Remaining Vibrant

Frequent Freshening

To better stand out from other quality independents, Luca Iovine wanted to keep his decade-old pizzeria feeling fresh and contemporary over time, without losing its traditional vintage vibe. When Luca first took over a previously occupied pizzeria location, he loved its brick walls and vintage vibe.

To overcome the unfortunate reputation of the prior business, Luca needed to immediately make everything feel visually cleaner and cheerier. The emotional impact of brightly repainting the entire interior was so dramatic, Luca decided to update his interior paint colors and rehang different pictures every two years to keep his business always feeling fresh and vibrant.

Vintage Mascots

To help give his place a playful vintage personality, Luca also worked with a graphic artist to design illustrated character “mascots” to feature in his logo, team shirts, and customer swag. Through different illustrations over time, his ads and swag have shown the mascots engaging in football and other fun seasonal activities!

Not only do customers quickly snap up his mascot “merch,” Luca’s youthful staff likes that their t-shirt uniforms project the kind of playful, hip vibe that they or their friends might choose for their own off-the-job wardrobe! As a result, Gianni’s Pizza continues to feel warmly familiar, yet fresh and youthful over time!

Luca Iovine, Owner Gianni’s Pizza Richboro, PA

Unconditional Satisfaction

In his highly successful 53-year career, fine dining restaurateur Giovanni Galati says his secret to retaining loyal repeat customers over many years (and thousands of dollars of purchases) is unconditionally guaranteeing their complete satisfaction with their meal, period. So whenever a guest doesn’t appear to care for a dish (even when they don’t complain and even when the meal was perfectly prepared), Giovanni’s servers immediately offer to replace it with something else of the guest’s choosing.

They also politely explain that they have comped the disliked item and the replacement if accepted. This additional “generosity” helps guests feel valued and removes any lingering dissatisfaction that could keep them from eagerly returning next time. Unconditionally guaranteeing satisfaction (not just quality), along with providing consistently superior food, has helped keep Giovanni’s high-end clientele fiercely loyal and reinforced his Word of Mouth reputation for excellence.

Giovanni Galati, Owner Dominic’s on the Hill St. Louis, MO

Boosting Job Appeal

In opening his own place, Adam DiLauro questioned why restaurant industry turnover is so high. As a former sous-chef working for others, Adam believed that, especially for family breadwinners, uncertain work schedules, 6-7 days away from family, late nights, and not being able to count on a full forty-hour paycheck often made “9 to 5” jobs in other industries seem more attractive.

So Adam designed his operations around giving his cooks a dependable 4 day x 10 hour work week (and paycheck) with 3 fixed “off” days including a Saturday or Sunday. He also set business hours to close by 9 PM so employees could see spouses and put kids to bed nightly. As a result, during his first three years in business, Adam has retained his entire kitchen crew!

Adam DiLauro, Owner Pizzeria DiLauro Chagrin Falls, OH