Tim Ihlenfeld takes the lead in the final round.

As we do every year we culled our stores for the best cooks and had them compete to see who truly is the best of the best at Pagliacci. Each store nominated one cook to compete for the title. We judged based on a balance between speed and quality, since we train our crew to get customers’ pizzas to them as fast as we can without sacrificing quality.

We held preliminary rounds at four of our delivery kitchens to whittle down to the Final Four. The competition got progressively stiffer over the four days. Brandon Smokey of Juanita led after the first and second day, though his lead got smaller and smaller. On the third day, however, cooks started tossing beauties increasingly faster and ended with Ross Yeilding from Lake City Way in first place. Ross’ 30-second effort ended up being the second fastest of the tournament and earned him a spot in the final. Tim Ihlenfeld from Broadway tossed a 27-second pizza that also saw him through to the final.

Ross and Tim were joined by Sam Becker from Stone Way and Mikael Croy from Sand Point. We held the final at our Miller Delivery Kitchen and packed it with crew and managers, cheering and heckling. In the end, Tim showed that tenure counts and posted both the fastest time and best score on quality. Sam, Ross, and Mikael all finished within one point of each other and placed second, third, and fourth overall respectively. All ended up with a little extra dough for their efforts, and Tim won Broadway a dinner of Kalua pork cooked by Miller Associate Manager Don Villegas, a Hawaii native.

This past Saturday we held the finals for our annual March Madness contest at the Bridle Trails Delivery Kitchen. It was a battle between some experienced tossers – the least tenured competitor has been with Pagliacci for over 2 years. The Final Four were all competing for pride, cash, and dinner for their entire store (and, no, it’s not pizza).

Quinn Ressler from Crossroads, Hugo Uitzil-Tun from Juanita, Marlene Tun-Gil from Bellevue Square, and Jon Obrycki from 85^th were this year’s finalists. All have participated in March Madness before but were first-time finalists. Prior to competition Bridle’s lobby began to fill up with spectators ready to cheer and jeer. Juanita was the best represented out of the stores but Crossroads had the edge on props.

All of the competitors tossed out very fast pizzas – the fastest was 31 seconds and the “slowest” was 38 seconds. That means each of these crewmembers can turn a dough ball into a large cheese pizza in just over half-a-minute!

We tallied all the seconds and graded all of the pizzas. We know our customers have high standards so we grade hard. We look at size, even cuts, color of bake – top and bottom, spread of sauce and cheese, crust appearance, and a handful of other criteria.

Quinn had the fastest pizza, but once they were all out of the oven it looked like a race between Hugo and his aunt Marlene. In the end, Marlene proved that Pagliacci and family seniority counted for something. She earns the title of Best Cook in Pagliacci 2012 and gets to defend her crown next year.

Thanks to all the stores for coming out and congrats to Jon, Quinn, Hugo, and especially Marlene for busting it out and proving to be the best of the best!

This weekend hordes of people ventured out to watch tributes battle in a match that would see only one winner emerge victorious and return home a hero to many. Pagliacci was not exempt from this phenomenon either. No, we didn’t take our pizza people to see The Hunger Games. This weekend saw our annual Best Cook Competion kick off with a slight twist.

Instead of the 64-person bracket, we asked each store to nominate a tribute, er, competitor to represent their district, I mean store. We told the managers they aren’t eligible to compete and let the best of our crew duke it out for the title of Best Cook in Pagliacci.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the difference between Pagliacci’s 2012 March Madness and The Hunger Games:

Our first weekend had tossing competitions at our Bridle Trails and Miller Street Delivery Kitchens. The Eastside fully embraced the competition. Miriam “Cinna” Woodruff not only competed but she designed shirts for herself and each member of her entourage. Our Crossroads Delivery Kitchen is the closest thing we have to District 1 – chock full of professional tributes. Crossroads has put at least one person in the Final Four every year of the competition so expectations were weighty on Quinn “Cato” Ressler. For better-or-worse, he brought along GM Paul “Haymitch Abernathy” Williams – a former March Madness winner. Paul could show Quinn the way to win, but it would be a lot for Quinn to let down a former champion who hand selected him. Other participants included an aunt/nephew battle between Hugo Uitzil-Tun (Juanita) and Marlene Tun-Gil (Bellevue), a returning competitor from last year’s Final Four – Zach Lindner (Main Street), and Elliot “Thresh” Jensen (Edmonds) – the most physically imposing competitor.

The competition rewards a combination of speed and quality and the times were fast. Most competitors got a cheese pizza tossed, sauced, topped, and launched in 33-38 seconds. Hugo posted what would be the fastest time of the weekend with a 28-second effort. Once the final tally came in, however, Hugo found himself just 1 point behind Quinn and just ahead of his aunt, Marlene. Those three had to wait to see what the Seattle stores would do at Miller.

The expectations at Miller were that the busy Seattle stores would beat up on the outlying Eastside stores. Some of our busiest locations are in Seattle and the crew have had plenty of reps to hone their craft. Sam Snyder had home-store advantage. Camilo Lucatero (West Seattle) started for us in 1997. Mikael Croy (Sand Point Way) continued to be the best dressed competitor, rocking a dress shirt and vest that complemented his Mohawk. Also in the field was Jon Obrycki from our busy 85^th Street Delivery Kitchen.

Pre-match expectations don’t always bear out and that was the case with Sunday’s competition. Nerves might have been higher as times were higher. With each grading it looked like all of the Eastside’s scores would hold up. In the end, Jon Obrycki was able to edge his way into the Final Four.

This Saturday afternoon at Bridle Trails the Final Four (Quinn Ressler, Hugo Uitzil-Tun, Marlene Tun-Gil, Jon Obrycki) will be lured to the Cornucopia, I mean toss table, to see who will be the best cook in all of Pagliacci.

And the winner is...
Mike Baxley from 145th St

AM Sam Kosola of Juanita followed with a 34-second beauty, followed by Octopus leg-wielding Crossroads Shift Leader Scott Heikkinen who one-upped Baxley with a 30-second effort. Core Crewmember Zach Lindner of Main Street matched the 34-second cheese and waited for the quality grading.

One point separated 3rd from 4th and 1st from 2nd. Mike Baxley eked out the win, beating Sam by 1 point – if Sam’s pizza had been ¼” bigger he would have won the tiebreaker. Scott took third place under the same circumstances. A big thanks to all the competitors whose commitment to speed and quality help set us apart. And congratulations to Baxley!

On Saturday the second group of tossers came to Lake City Way to try and earn a berth into the finals. With a cumulative scoring system the competitors knew just how low they had to go. Perhaps jangled by nerves most of the tossers put a hole in their dough – a significant drag on time and quality scoring. Given the scores posted by the first group, most competitors were eliminated before their pie came out of the oven. (A note on scoring: like golf, the object is to go low. A point is added per second used making the pizza and points are added for quality flaws such as cheese distribution, crust appearance and quality of bake.)

102 was the score to beat in order to sneak into the top 4 and West Seattle AM Chris Bunger matched that – meaning that it could well come down to a quality tiebreaker to see who advanced to the finals. With most eliminated there was one tosser with a chance to beat 102. Shift Leader Scott Heikkinen of Crossroads had posted a score of 55 on his first day of competition. With a 34 second pizza he could afford 12 points on quality to move on. In true Crossroads spirit he did one better. His 11 on quality gave Scott an even 100 earning his spot in the Final 4.

Moving on are GM Mike Baxley (145th), AM Sam Kosola (Juanita), Core Crew Zach Lindner (Main Street) and Shift Leader Scott Heikkinen (Crossroads). Each kitchen position is represented and Crossroads has a participant in the Final 4 for the third consecutive year – better than any other store. Last year’s champ, GM Paul Williams, feels vindicated for stepping aside for his crew and will be rooting for Scott. Look for the crowd to be behind Zach – the David looking to knock off all the managers and prove that cooks from our new store have skills too.

Main Street's Zach
Linder represents.

With first round scores already established some strategizing is necessary. It can be an advantage for the best scorers knowing whether they can take their time. It turns out the leaders weren’t much for strategy as the top 3 scorers were the first to go.

Sam Kosola from Juanita and Mike Baxley from 145th coolly handled their early attempts and have scores that all but assure them a place in the finals. Ballinger’s Brian Youngdahl sits in 4th position and awaits Saturday’s group to learn his fate. Zach Lindner of Main Street rocked a red, white and blue headband and sits third. Zach, the lone crewmember currently in the top 4, is likely to move on and will be the heavy crowd favorite should his score hold up. Either way, Zach is one of 4 Main Streeters to start the competition and one of 3 in the Sweet 16. Our new store did alright for itself and Zach is proud to have advanced further than all his managers.

Our current leader, Mike Baxley

Just who is eligible for March Madness? We take all employees who are Core Crew Certified and narrow down to 64 – with each store represented. To become Core Crew (CC) one needs to demonstrate proficiency in all aspects of our store – prep, tossing, topping, running ovens, running counter, and managing the dough. These jacks-of-all-trades are what help us make our kitchens run smoothly.

Here are your Sweet 16* competitors, in order of score:
(*Okay, we fudged a little; with a tie in the East we decided to let 5 in making it Sweet 17)

The last day of the first round turned out to be the fastest – and was the only region dominated by crew. Co-workers Marc Goodwin and Matt Millen of Stone Way showed up together and left together – as the top 2 performers of the day. Their GM, Brady Madsen, came decked out in Air Jordan gear with hopes of finally winning the trophy he narrowly lost as an AM. In the end he was just a little too much Washington Wizards era Air Jordan and not enough Chicago Bulls Jordan. His 5th place finish means that, like Jordan now, he has to root for his guys from the sideline.

Miller and Sand Point are known for their intense rushes. Out of those are born some very skilled tossers and all competitors put up pizzas within 2 seconds of each other – meaning quality would win out. Once again, purple proved helpful as Mikael Croy of Sand Point used his purple shirt and tie to look the part of someone ready to move on and his pizza looked good enough to move on as well. Sam Snyder of Miller (a former driver) showed he has rounded out his skills and moves on in the competition as well.

The weekend hit and our biggest turnout so far descended on Lake City to toss out the best pies they possibly could. With nearly 20 competitors tossing today it was quite a lot of pizzas to judge… and eat!

Mike Baxley, GM of 145th, was glad for all the competitors because he nearly forgot about the competition and arrived very late. In the end it was better late than never as he tossed out a 30 second pizza that looked great – and gave him the top score seen in any region. Lake City Way Shift Leader Pat Bedard had the second best pizza of the day – and for a while looked like he might be the tournament’s overall leader.

Last year the North was the strongest division and saw tight competition. In the end it was Ballinger GM Brian Youngdahl and Galen Lundquist, 85th Street AM, who put up the scores needed to move on.

West Seattle's Chris Bunger lead the West division.

Former Magnolia Shift Leader and current West Seattle AM Chris Bunger put up not only the fastest time but best scoring pizza of the afternoon to move on. Current Magnolia AM AJ Varni and Valley GM Abraham Ackley also put up scores that moved them on. The last competitor to show up was Isaac Sommers of Magnolia, decked in purple shoes, purple shirt and shiny purple jacket. He proved that purple pizza tossers have skills too. His pie was second best of the region and moves Isaac into the Sweet 16