Being a small-town pizzeria amongst greater than a dozen others means you need to stand out towards the competitors. For Scott Anthony, proprietor of Punxsy Pizza in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, meaning utilizing top-notch elements and tight operations. Anthony, a member of the World Pizza Champions, makes use of the tagline “Suppose About Pizza,” and he does — working greater than 65 hours every week in his personal restaurant — Anthony eats, sleeps and breathes pizza.

Scott Anthony launched Punxsy Pizza after 20 years within the enterprise operating a mid-level franchise retailer. Photograph: Punxsy Pizza

He began within the pizza enterprise after a buddy requested him for assist. Recovering from again surgical procedure, he did not assume he’d be bodily capable of run his janitorial service anymore, so he joined his buddy, who owned a mid-level regional franchise.

Anthony noticed some points with the pizzeria, particularly the necessity to clear it up, repair some cash-flow discrepancies and deal with some staffing points. The model wanted consistency, and it wasn’t very busy, so he had numerous time to sit down and consider methods to extend enterprise. It wanted somebody to verify issues bought accomplished proper and on time.

“I simply utilized just a few enterprise ideas to it and it began to show round,” Anthony stated. Inside six months, he’d purchased the franchise from his associates in 1994.

Launching Punxsy Pizza

In Feb. 2014, he determined to exit on his personal, break free from the franchise and Punxsy Pizza was born.

“I had realized a lot within the pizza trade within the years prior from ’94 to ’14,” Anthony stated, “that I actually wished to have the ability to do my very own factor and develop my very own idea with what I wished in my very own pizzeria.”

Punxsy has all-new recipes, Anthony upgraded elements and was capable of maintain the purchasers he’d had earlier than the swap. “After I modified elements, I made certain they have been premium elements however not too far off from what we had earlier than. I did not wish to have folks utterly begin over,” he stated.

Rebranding was an enormous job with a brand new telephone quantity and a brand new look, title and really feel. Anthony did not notice what an excellent job he’d accomplished of branding the franchise, so rebranding took quite a lot of effort.

“To at the present time I nonetheless have folks coming in right here considering it is the previous restaurant that it was,” Anthony stated. “It simply actually takes so much to ingrain all this stuff in folks. The pizzas have been named in another way, so there was quite a lot of work to do with that.”

Within the years that adopted, Anthony expanded the restaurant. He rented the house subsequent to Punxsy and knocked out a wall, successfully growing the dimensions of the eating room. He added beer and wine and took what he’d realized on journeys to Italy and at conventions to pair beer and wine with pizza.

Simply this previous 12 months, Anthony up to date his foyer and exterior, and it wasn’t a small job. He successfully ripped out his foyer and began from scratch and in addition added a full bar that seats six.

Two new breweries and a cider place have opened on the town, and Punxsy Pizza has solely native beer on faucet. “It is all the time been our dedication to be a part of the neighborhood and help the neighborhood and do native issues,” Anthony added.

Photograph: Punxsy Pizza

On the menu

Apart from pepperoni and cheese, the Rooster Rancher is widespread and is topped with hen in a buttermilk ranch sauce, bacon and tomatoes.

The White pizza is made with a selfmade garlic sauce, tomatoes and pizza cheese. The sauce is his grandmother’s recipe, and so they’d eat it at Sunday supper at her home.

The Pierogi can be a high vendor, and it is comprised of buttery mashed potatoes, onions and cheddar cheese.

“This can be a area the place you could have quite a lot of ethnicities and a powerful Catholic following,” Anthony stated, “and there is quite a lot of instances they cannot eat meat. The Pierogi has all the time been on the menu and has all the time been a powerful vendor, too.”

Anthony added that Punxsy Pizza was the primary unbiased restaurant on the town with on-line ordering, digital menus with costs. Having the images in entrance of consumers provides them a visible of the pizzas and will increase ordering.

The model makes use of conveyor ovens to assist with quantity. Though there are 13 pizzerias in Punxsutawney, “we now have to be the most well-liked place on the town,” Anthony stated. “It is quite a lot of competitors.”

Photograph: Punxsy Pizza

In the neighborhood

Punxsy Pizza’s greatest exercise of the 12 months is its Pizza and Prevention fundraiser. Anthony started the occasion after 9/11 in help of native firefighters. The group makes and markets a pie referred to as the “Chief,” an oblong 12-inch by 24-inch pizza and it is offered to prospects at a reduction. Punxsy Pizza donates $5 from every Chief offered to the fireplace firm in the course of the month of October.

“One thing like 9/11 actually makes you cease and assume and recognize what the volunteer firefighters do, and for no pay,” Anthony stated. “We began that again then, and it is become one of many greatest fundraisers for the fireplace firm. Over the previous 22 years, we have raised a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} for them.”

Native firefighters work within the kitchen, ship the pizzas of their emergency automobiles and examine smoke detectors whereas they’re visiting prospects’ houses.

To set themselves aside, the model’s distinctive promoting level is “Suppose About Pizza” and that is what they do — they consider the elements that they use and purchase native when doable. When shopping for native, Anthony stated 68% of the cash stays throughout the neighborhood. Punxsy Pizza has ingrained itself locally by way of its occasions like Make-A-Want and by providing donations to auctions and different occasions. They even work at college concession stands.

“That is why we’re referred to as Punxsy Pizza — we’re actually part of the neighborhood,” Anthony stated. “We’re Punxsutawney. We symbolize that.”

Anthony can be a speaker at pizza conventions and is thought within the trade as a advertising and marketing professional.

When requested what recommendation he would give to a different pizzeria about advertising and marketing, he stated all the pieces you do is a advertising and marketing alternative.

“Whether or not it is the way you act in your retailer or what you ship out within the mail or within the newspaper or nevertheless you select to do it, it must symbolize precisely what prospects are going to get,” Anthony stated. “It must symbolize what your distinctive promoting place is, what your mission is and what your model is. It is bought to be a kind of issues that what you see is what you get.”