Chain Leader

Vaughan Lazar

In the Beginning
April 18, 2008

Hello and thank you for checking out my blog. To kick this off, I'd like to provide you with a little insight into Pizza Fusion and how we got started.

Pizza Fusion was born from a desire to make a difference. My partner, Michael Gordon and I were venting over a couple beers one day about our endeavors at the time. I was running my design firm, Stellar Concepts and Design, which I'd been doing for the last 10 years, and Michael was managing a real-estate firm he'd founded to capitalize on the then booming South Florida real-estate market. Neither of us was very passionate about what we were doing and thought how great it'd be to start a side project that will meet our demand for a rewarding professional experience. We both liked pizza, cared about the environment, and I was eating organic at the time. So, we thought, how great would it be to open an organic pizza restaurant? The idea stuck in our heads and began to ferment over the following days. We discussed delivering food in hybrid cars. After all, what sense would it make to deliver a healthy, organic meal in an old beater dumping harmful emissions into the atmosphere?

Cooking Class

While both of us knew what a great pizza tasted like, neither of us knew how to cook. So we thought the best way to get started would be to go to the Pizza Expo a week later in Orlando, Fla., to get a little education and make potential industry contacts. While there, we sat in on various speakers, none of whom caught our attention until we heard a gentleman that goes by the name "Big Dave" Ostrander (a.k.a. "The Pizza Doctor") speak. After speaking, we approached him on consulting for us on menu development for our new restaurant idea.

After five months of fine-tuning the Pizza Fusion business model, pushing the envelope on our "green" initiatives, adopting the motto "Saving the Earth, one pizza at a time," and working to develop a delicious organic menu based on quality, healthfulness and value, we opened the doors at our first location in Deerfield Beach, Fla., on July 7, 2006. We hit the ground running as South Florida quickly embraced the idea of an eco-friendly, gourmet pizza parlor.

Pleasant Surprise

In fact, the success of our first store came kind of as a shock to us, especially since we hadn't approached it with an emphasis on our profits. Quite the contrary, we'd put the focus on doing what was right for our customers (serving tasty, organic food) and the environment (upholding numerous eco-friendly initiatives). Some call our approach socially conscious. Others might even call it stupid. We just felt it was the right way to do business. Fortunately, our customers embraced us for it. Our loyal customer base attracted people from all walks of life--vegans, vegetarians, environmentalists, organic eaters, celiac individuals and pizza lovers of all ages.

In August of '06, one customer who'd always enjoyed ordering our food via delivery, decided to pay us an in-store visit during his lunch hour. Randy Romano, a franchise industry veteran, saw the value in our tasty pies and wanted to see the restaurant behind his weekly lunch orders. After being impressed with the restaurant's look and feel, his entrepreneurial wheels began to turn. He wondered why Pizza Fusion wasn't in every town across the globe. He went home that night and pulled up our Web site to see if it was a franchise. The second he saw that it was the lil ole Deerfield store only, his entrepreneurial fire started burning. Ironically, what Romano didn't know was that his soon-to-be son-in-law was my childhood friend. A call was made, a meeting was had...the rest is history!

Back to the Future

Today, we have four restaurants open in our home state of Florida and more than 20 in active development nationally with site selections and area developments underway for our remaining commitments around the country. We have 65 franchises sold in 10 states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey and Virginia, with growth plans to reach all 50 over the next five years.

It's been a wild ride to say the least and with interest in our concept only growing, we anticipate our momentum to carry us quickly across the United States and beyond in the coming years. Stay tuned to witness our endeavors as we continue aggressive expansion and revolutionize the restaurant industry toward more environmentally sound practices.

Thank you again for reading and to Chain Leader for enabling us to tell our story via their Web site. It is an honor.

Posted by Vaughan Lazar on April 18, 2008 | Comments (0)