Fans Are Tattooing This Pizza Brand's Logo on Their Skin for a Year of Free Slices &pizza CEO Mike Burns discusses turning customers into superfans, empowering staff and building a brand that breaks the rules.
By Shawn P. Walchef Edited by Jessica Thomas
Key Takeaways
- Burns is revitalizing the brand by embracing and enhancing its unique culture.
- From tattoo loyalty promotions to restructuring upper management, Burns spearheads changes that reflect the brand’s authenticity and community-centric values.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When Mike Burns became CEO of &pizza, he arrived on his first day ready to get to work. There was just one problem: No one told him there wasn't an office.
"I show up in D.C. and I'm like, Where do I go?" he recalls. "They send me to an address. It's just a restaurant."
But Burns wouldn't want it any other way. "Kind of the beauty of &pizza [is] it's all about the restaurant," he says. "The people. The vibe. You can't get that in an office."
But what he walked into wasn't a thriving brand in need of just a few tweaks. Operations were inconsistent, culture had slipped and a once-passionate customer base had drifted. So he did what any rational new CEO would do. He got a tattoo.
Years earlier, &pizza had launched a promotion offering free pizza for a year to the first 100 people willing to tattoo the brand's signature ampersand on their body. What once seemed like a one-off publicity stunt became something else when Burns brought it back. The first day, 2,700 people signed up.
"And that's when I knew," he says. "The brand still had it. People weren't just customers. They were believers."
Burns rolled up his sleeve and got the tattoo himself on his forearm, which is hard to miss.
The loyalty went beyond ink. Some fans had even tied the knot at &pizza shops — literally. On Pi Day (March 14), the brand hosted weddings where couples tied dough knots and enjoyed pizza.
"People have met at &pizza, gotten engaged at &pizza and gotten married at &pizza," Burns says. "It's more than food. It's a culture."
Rebuilding from the inside
Of course, no number of tattoos or weddings could fix slow ticket times or a fading sense of purpose. Burns focused on two things: culture and performance.
The first step? Clearing out much of the upper management and promoting from within. "I don't care about resumes," he says. "I care if you know how to run a line at midnight."
He hired a VP of operations with sleeve tattoos to match the brand's vibe and elevated district managers who had started as pizza-makers. Suddenly, the leadership wasn't observing the frontline; it was the frontline.
The team brought back the loud music, sharpened food quality and leaned into the company's most irreverent instincts. Exhibit A: the Dickle, a dill pickle pizza named when a supply chain manager misspoke in a meeting.
"We had mascots running around D.C. handing out free Dickle pizza," Burns says. "Abe Lincoln with a Mohawk. Ben Franklin with a neck tattoo. It was chaos. But the right kind."
Burns structured his executive team like a modern basketball lineup: no rigid positions. Titles existed, but the HR leader also ran marketing stunts. The IT head pitched in at ops conferences. Burns himself stuck to T-shirts and backwards hats, signaling to franchisees that &pizza wasn't returning to corporate formality anytime soon.
Their first leadership meeting turned into a tense argument. Burns took it as a good sign. "In basketball, until a fight breaks out in practice, you're not ready to play," he says. "Same goes here."
The moment that convinced Burns to take the job wasn't a boardroom pitch. It was a conversation with a bartender who noticed his &pizza shirt.
"Best f***ing pizza in D.C.," she told him. "But it's lost its edge."
That was the truth. And honesty, Burns believes, is the most valuable currency in hospitality. "We lost our way before Covid-19," he says. "And during Covid? Forget it. But when almost 3,000 people signed up to tattoo your brand on their bodies? That's not nostalgia. That's a second chance."
The second chance is paying off. Customer traffic is climbing. The team's back-of-house fixes, from food quality to ticket times, are holding strong. And the energy that built &pizza's cult following in the first place has returned.
"We're not trying to be safe," Burns says. "Safe pizza doesn't get tattoos. Or host weddings."
Related: How a Spot on 'The Montel Williams Show' Sparked a Restaurant Power Brand for This Miami Chef
About Restaurant Influencers
Restaurant Influencers is brought to you by Toast, the powerful restaurant point-of-sale and management system that helps restaurants improve operations, increase sales and create a better guest experience.
Toast — Powering Successful Restaurants. Learn more about Toast.
Related: A Loyal Customer Asked Him to Cater One Event. Now, He Runs More Than 1,000 a Year.
