahl set up a barbecue feast and crewmembers Kayley Gordon, Katy Rice and Molly Wakenshaw showed us that they could bake pies other than pizza pies. They were fabulous! We enjoyed some Frisbee golf, ladder ball and corn hole (supplied by former GM Tyrone Fabroa) before heading off to bowl a couple games. It was great weather for a barbecue and a fun time overall. I have a lot of appreciation for the Ballinger crew for being such a solid team. Thanks for all of your hard work!

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Nearly everyone in the Pacific Northwest is privy to wild blackberries. They grow on the side of roads and up hillsides begging to be picked during the late summer months. A few years ago, we got to thinking about featuring them on our menu as a sorbet. What better way to savor the last weeks of the summer than with a scoop of refreshing blackberry sorbet made from local berries?

We asked Maria at Gelatiamo to develop the sorbet to accentuate these flavors. Hesitant at first to stray from traditional Italian gelato flavors, she gave it a try. It turned out fantastic and the sorbet was a huge hit! The berries Gelatiamo uses are locally grown by the Sakuma Brothers in Burlington. They are delicious and produce a perfectly rich dairy-free sorbet.

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The year was 1985. Coca-Cola released New Coke. Back To The Future was the highest grossing film of the year. Wreckage from the Titanic was discovered. Microsoft released the first version of Windows. And our most tenured crewmember, Alan Lehman began working at Pagliacci.

When Alan first submitted his application to become a dishwasher at the Broadway Pizzeria, he never realized Pagliacci was a place he’d call home for a quarter of a century. After spending 11 years at the Capitol Hill location, he transferred over to the Commissary and has a hand in consistently creating a key component to everyone’s Pagliacci experience – the dough. Alan’s mild manner and humble smile are a staple at the Commissary and our dough making operation.

So what do you get a guy to celebrate such an amazing milestone? We surprised Alan with a MacBook and printer along with a plaque and cake. His new tools will come in handy to keep up his passion for creating art, photography and music. We expect he’ll only break long enough to keep up with all of the Seattle sports teams – M’s, Storm, Hawks and Huskies. Congratulations Alan!

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From time-to-time we hold a contest between all of our stores. This helps to keep us sharp and gives crew and managers something to focus on.

This year we pushed on crew development as well as product quality, resulting in one of our most competitive contests to date.

With such a tight race, Ballinger Way’s victory was sweet. Their win earns a party for their crew. While they get an extra vacation day to go have fun, the operations staff will take over their store making sure pizzas get out to Shoreline’s hungry customers.

Managers from the top performing stores get a reward too – a vacation with their peers. It’s a good thing they all get along so well! Recently the General Managers from the top four stores (Ballinger, Edmonds, Sand Point and Magnolia) all went to Hawaii for a little fun in the sun and surf.

The group enjoyed some amazing snorkeling (yes, we saw sea turtles!), surfing lessons and a scenic drive around Maui.

Dinners were mixed between Hawaiian fare and barbequing fish and octopi caught on snorkeling/spear fishing excursions.

All of us who went had a great time hanging out with each other and weren’t even bothered when our flight to Seattle was cancelled and we had to stay an extra day!

Next up, the winning Associate Managers trek down to San Francisco to spend some time by the Bay. They’ll be flying off in a few short weeks. Check back to see how their trip went.

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Over the past year or two it seems like our crew has gone pet crazy. Person after person after person has mentioned getting a new pet. So we decided to focus on that phenomenon in our summer newsletter, making it a pet issue.

Sometimes the greatest challenge for our newsletter is determining which of our wonderful crewmembers to feature.  If we are looking for crew with particular talents and interests, I usually put out a call to managers to help me find the right people. Sometimes the list falls short of the usually 10 slots I’m trying to fill. That wasn’t the case for this issue. Plenty of people volunteered themselves and their pets. But we were only able to shine the spotlight on a few.

We hope you enjoy our latest newsletter, which can be read here.

 
 
 

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It’s been a while since we’ve participated in summer festivals. Our involvement came to a screeching halt when our mobile oven gave out on us a few years ago. The only exception being West Seattle Summer Fest. Since the event takes place right outside our doors, we didn’t need a mobile oven. We just set up a booth right outside our door and used our normal ovens.

This year we bought a new double deck oven and put it on wheels. We took it for a test drive at the West Seattle event last weekend, knowing we could always fall back on our full set of ovens in the kitchen.

It was a smooth ride. Now we’re ready to take it on it’s first solo road trip to the Bellevue Arts Fair on July 23-25. Hope to see you there!

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Every 4th of July we take an oath to turn off the pizza ovens and celebrate our country’s independence along with everyone else. After all, everyone is firing up the grill. No one wants pizza. So we take advantage of our day off by throwing our annual company picnic. And no…we don’t serve pizza. We fire up a grill (or two…or three), just like everyone else.

While the weather was nothing like what we’ve experienced the rest of this week, we faced the cooler temps at Golden Gardens, grilled a bunch of proteins and put on our annual Pizzalympic games.

Who folds the fastest box in all of Pagliacci? Emory Liu from Miller Delivery Kitchen. Who tossed the fastest 17” pizza? Adrian Aramburu from Bellevue Pizzeria. Who tossed the biggest dough in 45 seconds? Brady Madsen from 85th Street. What location rocked the teamwork in our crazy relay race? Ballinger Way Delivery Kitchen. What location muscled their way to tug-of-war champs? Lake City Way pulled out the win and will reign supreme until next year.

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We consider our seasonal pizzas our babies.  As such, their start dates can be just as much of a moving target as due dates.  We always hope to begin delivering seasonal pizzas by a certain calendar date, but sometimes Mother Nature has her own plans.  We recently experienced this with Walla Walla Sweet Onions.

This cool summer weather foiled our plans to start our popular Crostata when we wanted to.  Despite valiant efforts on the part of the grower, Walla Walla Gardeners, the famous onion just wasn’t ready to come out of the ground.

While waiting for them we tried those old wives tales to induce delivery.  Caster oil.  Herbs.  Walking a lot.  Nothing worked.  We had to patiently wait for the onions to arrive in their own sweet time.  When they finally did arrive, we pulled out our “It’s a Walla Walla” cigars and rejoiced.

While we’re up and running with the Crostata now, our experience reminds us that our seasonal pizza start dates are at the mercy of the crop we are trying to promote.  And much to the dismay of customers and crew, our seasonal start dates must continue to be vague.

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We’ve been a fan of Peppadew Piquante Peppers for years and often talked about topping our pies with them.  When we combined them with Salumi’s rosmarino salami on our Salame Picante, we knew we had something pretty special.  The sweet heat of the pepper paired perfectly with the rosemary-seasoned salami.

So what’s the World Cup got to do with Peppadews?  Since World Cup is hosted in South Africa, it felt natural to offer up the sweet yet spicy South African pepper as a free topping.  That’s right, these culinary treasures are proud to be South African and rooting for a victory from their team!  We’d like to see a strong showing from them too.  And while our loyalty is to USA, we’re also rooting for Italy… and Mexico… and Spain… and Brazil…

Fortunately, the World Cup games are not interfering with our nighttime business.  With so many soccer fans within the Pagliacci ranks, we would face major challenges filling our shifts due to World Cup conflicts.

The story of Peppadew International is interesting.  Just as we aim to support our local community whenever possible, Peppadew International works in South African communities that are disadvantaged.  They’ve created more than 4,800 agricultural jobs in their country and work with farmers to develop their land.

To learn more about them, visit peppadew.com.

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While we welcome long rain streaks that are great for the pizza business, the flip side is availability of quality local products.  This recent cold wet weather has impacted the asparagus crop.  We usually receive all of our asparagus supply from our friends at Kinsey Farms in Sunnyside, Washington.  Due to this unexpected cool, wet weather, there’s been a shortage of the pencil size asparagus we like to use on our pies and we’ve been supplementing with asparagus from a number of growers this season.

In addition to impacting the asparagus crop, the weather is also taking a toll on Walla Walla Sweet Onions.  We plan to begin our popular Crostata next Thursday and are unsure the first crop of Walla Walla Sweets will arrive in time.   Don’t worry Crostata lovers, we won’t short the run of the pie.  We love caramelized onions and gorgonzola as much as you do.  We just have to work our seasonal calendar around Mother Nature.

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