Mioposto

Finding the sweet spot

Starting a pizzeria is a no brainer, right? Everyone knows and loves pizza. What could go wrong? As owners Jeremy Hardy and Tiah Holt discovered, "simple isn't easy."

Jeremy and Tiah

When Chow Foods co-founders Jeremy Hardy and Peter Levy added Mioposto to their stable of restaurants in 2006, the Mount Baker neighborhood seemed to embrace it. Sales went up, then stalled. "Peter wanted to sell it because sales weren't building," explains Jeremy. "I felt like we were just missing something that would make it work; something we hadn't figured out yet." Jeremy and Peter decided to part ways after 23 years as partners. Jeremy kept Coastal Kitchen (sold in 2016) and Mioposto.

One date night, Tiah and Jeremy went to Mioposto, sat at a table next to the window and prepared to have a nice evening. A serious look around showed them vinyl tile, green paint, a limited menu (which wasn't very good, they thought), no cocktails, no patio, out-of-control children. "We went home, had cocktails, made a wonderful dinner, listened to music, played backgammon. And we thought, 'why can't we have this kind of experience in our neighborhood?' We didn't want to over-reach, we just wanted something that was simply delicious that wouldn't break the budget. Our focus became making it a great date night spot. Restaurants follow trends. What often gets lost is the human being. You should want to stay and enjoy yourself.

"Mioposto wasn't very good. I know fine dining and great food. Tiah ("food and fixtures") knows big flavors and is a great cook. What we found was that pizza is different, it's its own thing. The further we got down the well, the less we knew. So we started working. We went to Phoenix to Pizzeria Bianco where we waited four hours to be seated. It was like going to the mountain. We realized everything we knew was wrong. We came home and started working on the dough, spending over three months getting the recipe right. Then on to tomato sauce. In Modesto, California, after two harvests, we found the tomato we were looking for-not too much acid. If it has high acid, you need to tone it down with sugar, then you're starting to add ingredients. We wanted to keep things simple-food made from quality ingredients that could be replicated. Consistent excellence. These tomatoes you can eat like candy. All we do is mill them and add a little salt. They come from a family farm that's been in business since 1943. Each year they call us to ask how the harvest was for us and how their service has been."

To ensure each recipe can be replicated consistently, they publish "the mix" each year in both English and Spanish for the team. Every recipe with picture is in this book.

Along with rebuilding and creating new recipes, they changed everything else, too. In 2011, they did a remodel, with different colors and surfaces. They took out the coffee area and added a table (the 'smooch booth'), shoe-horned a bar in, removed the kid's self-serve lemonade area, added a brick wall, and a patio. All of this was done over three days during Christmas. It's been growing ever since.

"When we changed the dough in September, we got a letter from a customer wishing us the best but saying they wouldn't be back because they disliked the dough change. You have to have a thick skin in this business, so I wrote back and thanked him and wished him well. We knew we were on the right track. Nine months later, he acknowledged that he was totally wrong, and we were right to change things. It took us three more years to get things where we wanted. It takes tremendous work to do something simple. We opened Ravenna in 2014, Admiral in 2015, and Mercer Island in 2017.

"We have our regular wine list, plus a high-end list. We sell the high-end wines like Leonetti's Cabernet Sauvignon for the wholesale price plus $25, which is our corkage fee. It means we make the same amount on every wine we sell. This was Tiah's idea. We had 17 cases allotted from Leonetti and we blew through them. We had the same experience with Quilceda Creek. It works because it gets back to our concept of date night."

Any business has to make a profit to stay in business, and it's harder than ever with labor costs. Especially now, it's tough to be fully staffed. Mioposto has been fully staffed since September 2021. "Our employees have 100% company-paid health insurance including dental and vision, and a 401k plan. If someone is out due to COVID, we pay them anyway and don't take it out of their sick leave. We have kitchen managers and GMs who've been here 11 years, a server at the Mercer Island store who started work at Coastal Kitchen in the late '90s, and a bartender at Mount Baker who's been with us for 7 years. We try to create an opportunity for people to spend a career in the industry, and changed our focus from 100% on the guest to 50% on the guest and 50% on the employee. We give people consistent schedules, plus we're an all tip pool house that includes the kitchen. We recently had every employee take our Bar Exam - 81 questions with two weeks to study. It was really hard. The idea is to create a sense of ownership in the staff; we're not just a place to put your hours in and leave. All of this means we've had to change our approach As an old dog, I've had to personally make those changes. After the breakup of Chow Foods, I needed to find new footing."

Connie Adams/March 2022

Check back next month for part 2.

Mioposto

Mount Baker
3601 South McClellan St
Seattle, WA 98144
206-760-3400

Ravenna
3426 NE 55^th St
Seattle, WA 98105
206-582-1899

Admiral
2139 California Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98116
206-466-2677

Mercer Island
2601 76^th Ave SE
Mercer Island, WA 98040
206-588-2743

www.miopostopizza.com