Second chances fueling overwhelming success of Bellevue-based MOD Pizza

It’s lunchtime, and business is booming at MOD Pizza in Bellevue as students from nearby Bellevue High School, business people and families alike line up to get their custom, personalized pizza.

The scene is being repeated at 36 other locations in Washington and around the country as the company continues its rapid rise as the pioneer in what’s become a hugely popular new category of upscale fast-casual dining.

You can credit founders Scott and Ally Svenson for their business savvy in recognizing the opportunity to break out with higher quality, healthier ingredients, and upscale outlets.

They’d already had one hit – selling the chain of Seattle-inspired coffee outlets they created in the UK while living abroad to Starbucks for millions of dollars.

But when they moved back to their hometown of Bellevue, they knew they wanted to start another business, but weren’t sure what it should be.

“Our initial view was that we wouldn’t do anything else in retail because we figured that we wouldn’t have the same success that we had previously and that the third time was due to be a failure and we didn’t want to taint this wonderful retail experience that we had,” Scott said.

Some friends suggested pizza. At first, the couple scoffed at the idea. But after seeing the success of healthy, higher quality fast-food like Chipotle taking off, they took a look. And what they found was a gaping hole in one of the most popular food categories.

The daily task of feeding four hungry, active boys was an inspiration as well. They couldn’t eat Chipotle every day, Ally said. So they decided to launch MOD – in large part so they’d have someplace else to eat themselves.

Short for “made on demand”, the company focused on delivering custom-made pizzas baked quickly with a wide-variety of high quality, fresh ingredients. And unlike traditional pizza places, every pizza costs the same regardless of how much you pile on it.

It might sound a little crazy. But they’d been down a similar road, creating Seattle Coffee Company in the UK in large part because at the time they couldn’t get a good latte in London. They’d never run a retail shop before, yet it grew to 75 stores in just three years before the couple sold it to Starbucks.

“If we had really known what it was all about we would never have started it. We were blissfully unaware of what we were getting ourselves into,” Ally laughed. “We were young enough and hungry enough and definitely, I would almost say desperate enough, that we just figured it out and that spirit has stayed with us.”

They launched with a single store in Seattle, and MOD quickly took off from there – much like their blind leap into coffee.

“That’s the deja vu moment of ‘Wow it wasn’t just us,'” Ally said. “We always were insecure early on thinking ‘Well, maybe it’s just for us.’ It’s not. There was a hole there and when a lot of people get excited about it that’s when it does start to take on that life of its own.”

But it wasn’t just building a successful business that inspired them. It was the desire to do something much greater with their lives, and impact as many others as they could.

“When we sat down and asked ourselves did we want to dedicate the next chapter to building a chain of pizza restaurants, the answer was no. But when we then talked about what we could use that platform to accomplish, we got really excited,” Scott said.

The couple and their team of advisers and key executives – many veterans from Starbucks who followed Scott after he served as president of the coffee company in Europe – committed to hiring as many people as possible from all walks of life.

“While that might feel modest in some regards, for many people that’s profound. And so it’s become the real energy behind the business. We talk about the fact that it really doesn’t matter where you’ve been, what matters is where you’re going. It matters more what you do today and tomorrow than what you’ve done yesterday,” Scott said.

Tony D’Aloia is one of MOD’s second chances.

“My last job before here, I worked in a kitchen in prison,” he said.

After six years behind bars, a friend who worked at the company convinced the managers to give him a shot. Like many other “MOD Squadders” – what employees call themselves – he started at the bottom. He washed dishes, learned to cook, then to run a store. Three years later, he’s a company star, training other managers how to run their restaurants. Now he doesn’t have just a job, he has a career.

“Scott and Ally and everybody else believed in me. It’s not just about money. It’s about quality of life. It’s about really loving the company you work for, loving the people you work with. And it’s truly the way it is. It’s like a family,” Tony said.

And it’s not just ex-cons. The company has opened its arms to people from all walks of life, young and old, sick, injured, disabled, troubled.

But it’s no charity. Most flourish and become exceptional employees and the foundation of the company’s overwhelming popularity, Ally said.

“That one word, gratitude, is the thing that we do find to be the common denominator, a real driver for this unbelievable performance that starts to come out of people that, as shocking as it is to us, were virtually unemployable,” Ally said.

The company now has over 900 employees and expects to have 2,000 by the end of the year.

It plans to have 90 stores by the end of the year including a number of new markets in North and South Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia. The $40 million in investment capital it just raised will go a long way in realizing its lofty goals.

The drive to grow is coming as much from the MOD Squadders in the stores as the executives at the top, Ally said.

“Scott’s done a great job of every once in a while stopping and looking and asking ‘Is this too much?'” Ally said. “For better or for worse everybody keeps saying ‘No we need more of this, more people need to be employed this way.'”

Tony couldn’t agree more.

“It gives me an opportunity to let the next person who was in the same boat that I was in say, hey here is an opportunity, just do what’s right, work hard, and it will work out for you, you’ve got a chance here.”