178 | Business World Magazine |
December 2013
er people in,” Hadjis says. Craft, micro-
brewed beers were getting big at the time
and they sold well, and we were getting a
higher price for them. I remember think-
ing, ‘OK, maybe craft beer is the way to
go.”
Adaptation and reinvention have be-
come recurring themes as years have
passed.
Hadjis says each of the now 16 res-
taurants in the Oggi’s family get a total
design makeover every seven years to
change out old themes and incorporate
new ones that are the product of recurring
monthly meetings with design and archi-
tecture partners, as well as focus groups
with customers.
Also vital to establishing a brand-
awareness foothold in the market were
alliances with professional sports fran-
chises, where Oggi’s became the “official
pizza” of the San Diego Padres (MLB)
and Chargers (NFL) and the Phoenix Coy-
otes (NHL), among others, and, in Hadjis’
words, “seared into customers’ minds the
association of us with those teams.”
“We do research. We talk to our cus-
tomers,” he says. “And the three things
that are top of mind in terms of the roles
we play are sports, brewhouse and pizza.
