Behind The Slice: The Donatos Story Of Leadership And Love With Jane Grote Abell
Leading with pizza is a slice of success, proving that a focus on quality, community, and compassion can lead to a thriving business and a fulfilling life. Sean Olson sits down with Jane Grote Abell, who shares how her dedication to family values and innovative leadership transformed Donatos Pizza into a cherished brand. Jane delves into the origins of Donatos, recounting how her father built the company on principles of consistency and treating customers with respect. She shares the pivotal moments of their journey, including the challenges during their partnership with McDonald’s and the eventual buyback of the company. Jane’s story is a testament to the power of perseverance, compassion, and leading with love.
Connect with Jane at jabell@donatos.com or on LinkedIn.
Read now to learn the Donatos Way: The Missing Piece: Doing Business the Donatos Way
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Behind The Slice: The Donatos Story Of Leadership And Love With Jane Grote Abell
Family Business & Leadership Lessons
This is the show where you read the real stories of people just like you who have become extraordinary leaders. You'll learn some valuable lessons from their lives, lessons you can apply to become the best leader you were created to be. When you become an intentional leader, lives are changed. I am an author, speaker, business owner and executive coach. We are glad to have you on this episode.
I'm pleased to introduce our guest. Her name is Jane Grote Abell. She's the Chief Purpose Officer and the Executive Chairwoman of the Board of Donatos Pizza. For those of you who know Donatos Pizza, you know the incredible taste and flavor that they bring to the table. Their product is an awesome part of their story, but who they are as a company is an even better part of it. You are here for a treat. I encourage you to hit that subscribe button as we get going so you can catch every episode. Jane, it is a pleasure to have you on our show. Welcome.
Thank you so much for inviting me to join you. I appreciate it.
It’s our pleasure. I'm a big fan of Donatos Pizza. I've been a big fan for a long time. You are based here in Columbus, Ohio, where we are based. We're neighbors in that way, but we appreciate you jumping on board here. I love the vision of the pizza behind you with all the pepperoni. I know you guys have the, “Great honor of being the edge-to-edge pizza.” Where'd that come from?
Some people will call it Columbus style, but many years ago, when my dad founded the business, which Donatos means to give a good thing, its Latin derivative, was about giving the same consistent product to our customers every single time. We put over 100 pieces of pepperoni on every large pepperoni pizza. People count them all the time and it's important that they're on edge. We put 103 to 106. We weigh it to make sure that it's right, but the idea behind that is making sure that every time you take a bite of pizza, you get the exact same ingredients.
Donatos Pizza: It’s not about giving a good thing. It’s about giving the same consistent product to our customers every single time.
I'm laughing that people actually like to count it out to make sure, and verify you guys are doing what you say. You're familiar with the show. We open up with our guests, walking us through their professional stories and leadership lessons learned along the way. I know your story is a great one for this family business. Walk us through some of the history and the leadership lessons you've learned along the way.
Family businesses can be very magical, but they can also be very messy sometimes. We've had both in many years of being in business, but I'll walk you all the way back to when my dad started in business. I won't go into every great detail, but there have been many life lessons for us as a family business. My dad went into business. He worked as a pizza maker when he was 13, 14 or 15 years of age.
What he found was that the people managing the business sometimes always treated the customers right, always treated the associates right, made sure the pizzas was the same every single time, then he worked for some people that would water down the sauce, take pepperonis off or make the pizza different. At an early age, he learned how important it was, almost like a contract with that customer when we say, “We're going to sell this product to you, and it's going to be the same every single time.”
That was his passion. Beyond that, bigger than that, his passion was about building a business where he could treat others the way he wanted to be treated. That's the golden rule and also the platinum role, but it’s founded on treating others the way he wants to be treated. That's when he had an opportunity at age eighteen to go into business for the first time on his own. My grandpa was like, “No, you're not. You're going to stay in school. You're going to go to college. This pizza thing is a fad.” Anyway, back in the late ‘50s. It turns out it wasn't a fad.
My dad stayed in school. He went to Ohio State. He continued to work in the pizza business, and then, at the age of 18, going on to 19, he had an opportunity to buy the business again. For $1,300, he borrowed money from his future father-in-law and his dad and opened up his very first pizza place on the South side of Columbus. It’s not his meaning to give a good thing. It was truly about bringing a great pizza to every neighborhood and the communities where we did business, and bringing our principals to work with us and building a business based on the power of love.
As a little girl in a family business, I had a first-row seat. We lived right behind our first location on the South side of Columbus, and our front yard was the back of the restaurant. Every night, when customers would come in to get their pizza, dad would send them back to the house. Every night, my mom would open the door in our living room to our neighbors, our customers, their families, and their friends. At an early age, I learned a lot about hospitality. Me at 7, 8 and 9 years of age, entertaining customers in our own home opened my eyes to being in business is important, but it's about being in the people business and not just for your own associates, but for your customers and your neighbors and the people that are in business with you we grew.
Being in business is important, but it's truly about being in the people business—not just for your own associates, but for your customers, neighbors, and the people who are truly in business with you.
My career history is I worked in operations most of my life. I worked in the restaurants. I worked in the commissary with my grandma and grandpa, making our sausage and meatball recipe, cracking eggs. I cracked a lot of eggs during the day. All through high school, I worked in our restaurants. Through college, I went to the Ohio State University. I managed in our restaurants all through college and all through the summers. Once I graduated from Ohio State in Organizational Design and Communications, I headed up what was then called a long-time ago personnel department.
I changed the name to the people department early in the 1990s. Mostly because truly the essence of being in business is about people. We changed it to the people department. I became our Chief People Officer and grew that until 1999. McDonald's approached us about selling our business, which was never on our radar. We were looking to grow, but not by selling the business. This is back in the day when they were doing a meal occasion strategy and they invested in Chipotle. They invested in Boston Market and they wanted to get into the pizza category because they tried to themselves and it didn't work.
When they approached us my dad was all about, “This is awesome. We have an opportunity to really influence the world's largest restaurant company on how to do business based on the power of love and bring in your principles to work with you.” That was his vision. As a Chief People Officer, I was probably a little more trying to figure out how to sell our family business to the world's largest restaurant company and keep our soul and spirit. That was my mantra. It’s like, “If we're going to do this, then we have to stay true to who we are and our values and maintain that as we grow.” I'll share later, if you want, my experience during those four years and what I ended up building out as my 4Cs of leadership.
That didn't work out well with McDonald's. I was driving into work one day and heard on NPR that they were going to sell or close all of Donatos. This was in 2003. They were getting a lot of heat because their stock went down. That's when I heard it on the news. I walked into the office, and my dad was there. At this time, my family, my brother, sister, mom and dad had all left the business. It was my dad and I still left in the business and he sat down and I was like, “We got to buy the business debt. I don't know how to buy back our family business from the world's largest restaurant company, but I believe in what we're doing. I believe in our people.” We have 5,000 people. I started with my dad, “I need you because you're super smart and you're visionary, but I also really need your money because I don't have enough money to buy it back.”
Fortunately, he said, “Absolutely.” We put a team together and ended up buying the company back. My dad and I bought it back in 2003. It was a great experience. It was a company we were losing about $7.5 million at the time. We sold high, bought low, had to work on turning some things around and then have been able to grow ever since.
That's an incredible story. Thank you for sharing that. I love the aspect that you sold it because you wanted to have a larger impact because McDonald's is massive compared to where Donatos was at that point. It didn't work out for whatever reason. We don't have to go into the reasons behind that, but what was the emotion like for you and your dad knowing this was your baby? You gave the baby up, and now it wasn't really working the way that you'd hoped it would, and then the opportunity to buy it back. What were the emotions during that transition? I know there are a lot of readers who are entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who had that vision of what they wanted to happen, and it doesn't go the way they expected, but you have to keep pushing forward. What were those emotions? How'd you navigate that season?
Not very well. After my mom and my brother and sister had left the company, and it was just my dad and I, even though I was our Chief People Officer, I didn't do a very good job keeping the soul of the company alive because I started working in fear. What happened during that time was we got a new leader, CEO who was running a business, rest in peace. He was a great guy, but his leadership style was completely different than who we were. It didn't work for a number of reasons. 1) He tried to change our concept and be a dine-in concept versus what we truly were, which is mostly pickup and delivery. That was one aspect. Another aspect was building bigger of building outbuildings faster than we were developing our people, but also in changing that concept changed who we were.
We had to do the front and back of the house for the dining room, which was a different strategy for us. Our sales-to-investment ratio was way upside down. We were building bigger than our sales. All of that was the aspects of business, the fundamentals of business, that you could say went wrong. What went wrong internally was for myself as our Chief People Officer, I say, I started working in fear and I wasn't fearful of losing my job because I had an employment contract. It wasn't a fear base of truly understanding who we were. It was a fear that we were going to lose our culture.
I started operating in a different way, meaning I felt like I had to put armor on, or you could call it the imposter syndrome as we say nowadays or code-switching because all of a sudden, our G&A went from $10 million to $32 million a year. We had all these new people come on board. When you try to create a culture that is inclusive of all different cultures, it and many different companies that came on board with us, it was a bit of an overwhelming task. If you lose yourself in the process, which I did, then the shadow that you cast is long. I started working in fear in the sense that fearful, “We were losing our culture,” but I started changing a little bit of the way I operated. I felt like, “Now I'm working in this public company. It's the only time I've ever worked anywhere else. I must start to operate this way instead of the way that I always operated.”
It wasn't an unethical thing. I didn't do anything. The sense that you would say that wasn't appropriate as a leader, but it wasn't true to who we are. I lost the courage to have my voice. I lost the courage to live my character out loud. I lost the courage to make mistakes. In doing that, you lose your voice and become fearful and you start working harder, your decisions become unclear and cloudy, and then you get paralyzed. When you're working in fear, and you're really, honestly, truly, it was operating more off of what my agenda was or what my position was versus what the soul of the company needed to be. It’s one of those things that happen over time.
I had an awakening, and it was a decision time for us as a company that we had to shut down a market. I disagreed with it. I started going down this path of doing it the way McDonald's would, even though I knew it wasn't true to who and what we were. I know it was that time I looked in the mirror and I remember not liking who I was anymore and not liking what I stood for anymore. I decided at that moment, “If we were going to do this, then I was going to do it with honesty and integrity and with love, and we were going to do it the right way.”
I write about that in the book, but it was a monumental moment for me because it also meant leading a team and getting a team together behind a strategy that would cost us more money, but we did it because it was the right thing to do. There were lots of emotions during that time, but fortunately, I got back to my core purpose of who I was and what I wanted to see. It wasn't my father's company anymore, but getting back to the foundation of who we were was important, and having that voice in order to speak up and do it the right way was my turning point.
Donatos Pizza: The Missing Piece: Doing Business the Donatos Way.
Thanks for your honesty and vulnerability in that and for sharing it. The key part to that, though, is that you knew who you were. You knew your core. As leaders, we have to be aware of this. We have to know what motivates us, what drives us, what our values are, and what our ethics are. You feel that tension because you know who you are. That was a huge first step for you. For readers, it's important to know who you are as a leader and what you stand for because that way, if it's being compromised or challenged, you can stand with it. That's a great piece.
The Four C’s
She mentioned her book. Her book is called The Missing Piece. It's the story of Donatos and what has taken place there. I'd encourage you to get that. Jen, you buy it back. Donatos, your family company, you said that's where you jumped in with the 4C's, which are these values that drive the company forward and have been ever since. Let's dive into those for a little bit, what they are, and how they actually play out in real-time.
Thank you. Reflecting back on how I lost myself during that time, how I got to the 4Cs was really starting with the first C, which is Character. To your point, knowing who you are first in any situation, whether it's gray or whether it's truly you're feeling resistance or you're feeling like you're not aligned in the organization that you're working in or in the organization that you're leading, is going back to your character and truly understand who you are and what you stand for and just not yourself, but surrounding yourself with people.
I talk a lot about it in the book because people started applauding the way. I changed my leadership style, but it wasn't truly who I was. I wasn't being authentic to myself. It's really important to surround yourself with people who aren't afraid to challenge you and those around you who are like-minded in your characters so that you can be challenged, but you can hear it and accept it, and it's constructive criticism.
Sometimes, in lack of having that around you, you can find yourself with people who are like, “Yes, you're doing the right things. You're going the right way,” even though internally in your core, it doesn't feel right. I start with character because I think it's important to know who you are, your purpose, and what you stand for. The second one I talk about is courage. This is so many things. Having the courage to make mistakes. Having the courage to admit your mistakes and lean into things you've never done before, like buy the company back. Having the courage to step into the unknown with faith and knowing that there's something greater than you in all of it, you can step into it with love.
You can step into it with faith but with the courage to do it. I use that because I lost my courage. When you lose your courage to have your voice and speak to things and make sure that as Chief People Officer, I was speaking for the people, when you lose that, then you lose the ability to influence any kind of change, but it is having that courage to live your character out loud. Oftentimes, we can have our values and live our lives, but sometimes we're afraid to live that character and those values out loud. I think that it takes courage to do that. 1) Surround yourself with the right people of character, but 2) Have the courage to live those values out loud, all that you do, and make decisions, and the reasons behind those decisions are important.
When you lose courage, you lose the ability to influence any kind of change.
The third one I talk about is conviction. This one was a hard one for me because, especially in a family business and an entrepreneurial business, you can grow up in a family business and have this umbilical cord to say, “Am I doing this because it's a family business, it's legacy? I'm trying to make my parents proud. I'm trying to live up to something that has been built around me or am I truly doing this for the right reasons?”
Personally, I had to go through that time period when we were buying the company back to check myself to stay grounded in what are really my reasons in order to buy the company back. It truly was because I believe in what we're doing, and I'll talk about agave capitalism, but I believe in building a business based on the power I love and how I walked away from that.
We wouldn't have the opportunity that we have and every day when we serve people to be able to serve people with love. That was truly a moment for me to focus internally, make sure my conviction was for the right reason and not because I was trying to make my dad proud through all of that. The last C I talk about is Compassion. I see it all the time and sometimes it's easier to make decisions and be black and white and not walk through life with people. Sometimes, we call it alumni. When people have to become an alumni of our company for whatever reason, the true intent for me is that they write back and say, “Thank you for the opportunity to have been working there, that it was a time of goodwill.”
You can always be honest with people. Jack Welsh always said, “The kindest thing you can do for people is to be honest with them,” and I believe that, but sometimes people do that in a brutally honest way instead of with cap compassion. I think compassion has to be at every level, and you can call it EQ now, which is the empathy part of leadership, but it has to be part of everything that we do, whether we're making hard decisions on people or building a business. Compassion is a big part of what we try to do.
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I love those. I always share with people that, “We have to manage processes.” We have all these processes to allow us to do business well and make pizza or whatever their business is, but leadership is people, and it's totally different. You can't manage people. You have to influence them and lead them and have that compassion. I love the 4Cs and how you laid that out, but I also like that as you're describing it, you're describing your path in it. For instance, you've used the word faith a lot. You've used the word love and that idea of compassion in it. I think it's important for people to realize those values are your values and, therefore, the values of Donatos.
Not all businesses have the same values. We have different values, but we have to know what they are for our business and stick to them and know what they are. Something you and I were talking about a little while ago, we are totally led by faith in what we do. My wife and I said from day one that God owns the business. He lets us run it. Even as we pursue business and do as good a job as we can in trying to acquire a new business and have an impact on people, we hear no a lot. That's life. That's business.
Agápe Capitalism
You don't get every sale. When we hear no, we honestly feel in our hearts that God gives us a business he wants us to have. When we hear no, there's a reason behind it and it's okay. That's our conviction. That's what drives us because we are here to truly impact people. That's what's driving you too. No matter what somebody's values are the values of their business or even the one they work in, you need to have those convictions. I love how that all plays out. I know you talked about the Agápe Capitalism. You mentioned that quickly, and I know I've seen this little coin you guys have created from you before. Talk to us about Agápe Capitalism and how you came up with that.
It's the way my dad's always operated in making decisions. He's gotten back to, “Are we treating others the way they want to be treated? Are we leading with love?” No pun intended, he didn’t coin the term, but he went and bought the domain for Agápe Capitalism a few years ago. The reason is capitalism. Some people think it's a good or bad thing, and the idea of capitalism is a great thing in America that we're able to be entrepreneurs and be able to change people's lives through the work that we do, but you have to make money really putting agape on top of that. That is, building your business based on the power of love and agape being obviously the truest and highest form of love, which is unconditional love.
How do you build a business based on unconditional love? Coining the phrase is one thing, but we always take, when we make decisions, three simple tenets. There's a coin that doesn't have our logo on it. It's more about the way my dad operates all his businesses. It's a powerful thing for us to make decisions personally, but as well as professionally. It has three tenets. It's the golden rule, treating others the way you want to be treated, it's leading with love, then if you do those two things, we believe you end up doing the right thing. It's those three tenets, that big decision, small decisions. We believe that every time you're able to follow that simple rule, and it sounds simple, you're able to come out on the other end having made the right decision.
Sometimes it's really hard. I'll give an example. When we did, and it was right during the pandemic when restaurants were shutting down and we had to close the restaurant part of our business and our sales declined significantly like everybody else when we first all entered this world of an unknown pandemic. We filed for the PPP like a lot of people did at that time. Shortly after that, we were approved for about $8 million. We had two weeks to accept it as soon. When we applied and were approved, our sales started taking off, and pizza became the name of everybody's household. For all our competitors, we ended up having a good year that year, but we didn't know what was going to happen.
We had two weeks to decide. Our sales started going back up again. Talking about faith, I called an emergency board meeting and we had to make the decision. We have a big one of these coins, but we pulled the coin out. We talked about the spirit of the law for the PPP and the letter of the law for the PPP. While we were approved by the letter of the law for the PPP for $8 million, the spirit of the law was truly about helping small businesses that weren't going to be able to make payroll. That's what the intention of it was behind it.
After a short conversation, because we all got behind, “Are we leading with love? Are we treating others the way that they should be treated?” We felt like $8 million needed to be turned down. We turned it down because everybody was fighting for the same dollar that other small businesses really needed. It would be able to prosper. I say it is such a testament to God because it was a leap of faith off these three tenets. We ended up having a record year that year and ended up doing well beyond what we would've done by getting that $8.2 million. It was not an easy thing to turn down, but also feels good. Our conviction was that it wasn't meant for us, and that we had no idea what was going to happen, but we took a leap of faith that it was the right thing to do. Because of that, we ended up having a pretty good year after that.
Employee Longevity
I love that story. That's standing by your truth and convictions, putting the coin to the test in your meeting. That is fantastic. I know Donatos is doing well now. You guys have almost 500 stores now across the country. You're looking at some new regions to dive into. One of the things that stuck out to me when I've had a chance to come to your headquarters there a couple of different times now, and last time I was there, I noticed a table over on the side that had, I don't know what you call those, the pizza paddles, pizza boards or whatever you call them, but it had, “15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, 35 years.”
Foodservice, in general, is not known for the longevity of employees, but yet you have these employees that are sticking around 30 or 30 some years, and it's not 1 or 2, but there's a lot of them. What do you find is the secret to keeping those people? People are at stake as a culture, but what has Donatos specifically done that warrants that type of loyalty to the organization?
Thank you for asking that. Thanks for noticing. We've had people that have retired after 50 years. We had three people that started with my dad when he went into business. It amazes me sometimes. We have delivery drivers that have been with us for 35 or 40 years and that's not an easy job. The restaurant is not an easy job. It all goes back to it's not anything that we're doing. It's the people that we hire and the restaurants because we all know you don't work for a company. You work for the people. Whether it's an hourly associate in our store or our general manager, it's about who they're working for. What we've been able to do, and not me, but our managers in our restaurants or the leaders here, have been able to create a sense of family and sometimes dysfunctional.
Being a family based on values attracts people to build a company and they can be authentic and transparent at work. It is about allowing people to be themselves. I remember one day pulling up to the office during the McDonald's days under the arches, and all the people were great people. It was a different environment, but I felt like I had to put armor on to come in, and I felt I did. It was like, “This is a person I have to be when I go in,” versus, “I want people to pull up to their place, whether it's the restaurant on Thurman Avenue, it's in DC, across the country or a home office where they can just come in and be themselves.”
That's of all people, where they feel included, they feel a sense of community, they feel like that store because, unfortunately, we work with people almost as much, if not more than we're able to be with our own family sometimes. We want that place to be an environment that is a reflection of that general manager, but that general manager feels like they can be authentic. I think that’s the beauty of any culture. We don't get it right all the time by any means. We make mistakes. I think the most important thing you can do when you have that toxicity in your environment is that you're able to confront it. It doesn't mean the person's a bad person, but you help them become alumni and they will be able to find a place where they feel like a sense of community.
Donatos Pizza: The most important thing you can do when you have that toxicity in your environment is to confront it.
I think inclusiveness is important, diversity of thought, and people are really important, but it's the people leading every single individual restaurant, which is why I believe in franchising. They're the families who are in that community and running those restaurants. I'm a huge proponent of franchising for that reason.
Franchising
Let's talk about franchising for a minute and the fact of how you guys have grown because of the culture you're embodying what you're trying to get across. Many people think for a franchise, “I need to have the cash, whatever the cash amount is to buy, it's an outs franchise in this region.” You must be doing some sort of vetting of potential franchisees to make sure that the culture carries through. How does that play out?
Thank you for that. We don't always get it right. There are a lot of people out there with money who are looking, and people think restaurants are fun, but it's also a lot of hard work. There are ups and downs. As you can probably see in the sales environment, everybody's discounting. Everything is $5, whether it's McDonald's or casual dining, like everybody in this game of our consumers, are a lot more discerning with their dollars. They're going to put their dollars where they feel value and that value means experience. We've gotten it right a lot, but we've also gotten it wrong a lot a franchise partner. I think the most important thing about that is that they're like-minded because we call them partners because it's a long-term relationship.
People think restaurants are fun. They are fun, but it's also a lot of hard work.
It's a twenty-year relationship with a franchise partner. We could be a lot bigger if we were just looking for money for growth, but we are a lot more discerning about who we bring on board and who we partner with because they're not just representing themselves and their community. They are putting our name on their building. Doing a good thing and building a business based on the power of love is a vetting process.
We go through a long process with people. I meet every franchise partner, the next generation. My son and my daughter are also in the business meet with that franchise partner because in twenty years, they're the ones that are going to be in business with them. We have franchise partners that are now third-generation in the business. You don't always get it right, but the process is really important. You have to have a process like hiring people. You have to have a process, but it is truly taking time sometimes it might take longer to make sure that you've got the right people behind the brand name when we open on the block in Oklahoma because they are Donatos to their community.
Future Plans
Especially now, because I'm guessing it's a lot of new regions. It's people's first taste of Donatos both physically with the pizza as well as that culture with the people. You are now in third generation with your family in Donatos itself. I know your dad is still doing a lot from the R&D side or the Research and Development side, having fun, and there have been constant transitions there. What are some of those areas you guys are diving into now regionally? Some of our readers may say, “I've never heard of Donatos, you coming towards me.” Are you able to share regions you're looking to get into?
We just signed three different franchise partners for Texas. We are expanding in Oklahoma, and I'll back you up a little bit because of our partnership with Red Robin, who approached us a few years ago. Their whole idea, which was probably one of the first Ghost Kitchen ideas, was to put a Donatos inside of their restaurant that's twofold. 1) You can go to a Red Robin. We're in about 273 of them across the United States. You can sit down in the restaurant and order Donatos Pizza from their menu. They kept our brand, and the integrity of our brand, but they serve it in their restaurants. If you're in California, you can pull up Donatos on your digital web. Donatos will pull up and it'll be delivered out at a Red Robin and you may not even know it.
We're able to expand our presence that way, which has been a great partnership. They're a franchise of Donatos. they franchise with us. They have development rights, they pay us the development fees, they pay us a percentage of the pizza sales, and then we partner with them and their restaurants. That really helped us a lot because it helped open up our distribution channels across the United States. Now that we are able to go into Texas and Oklahoma, we're doing it traditional and non-traditional. We have ghost restaurants as well as traditional restaurants.
You mentioned my dad. He is working in our innovation center. I'll back up. Years ago, there had been at a piece of equipment called the Matic, and that's made by our Gerdy manufacturing company now. It was all about slicing our pepperoni at the same thickness every single time so our customers would get the same product every single time. He did it manually on a very manual band blade operation that he invented on a garbage can prototype and it didn't work out.
It was early ‘70s. He had advised to go to all the frozen pizza companies and try to sell them the piece of equipment because it was too big for a restaurant. He got a patent on it, and I ended up automating it. That's become Agápe Manufacturing Company. I say all that to say my dad's mind never stops. He's constantly trying to find a better way for our restaurants.
He now has a patent on what we call Agápe Automation and a patent on a smart saucer. You put the pizza underneath and it's on a turntable and you press a button and it sauces the pizza. They're in the process of doing a smart cheese application, then we have also in test a smart pep, where you put the pepperoni sticks on the top, but now it's a smaller tabletop and it cuts the pizza by the press of a button. It’s all about automation. What's been beautiful about that is this next generation is all about automation and technology. They'd much rather come in and be able to use some type of automation versus doing everything by hand but being able to build love into the automation side of it as well.
He got two more patents on these two pieces of equipment. He also has Agápe Automation Cutter. We're working with a company in Canada. It is a fully automated robotic arm type of pizza on demand where it could go in airports. It could go in a lot of different places, but it's completely fully automated. We're taking those modular pieces and putting them in our back of the house so that we're able to be not fully automated because we'll always have humans, people in our restaurants because that's an important aspect of who we are to be able to serve our pizza. I would say a lot of innovation on automating the manual labor that goes on so that we can allow our people to be much more interfacing with our customers. That's where my dad is working on the edge and venting that stuff. We're able to apply that to our restaurants, which has been a lot of fun.
I love that whole story because it's family, but it's stepping outside of the box. It's not saying just, “We're doing pizza.” It's like, “How can we keep doing this better? How can we improve the culture and improve what's taking place?” It’s an incredible story. I'm sure your dad would be an incredible person to sit and listen to for hours, the stories that he has.
Closing Thoughts
It's been awesome to have you on here. I feel like we can keep on going different avenues with this, but I know our readers are going to be able to see where they can get your book and some other links to different things and including you at one time we're on Undercover Boss. What I love about that episode is how the character piece came through, how you dealt with some difficult situations with employees, and how you really managed through that. I appreciate that. I hope our people will track you down and find an auto in their area. I want to finish with this. We finish every episode with the same question. We want this to be very practical and intentional for our readers. What is something intentional our leaders can do to lead more effectively?
There's power in the pause. I think sometimes, as leaders, we get recognized and rewarded for making decisions quickly, thoughtfully, and analytically, but also quickly. Oftentimes, we don't stop and pause. 1) Be mindful and prayerful and surrendering it. That's hard sometimes when you're challenged with certain things that may come at you in a very different way. It's sometimes hard to pause. Pausing for us is really taking this coin out and reflecting on these three things and then making sure that you're intentional about surrendering it and praying about the outcome, but also surrendering the outcome to what the best thing is supposed to happen and having that leap of faith. You can get these coins on our Agápe Capitalism site.
It's a nonprofit. The intent is these aren't our coins. Agápe Capitalism isn't just a Donatos thing that we hope that it's something that gets spread across the world because it's a human value and that's treating others the way you want to be treated and building your businesses based on the power of love. There's power in the pause. If in our highest anxiety moments of not knowing what the right thing to do is, we can pause, reflect, surrender and give it over to the Lord.
I love it. True to my heart, true to life, and true to the character of Jane and Donatos. Jane, thank you much. It's been great to have you as a guest. Blessings to you and your family, as well as your Donatos family, as God continues to bless the business.
Thank you. Blessings to you, too.
