Buddy’s Pizza is the Home of Detroit Style Pizza. What started as a single, simple home has grown into a thriving chain of restaurants that focuses on maintaining the original feel that made Buddy’s Pizza so popular. Wesley Pikula, Chief Brand Officer, shares with us the history of Buddy’s Pizza, including how they always managed to take advantage of national press to help push their restaurant to the forefront of Detroit Style Pizza making.
Don’t listen to this episode if you are hungry!
Links:
Buddy’s Pizza Website (Click Here)
Buddy’s on Goldbelly (Click Here)
Transcript
Guess what? You get a call at 10 o'clock at night. Hey, we need 50 pizzas. Diana Ross is, for her show, or Paul McCarney comes into Fox. We need 50 vegetarian pizzas Kid Rock shoots a video at state fair. We need 50 pizzas. Eminem launches Eight Mile movie, we need a hundred pizzas. They're calling Buddy's and without any notice.
Cliff Duvernois:Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan, where we talk to ordinary Michiganders who are doing some pretty extraordinary things. And if it sounds like I'm stumbling over my words, I probably am because I am drooling right now. If there's one thing I love and that is the smell of pizza. And today I'm sitting in, Buddy's Pizza, which is home of the Detroit style pizza. And I want to explore all of this because this is just something that's known as a national level. Something that we can definitely be proud of as Michiganders. Sitting with me today is the Chief Brand Officer of Buddy's Pizza, and that would be Wesley Pikula. Wesley, how are you?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Hi Cliff. How are you? Happy to be here.
Cliff Duvernois:Great. I'm happy to hear you. And did I get your last name right? A little bit. Pikula. Pikula. Okay. Pikula. Okay. So Wesley, why don't you tell us a little bit about where you're from and where you grew up.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Oh, sure. So I grew up on the east side of Detroit. Originally our family came to the United States in 1964. We left Poland. Our whole family, I had four siblings and my mom and dad, their brothers were in America and they. Through the years try to get us to move. And it was very difficult at the time, but obviously they made it happen. So in 1964 we moved to Hamtramck, which is on a border of Detroit. And then I, we then moved to Detroit and it so happened that where we moved, I was probably a mile and a half from what was the original Buddy's unbeknown to me at the time. But we only lived a mile and a half from there. So that's where I originally grew up.
Cliff Duvernois:So let me ask this question here just to explore it a little bit. Why Detroit? You got the whole United States you could have moved to, but your family picked Detroit.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Hamtramck, if anyone knows the history of Hamtramck, it was primarily Polish at the time. It's actually a hundred percent Muslim now, but back then people O went to New York, people went to certain parts of Chicago, and in Hamtramck is where our family lived. And that's the area they were familiar with. And then of course, We, they had a house for us, a flat in Hamtramck, and we lived on a lower flat, all of us three to the bed.
Cliff Duvernois:Yeah.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:So yeah, so that, that was how it all started. And of course, I was six years old when I came here. we had language issues and. It just so happened my father was a tailor and he was able to do some work for the nuns and the priests. So after hours, a lot of the nuns would teach us how to speak English at the convent. That's how we got the schooling to learn the language and not to get too far back in the school system because we didn't speak.
Cliff Duvernois:So let's talk about the history of Buddy's. How did it first get started? When did it first get started?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Sure. So Buddy's originated at Six Mount Kona in Detroit. It was a house bar, what's called a house bar. It was a bar in front, a house in the back. People resided there. So probably in the twenties, between 20 19, 20 19 30, it was this little house bar that eventually became a blind pig. When they, during prohibition, when prohibition ended, it became a little restaurant called Fern's Lunch. It was just a little fern in a window, and it was just a little bar. Around 1946, a gentleman by the name of Gus Guerrera purchased it. And he was Italian and his wife and his family. And, being from Italy and, at the time there was a lot of veterans that had served, were familiar with Italy and He wanted to have more to serve in his little bar than fish and chips and things like that. So the idea came, maybe we can do pizza. And of course, because they were Sicilian, They had this version that you can find, it's called fit, which is like a dough, and then you would push meat into the dough and then you maybe would drizzle a little bit of parm and a little bit of olive oil on it. And it was usually rectangular in shape, similar to a paca bread. So then that seems to be the origin of where the Detroit style pizza came, because Detroit style pizza is a little different. Because you start with dough, then you press the pepperoni onto the dough, and then you put the cheese on and then the sauce goes on top, which is basically heresy in a pizza world, because the sauce always go. exactly. And so what we'll end up doing is it created this sort of light crunchy crust cuz the sauce wasn't on the dough. So by design the dough was not gummy or wasn't saturated by the sauce. And the other part that was really interesting was they didn't have any type of pans at the time cuz there was no rectangular square pizza at the time. So up and down the streets in Detroit, they had tool and die shops. They didn't have the big automotive suppliers. They had these small groups that used to do the work and they had these trays there that were called drip trays or they used to be inexpensive metal trays that they would use to house like nuts and bolts. Or if there was a drip, they'd put the tray underneath. So what, anyways, it was. The dimension was like 10 by 14, and then a smaller one that was like eight by 10 inches. And so somehow this pan got into Gus Guerra's hands. No one knows exactly how. And they wound up putting the dough into this sort of, manufacturing tray, I guess with maybe two and a half insides. And they pressed the dough out, and then they baked in it and it worked. So to this day, the story of this pan is that it was not a food service product. It was basically from manufacturing. And to this day, we still use that type of pan. So it's made by a fabricator for us.
Cliff Duvernois:Certainly. Now, the question that I got is, And I appreciate that the, so if I understand correctly, so it was, the Sicilian style has been square all along. Okay. And this is dating back. How far?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:As far as you can remember, because remember, focaccia was always part of the Italian cuisine. It was the type of bread, but that dough had oil in it, so it was more of a chewier texture. Oh, specific to Detroit style and Buddy's does original style because there's a lot of versions of this pizza today. But back then when Buddy's was around, it was the only place at the time. So it was very specific, a saltwater yeast. There's no shortening in any type of conditioner in a dough. So that, again, maintained that light, crunchy crust. So it almost has, it's almost a blending of the focaccia and Neapolitan style. Neapolitan style traditionally is saltwater yeast. So the magic happens from the flour. And the simplicity of that product. And then also great tomato sauce. So if you talk about Neapolitan, it's great Fresh San Marzano tomatoes, a double zero flour and a water and then it creates a great pizza cuz great pizza doesn't have to have, a lot of things on it. It's just like great bread. Great bread doesn't have a lot in it. And I think artisan breads now are really popular these days. But if you remember in the old days, you had Wonder Bread and Silver Cup.
Cliff Duvernois:huh? Because I gotta say, some of the best pizza I've personally had has been over in Italy, and I'm amazed at how often the best pizza has the least amount of ingredients.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:That's true. Just like even with pasta. If you have a great pasta, and a great tomato sauce. It's not like it's layered with garlic that you can't even talk to anyone after you eat. The show is always the tomatoes. The tomatoes are generally sweet, so you don't need to put sugar in. The salt actually enhances the tomato flavor, which makes it sweet. A lot of people don't know that, but when you add salt, it actually sweetens the tomato. And then of course it's real simple, fresh basil, and if there's any garlic, it's a hint of it. And. Again, it's the balance of the food that makes it great and it's the initial ingredients that are great. So if you want a great tomato sauce, grow your own tomatoes. Yeah,
Cliff Duvernois:absolutely true. And God, I'm so hungry right now. Okay, so Buddy's has introduced this square style pizza, right? The Detroit style pizza. Obviously the reaction to this must have been good. because business was doing really well. Talk to us about those, like first few years of just getting it out there, getting the name out there, building up the brand.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Oh, sure. So basically, Gus Guerrera owned the business, 1953. He sold it to Big Jimmy and Little Jimmy. And they were both Italian. And they took Buddy's from that point to 1970. And so again, there was only one place at the time. And so it had a big folklore. People would follow it. Again, it's very similar to famous restaurants like Zehnders let's say in Frankenmuth. People know of that place. So Buddy's had a very, well known, pizza. And people went there and it had, its own. Yeah, they were known for it. It was, they had a huge following. In 1970, the Jacobs family brought Buddy's. And they fell in love with it just being as customers. And Big Jimmy and Little Jimmy were getting older. They didn't want to run the restaurant anymore as much. So when the Jacobs owned it and bought it in 1970, Detroit had a, citywide Pizza contest. They ran in the city. The Detroit News sponsored it. It was for the best pizza in Detroit. And so Buddy's was one of the entries into this contest and Buddy's won. Nice. And from that point on, Buddy's pizza was Detroit's number one square deep dish pizza as the, as it was referred to at the time. And during the, some of those years, different people branched off that worked for Buddy's, started their own groups. Later on, probably like maybe 10 years ago, Pizza Today, which is an industry trade magazine, decided to do a pizza contest also at one of their shows in Vegas. And they created a category and they called it Detroit Style. Because Chicago style was already out there. California style was out there already. New Haven style, all these kind of styles. Detroit, because no one was paying attention to Detroit. It was the Rust Belt. Who cared about Detroit? Yeah. And so somebody entered it and then they won the category. I think they were the only one in the contest. And so all the magazines, we never entered contest, to be honest. Buddy's just stayed to their own little niche there. And then once the contest won, and then they started throwing it out there in publications and bigger groups started picking it up. It became a industry term now. So it's called Detroit Style. And I think people have seen Pizza Hut take it on. And now, DeJorno has Detroit on their box. Yes. So if anyone remembers, probably 20 years ago everyone was taking Detroit off their branding or off their signs. Now everybody's putting Detroit on,
Cliff Duvernois:And I gotta say that this is actually reached like international levels. And the reason why even Buddy's pizza fell on my radar in the first place was because a handful of years ago, I got to meet the world champion pizza maker, Tony Yemeni. He's been on the Food Network, everything else. And he and I were talking and he asked me where I was from and I said, oh, I'm originally from Michigan. And he goes, oh, you must love Detroit style pizza. And I looked at him, I'm like, how in the world do you know about Detroit style pizza? He goes, man, it's some of the best out there. I'm like, what are you talking about? Cuz you know you don't Yeah. I was living in California at the time. You don't drive down the road and see Detroit style pizza. You, you saw Chicago style. That's right. So all of a sudden now I'm thinking to myself, there's something going on. So I did not know about
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:yeah, he's involved cuz he was always at the pizza shows in the early days. he used to do the spinning, they used to have like rubber disks that they used to spin. Then they would have spinning dough contests and that was part of pizza Expo. And he actually has a franchisee in Las Vegas where he has a Detroit style concept. And so again, there's a lot of different characters that left Buddy's or other ones jumped on board and created their own versions. And anything else, it's like when Ford started the automotive, automobile, everyone else created their own. But he's obviously given the credit or the Wright brothers or someone, there's always a first. exactly. And then everyone else jumps in and does their own versions, does improvements and changes. But one of the things that Buddy's does that's unique is we've never really departed from the original recipes or what was left at Buddy's when these different people left. There was always kitchen staff that stayed behind. And so whether someone lefted or a chef left or someone else, there would always be the full kitchen intact. So Buddy's never moved away from that. So we build the pizzas the very traditional way same way we're not putting, like groups like jets will put sauce on the dough now and cheese on top. They switch to a mozzarella cheese. They'll put pepperoni on top. We will, if a guest wants a pizza made a certain way, we will of course do it. But generally speaking, our pizza's still very traditional in the way that we inherited it. And I started there in 1975. And so of course we had what we call the old timers, which were five ladies that were the gatekeepers of the recipes. And well.
Cliff Duvernois:And their arms are huge.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:That's right. Their arms are huge. And you could see, Cliff, that I wasn't going to challenge anybody along the way. I think I weighed 150 pounds and I just, I, there's no way. And but why would you wanna change it? Because, when you have a brand like Buddy's, it's, you're, you inherit a legacy brand. And I don't wanna be the first guy that does something where someone says, what were you thinking? Yes. that's not, I don't wanna be that guy.
Cliff Duvernois:Exactly. For our audience, we're gonna take a quick break to you, thank our sponsors, and when we come back we're gonna talk about the explosive growth that Buddy's has been seen. We'll see after the break. Are you enjoying these amazing stories? Michigan is full of people doing some pretty extraordinary things. If you want these amazing stories sent directly to your inbox, head over to total michigan.com/join. What are you gonna get? I'm glad you asked. First, you're gonna join our awesome Michigan community. Second, you'll get an email with the top five interviews from the show sent directly to your inbox. This is going to include not only the powerful lessons that we've learned, but the amazing stories that these people have to share. Third, you'll get exclusive behind the scenes information about the show. There's a lot of things that are happening to grow this movement beyond the confines of just a radio show and a podcast. To get these goodies, head over to total michigan.com/join. Enter your email and join our awesome community. Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan. I am speaking today with Wesley Pikula. Yes. Yes. And we are talking about Buddy's, actually, we're just talking about pizza and food in general, but we're talking about Buddy's Pizza, the history of it. Before the break, we were talking about, how Buddy's Pizza really established a really solid local following. And this brought us up into the seventies. Now we're gonna move into the eighties, but the question I got for you first, Wesley, is when did you join the company?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Sure. I joined in 1975. my mother had worked there a few years before that in the kitchen, and they had an opening at the time for dishwashers. I was 16. And, I'd never washed dishes in my life and I'd never worked in a restaurant in my life. I just had a paper route. So basically I went and applied and of course I applied with my friend. My friend, couldn't work because it was close to Memorial Day weekend. He had a family trip. So he got called in cuz he was 18, I was 16. The manager said, have you ever washed dishes? I said, yes, of course. I washed dishes at home. I didn't tell him I never washed dishes at a restaurant. So anyways, he brought me in. And of course they put me in a dish room, which was about three feet by three feet. And I could tell you that I had a lot of help for weeks at a time because people, I'm sure, felt sorry for me. But at the time, I was in school, I graduated from high school and then I went to college at Wayne State in Detroit. And again, started there in 75. I think when you talk about Buddy's and its local following, I think the next kind of milestone for Buddy's was in 1980 when, besides winning the contest in 1970, in 1980, the Republican Convention was in Detroit
Cliff Duvernois:indeed. At
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:at Cobo Hall at the time, what it was called, and Ronald Reagan was the candidate and Buddy's was asked St. Straus Beer was also asked, we Straus beer was doing a beer. And then Buddy's Pizza was asked to do the pizza for the press Corps, the National and International Press Corps in the dining area at Coba Hall. Buddy's served and Strau served. So keep this in mind. People like, Ted Copel, Barbara Walters, Huntley Brinkley. I can go down the list of every single person that ever was on air from New York, California, anywhere you can imagine around the world actually that was covering the convention was waiting in line for Buddy's pizza. And the funny thing about this story is we did this for the whole week. And we found out that the gas pressure in Cobo Hall wasn't strong enough for our pizza ovens. So the ovens wouldn't run at full capacity cuz we had rented ovens because we were only one location at the time. And so what we had to do is bake the pizzas off at the six mile store, which is about 10, 15 minutes from downtown. We had to transport to pizzas from that location. Then we had to go through Secret service, then we had. People or the press corps waiting at times for an hour to an hour and a half for them to deliver Buddy's so they could eat. Of course, they were drinking strolls beer, so it wasn't so bad. But either way, we had signature books that we had the different press people sign in. And I can honestly tell you every single person that tried the pizza at the time, always mentioned better than anything in New York, have to come back to Detroit after convention. We had so many names that we captured during that moment, and I think that was another huge milestone because we got a lot of press Corps, coverage. And then we became sponsors of the Pistons during the Bad Boy era. We, they actually, we had a point promotion where the one game Chuck Daley actually put the starters back in so they could hit the point promotion. And it wound up on the front page of the USA today where the coach from the opposing team said that the Detroit coach was bush league. Cuz he wanted to please the crowd with some local pizza promotion. And he put the starters in with two minutes left in the game. So this is the power of Buddy's at the time. And so we had 17,000 people at the palace screaming Buddy's. Buddy's. So when they hit 130 points, the ticket stub was worth for, was worth a free four square cheese pizza. And so we did the same thing with the Lions. And the Lions didn't fare as well, but we did it on a field goal or a touchdown. And of course, if there was a field goal or a touchdown, there would be a Touchdown Buddy. That kind of thing. So we were very present in those two sporting groups, and of course, because of national coverage and games and that really kept pushing Buddy's to the forefront. And every became a household name. And of course, the style of pizza became more relevant. So as it, as I said earlier from Buddy's Pizza became Detroit style pizza. And, we were happy with that because we love detroit. We've operated in Detroit through the whole history of buddy's. So why not give Detroit, it, it deserves it, right? Because everyone else was knocking Detroit and we always were proud to, to operate in, Detroit. And now it's Michigan. We did our Great Lakes Pizza collection, which we did in honor of the Great Lakes. So we had that going for many years. And we, and we donated back to the Great Lakes Alliance, which helps to lakes and restoration and things like that. So we've always been involved in causes much bigger than ourselves. Because we always felt like if we got involved, other people would see that you don't have to be the biggest kid on the block to do some good. If you do a little, like I always said, to individually, we do a little together, we do a lot. Yeah. So if everybody just adds a piece to it, it's easy, right? It's like having 10 people lift something instead of one or two people struggling.
Cliff Duvernois:Exactly.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Then it becomes easy and then more people wanna do it because it's not as difficult.
Cliff Duvernois:And speaking of pieces, at some point in time, buddy's decided to start expanding. Now how many locations are you up to?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:You're right. We're at 22 locations. We're gonna. Yeah, so we opened Alpine not that long ago. Grand Rapids is a great market for Buddy's. A lot of families, we're franchise, no, these are all privately held. Capital Spring is our operating partner. And so we're still involved with Buddy's. But we have a lot more expertise with the group. it's a large group that came out of New York, fell in love with buddy's, and they support Buddy's in their growth and with all the different, Technology and things like that. Operational systems, they're very critical. But they've been the catalyst for really of a more aggressive, growth plan. And again, we're doing pizzas now in supermarkets. We do frozen pizzas now. We do pizzas that we ship nationwide through GoldBelly. So 22 restaurants, and so we're probably putting through probably more than 2 million people through a year. And so from a little restaurant that originated on a corner that was a house bar. And again, you could have an very aggressive growth or you could have more of a disciplined growth. Buddy's is always veered more towards the, more discipline because of trying to maintain quality and consistency with product. And again, as I said earlier, I don't think anybody wants to be the first guy to mess this up. So we have a very special product that we babysit a little bit and, and it takes a lot of work.
Cliff Duvernois:And I definitely want to circle back to the point you made about quality. Before I do that, what is it that explains the growth of it? Because it's not like you just did this one time. You've done it 22 times. So what is it that, that you really attribute to the fact that you're growing?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:I think it's really, some of it is guest driven. people been transplanted from Michigan all over the country. And I remember with Chrysler, gm, Ford at the time, everybody got transplanted all over the country. Engineers, automotive industry is big, obviously in the United States, and all those people that worked in automotive at the time came out of Detroit. And so when they got relocated, guess what? We were Buddy's. of course, because chrysler, gm and Ford were in detroit in Hamtramck, all those production plans. GM was downtown. Chrysler was in Auburn Hills, ford was in dearborn. There we go. Every one of those places, you had ownership, CEOs, founders always eating at Buddy's. It wasn't unusual to have what was considered the 11th floor at the time, at GM headquarters down on Graham Boulevard. They would come to buddy's, you could see the suits and back then the wingtip shoes and the, executives would come in and we had, it wasn't odd to see Henry Ford, even Lee Koka go down the list of the CEOs at the time there would lunch at Buddy's. So again, lot of this folklore got transferred about, there's. There's Detroit style in South Korea. There's Detroit style in Toronto. Again, there's people that have gone on and worked, and there's many people, I'm surprised there aren't more in Japan or places like anywhere. You have Michigan transplantee throughout the years, And remember it's 77 years old. And the folklore was much bigger than the amount of locations. Like you could go around the country, say, have you ever heard of Buddy's? Oh, yeah. They think we have a million stores and we don't. But the brand itself, the name Buddy's, because of all the work that we did, not only in communities, in sponsorships, and people had a love affair with it because they had so many great moments there, whether it was playing bocce ball at the original store or coming in and there was so many proposals at Buddy's. We'd served so many of the Motown acts that used to be in Detroit, whether it was at the Fox or the old Ford Auditorium. Guess what? You get a call at 10 o'clock at night. Hey, we need 50 pizzas. Diana Ross is, for her show, or Paul McCarney comes into Fox. We need 50 vegetarian pizzas delivered to the Fox. Kid Rock shoots a video at state fair. We need 50 pizzas. Eminem launches eight mile movie, club blue, we need a hundred pizzas. You know, they're calling you. They're calling Buddy's and without any notice. And so these are some of the things. And of course when Michigan was doing a lot of the film credits, when Hollywood was coming into Michigan to shoot, whether it was, whatever the actors were
Cliff Duvernois:right.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Miley Cyrus, for instance, one was in Garden City living up in one of the bars, or whatever they shot Superman. Anything that they, or Batman, anything they shot here, Buddy's would get the call. And in Pontiac they have the studios there where they do the editing and things like that. And so we, again, we get the call. So I think a lot of that with. I guess they call 'em influencers now these days or, but we weren't paying for this. These are people from their hearts that say We love Detroit and we love the grit. And people in Michigan are amazing. It's not just Detroit, but it's Michigan. Yes. right. The greatest people you'll ever meet are from Michigan. And I you any, if anybody travels, you hear that all the time. God, I love Detroit. People are friendly. They're honest. They're sincere. You meet people in Detroit or anywhere there, it's just an honest exchange, which is nice. Yes. You don't always get that everywhere. And I think that's what Buddy's is a little bit as part of the brand identity. I guess those are like fancy words, but it's really about the communities you, serve and the employees that work for you. They're both aligned. Yes. And because you employ people from the community, so it's all intertwined. Your employees are your community. That's true. And if you don't support your community, and let's say 80% of your business comes from five, six mile radius of your space, you'd be pretty silly not to invest back into the community that, that, helps you make a living.
Cliff Duvernois:Certainly.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:So it, it made a lot of sense, but some people lose sight of it and we didn't.
Cliff Duvernois:One thing I do want to go back and explore is the, with the, having the 22 locations, and you've talked quite extensively about maintaining the high standards of your product, right? Whether it's the crust, the ingredients, how you make it, how do you maintain that quality when you've got all these locations scattered throughout michigan,
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:right? And that's where, Capital Spring comes in and that's where expertise comes in. Technology obviously makes a big difference these days because the training material. It can all be digital. It can all be on their cell phones. It could all be on their iPads, whatever people carry around. Now you can put training videos. Again, it's maintaining a culture within your spaces, right? Making sure that the people that work for you are happy and making sure that there's a lot of discretionary effort. You have to earn that. That's leadership, right? You just, you can't force, today's employee base is different than when I worked. You could do control and command long time ago. There's no, no such thing. It has to be collaborative. And people wanna do the right thing. If you hire the right people, they're gonna wanna do the right thing. Exactly, yes. But, but, but some people forget the fact that you have to retain people, not just hire people. And if you lose sight of retention, that's where your trouble starts. Because when you start losing good people, you start losing culture. It's like when you lose the generation of, let's say the generation that went through the wars. There's a certain amount of humility and humbleness and understanding of what the world can look like. And so when you lose those people, you lose some of that wisdom, right? And so in restaurants, what you have, obviously a lot different scale, but I'm saying in restaurants, if you lose tenured staff or you lose people that have been here, you don't get that passing on. It's like great teams look at the Celtics, or you look at teams that had real legacy. the players socialize the rookies and you continue this. In the old days, tigers had an amazing farm system and you would obviously always cultivate those players. And the best employees a lot of times are grown within your organization. They're not because you went and paid an extra $2 for somebody. That was always the Yankees philosophy. George Steinbrenner would go out there and pay the big bucks and they never won back then. But teams that built their players, through the farm system, and then you had veterans that were very, helpful to rookies. I always built great teams. So in restaurants, you have to maintain a culture of inclusion. You have to reward the right behaviors, right? You have to recognize the right behaviors, have to make it part of the system. And then again, the training is critical. You train every day. You train as you go. It's not a, it's not a classroom, it's not a, a manual. It's what you do every day. So if you're walking in a dining room and there's something on the floor, you pick it up as a manager so the employees can see that behavior. Yes. And then you go to the busers and say, I went by, let's say the table's A one. I just walked by A1 paper on the floor. You guys need to make sure you got your heads on the floor. Not just at eye level, but also looking at the floors. that's, you just did. You just did it and then you educated your busers that they need to do that. so that's Kenny Blanchard wrote a book one time, greatest book ever. The one Minute Manager. that was the greatest management book ever written to this day. And all it talked about is these 30 second interactions where you inspect what you expect. And it was real simple. And I always loved that when I was coming up and I was an employee and I had some great managers at a high level of respect for guests. And they didn't care if you were in, a Coney island or a lemonade stand or a five star restaurant. Guest service is guest service. Customers come into your space, they're spending money. You work to the highest level possible under that system. And we always did that. And whether it was, making sure the silverware was clean, making sure they had enough napkins for that pizza, making sure you know that the chairs were wiped, and making sure that we had clean bus towels and all those things. Again, they have to be reinforced. They have to be trained. And you have to have, in my opinion anyways, certain non-negotiables that are in a system that everybody recognizes. TGI Fridays had a great thing. They used to have the clam theory, so the grains of sand were irritants to guests. And every time the clam got a, irritant in. In the mouth. Let's say it would open up and you wanted a happy clam, so you wanted a closed mouth, so you didn't want any grains of sand in its mouth. yeah. So the grains of sand were like irritants, right? You go in the bathroom, there's no paper towels. There's no soap. The garbage can's full. There's water all over the sink. You go down the list. So again, we're not perfect, but this is where the focus is. Certainly. And without having the commitment to this and the leadership that expects this, standards can go down pretty quick.
Cliff Duvernois:So let me ask you this question. For somebody who maybe has never been to Buddy's, but I've listened to the show and now I want to try it, and so if they're gonna come in here, what would be like some of the pizzas that you would recommend?
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Oh, sure. if I was a first time customer to Buddy's, just say a great italian restaurant, I go to a great italian restaurant. I usually eat their marinara sauce or the bolognese. And they're pasta. I never, that's what I start with. Because I always know cuz a lot of these base sauces are used for other recipes. If they've got a great marinara, chances are everything's great. If they had a great pasta, it's not gummy and it actually has a firmness to it. It has some taste, they're buying top of the line stuff. And so with Buddy's, if I was a first time guest, I would come in I an antipasta salad, which is what we're known for. Our dressing, again, is almost as famous as the pizza. Yep. It's a vinegarette that's aged for anywhere from six to eight weeks. It's the old traditional recipe. They're made in gallon containers, shipped to the stores we make. We have a little guy that makes 'em for us. Gallon is aged. You got celery, lemon, spices, things like that. So you get the antipasta salad, which is salami, ham, cheese, our brick cheese, in a bowl, you order a cheese and pepperoni pizza. Maybe a super with cheese, onion, green pepper, mushroom and ham. But the reason you order cheese and pepperoni is because the pepperoni's under the cheese. Yes. The pepperoni juice is baked into the dough. And then you order a Buddy brew. Our Buddy brew, if you're having an alcoholic beverage, is made for Buddy's. It's a beer that we worked with, a company called Griffin Claw that worked with us to get the right flavor profile that pairs well with the pizza. And that would be your traditional meal. And you'd start with that and you'd want to really taste a crust like crunchy crust. You'd want the sort of the vinegar bite of the apostle salad. And if you're a real afcienado and a lot of people used to do this, they would actually have their salad plate, they would finish their salad and there would be residue of, let's say the little bit of vinegar oil, and they would take the crust, the pizza slice, and lay it right on that. And get that little bit of flavor on that cross. Similar to putting vinegar on french fries, like if you're in Canada, I don't think you can get french fries without some kind of vinegar, right? It's just part of eating french fries. Or you go to carnival, same thing, right? they got, the malt vinegar right there. And until you've had it, you realize there's a flavor enhancer. And that would be the start of the meal. And then you'd finish it off with a, probably a hot fudge sundae. Which is Sanders Hot Fudge Sanders, unfortunately is out right now. They're, I've suspended operations, but that's another product. The Sanders hot fudge been around forever. Or you do, if you don't have Sanders hot fudge, you could do, Verner's, Cooler. just give verner's and a scoop of ice cream. and keep it, homestyle. That's the beauty of michigan. We have so many cool products. Do. And I think again, if you travel the state, you could probably go anywhere and find little pockets of, pasti. There's always stuff yeah. Little pockets of Wow. I, yes, that's true. If you come into Detroit and even some of the locations we have in the metro Detroit area, cuz again where we open Buddy's was always near, like Warren is near the tech center. Yep. Dearborn is near for Ford headquarters. Auburn Hills was, near the old Chrysler. And so every location had a connection to automotive and six mile original store at Ford, chrysler, and GM within, a five mile radius. And so again, and all the engineering tool and die shops. You didn't have tier one, tier two suppliers in the forties, in the thirties. You had little tuin, little shops up and down, all these different areas that would do contract work for them. And that was a big chunk of our business at the time. But also, kids love Buddy's, and that's the other thing. They love our pizza. It's not too spicy for them. it taste like great cheese bread. I've heard kids say, this is the best grilled cheese I ever had. No, it's actually a pizza.
Cliff Duvernois:a
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:But you can call it grilled cheese if you'd like. Yeah. But no tomatoes. So parents would order a cheese pizza with no tomato sauce. Chop it up. And the kids had a meal and they loved it. Slowly to get em on the apostle salad. And then, when I was a manager in the stores, I can't tell you how many times the kids that I would, let's say, bring breadsticks out to or joke around at the table. When I did my table visits later on, those kids were bringing their kids in.
Cliff Duvernois:you've been around long enough cuz that could, that's exactly what would happen, Wesley. If somebody's listening to this and they want to check out what it is you're doing, find your locations, chase you down on social media, where's the best place
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:places. Sure. just on our website at Buddyspizza.com. There's so much information on our site. You Google Buddy's, all kind of things pop up and really, whether you're ordering GoldBelly Pizzas or now we're doing the all corner pizzas where you can order basically two smalls together. So if everyone loves corners, that's something fun. I mean it pretty much highlights the story. It has the locations you can order online. You can have delivery now through DoorDash. They're really, and again, if you live outside of our market, you can't get to Buddy's. Of course, you can order from GoldBelly and pretty soon, Buddy's will be in a lot of stores around the country. So you'll be able to get a frozen version of Buddy's where you can just get it and get an idea. But if you want original and authentic, just to see where it all began. Then you come to Six Mile, you go to Detroit. Detroit is, I don't know if anyone's been to Detroit lately. I was just there this morning. But it's an amazing city right now. It is when you drive through there, and I was driving there probably for the last 50 years, to be honest, to see what's happened in the last 15 years with dan gilbert, Mike Gillich, peter caros. penske, you can go down the list of all these major guys that all added something to this formula. And Mike Gillich, and Peter Caros were the first Doner and Dan gilbert came in and just put on steroids. These are great people that, that, and when you see the money they invested and you see the other people they brought alongside with them to move this city along and to see how you see people on the street cleaning up. I've been to Chicago, I've been to New york. Believe me, our downtown is 20 times cleaner than anything I've seen in manhattan.
Cliff Duvernois:is. Yeah.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Chicago areas are clean. Detroit is 20 times cleaner downtown. You go I drove down Woodward yesterday. I couldn't, I was staring for pieces of paper. I didn't find see one, everybody's walking around with a scooper, with a brush. people are positive, lot of pride, lot of color down there. they've enhanced a lot of the buildings. Now they're doing murals. The lighting is fantastic. The restaurant scene is a lot of small little places, chefs really investing, right? And Detroit always had a great food scene. I don't know if people realize this, but read about Detroit in the twenties. It was called the Paris of the midwest, believe it or not The theaters, everything. Just read about the city and where it was and you, when you visit it. We have a store downtown on in the old Madison Theater. Which was one of the first theaters to show mo, action, motion picture with sound. it
Cliff Duvernois:converted
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:later. We Buddy's is in the bottom of it.
Cliff Duvernois:Right.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:That's our downtown location and we have our original location. It's on east side of detroit where it all began. Still very busy there. It's at six mount Kona. and that's what I would suggest. you start with that and it's, when you've been around for 77 years, it's worth a look.
Cliff Duvernois:Yes, definitely. Wesley, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today. Really appreciate it.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:Thank you very much for having me, Cliff, and we're proud to represent detroit and Michigan
Cliff Duvernois:represent you.
Wesley Pikula, Buddy's Pizza:you for allowing us this voice. We really appreciate that.
Cliff Duvernois:Hey, no problem. It's been great. And for our audience, you can always roll on over to total michigan.com. Click on wesley's interview and get all the links that he mentioned above. We'll see you next time with another great story from an ordinary Michigan. They're doing some pretty extraordinary things. See you then.
