６   Success Story   Pizza Express

Narrator: The first Pizza Express restaurant opened in London in 1965. The company grew rapidly, and its restaurants can now be found in most British cities as well as several locations overseas.

Richard Caven: Our food is the closest you’re going to get to an authentic Italian pizza, but you’re not just coming here for the food, you’re coming here for service, the ambience and the decor of the restaurants. There is a culture within Pizza Express that Sir Peter Boizot, who is the president of Pizza Express, started many years aqo... and its about people, We work within the service industry, looking after our customer’s, and we do the same with our employees. It’s a big happy family.

Annabelle Jolley: In Pizza Express they train you well. They expect a lot of you, if you show that you can do a good job, then the chances of promotion are realty high. If you’ve got the interest and the ambition to go far, then the sky’s the limit. I think that’s very good for a company.

Peter Boizot: When I started out, I would be there at eight o’clock in the morning, sometimes earlier, and I’d go home at two o’clock in the morning, and I’d be back at eight o’clock the next morning. So, it was hard work for me personally, and I think it was giving my enthusiasm to other people that were working with me. So, we were all working enthusiastically to make a success of Pizza Express.

Narrator: Pizza Express offers a simple product. Customers are given a choice of good quality pizzas, salads and pasta dishes, plus Italian wine and beer in attractive and comfortable surroundings. Many Pizza Express restaurants are located in spacious and interesting buildings. This restaurant is in the centre of York, almost in the shadow of York Minster.

Annabelle Jolley: This opened as Pizza Express in April 95. Before that it was a gentlemen’s club. It was built in 1839, and that’s, I think, a really great thing about this place .., that usually buildings like this don’t get to be used by the general public.

Peter Boizot: found a site in Soho, and bought an oven, and we wired up this big oven and started producing pizza. The recipe ... let me think ... where did I get the recipe from? Well, it really came from the first pizziolo that I brought over with the oven from Rome. He gave me the ingredients for making the dough, and how to make the tomato sauce, and sort of cheese to put on it, and the quantities.

Narrator: As the company grew and more and more Pizza Express restaurants were opened, so the problem of achieving product consistency had to be solved.

Peter Boizot: If you want to achieve consistency, think you’ve got to put it down to management: management, inspection, training and constantly seeing that your staff are producing the product, according to the recipe that you have given them. If yon say that they’ve got to put a level ladle of tomato on the pizza, well, they must put a level ladle on, and not just a bit under or a bit over, They must make sure that it’s the right quantity. When they stretch the dough, they’ve got to do it in a certain way, and it’s got to be a certain weight. When you put it into the oven, the oven’s got to be at a certain temperature.

Annabelle Jolley: In relation to the competition Pizza Express are market leaders. They really are the best at what they do.

Richard Caven: We stick to our market. Peter Boizot wanted to give good product, with good service. Other pizza companies have actually changed that direction to try to meet the market, or to try and increase their sales, and to try and improve their profit margin. Once you start wavering off what the company is all about, then you start to lose exactly where you came from.