Meet Fred Morgan of Fired Pie

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fred Morgan.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Fred. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started in the restaurant business at an early age, 15 years old as a work program while in high school. I started as a dishwasher at a restaurant called Ponderosa Steak house and fell in love with the restaurant business. I continue to work though out high school and college, while working my way up to management, I became the general manager of several locations for 15 years, before leaving to a better opportunity at California Pizza Kitchen (CPK). I worked my way up at CPK from general manager, then regional director, and then became regional vice president of operation. I worked at CPK for 17 years, and contributed to opening over 50 locations throughout the US, and at one point was in charge of over 65 restaurants. When I left CPK, I moved to Phoenix and worked with Oregano Pizza Bistro as COO for a few years, then left to start my own pizza concept with two other CPK colleagues.

We had heard of this new fast casual pizza concept that was doing very well in California. We all took a road trip and did some market studies on several of the fast-casual pizza concepts in the state and considered becoming a franchisee of one of them. On our drive back to AZ, we decided we could build a better concept since we had over 60 years of knowledge in pizza industry. On that trip back, we had come up with a name and an even some menu items. We then purchased a restaurant in Phoenix, and within 4 months we opened the first Fired Pie, and 30 days later, we purchased another concept and converted it to our 2nd Fired Pie at Park Central Mall. We followed that up with our 3rd location in Chandler AZ, three months later… And as of today, we have 19 locations, with two more locations coming the 1st quarter of 2018.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We did have our challenges due to many customers not understanding the concept and not believing that you could get a high quality custom pizza freshly baked in under four minutes, for one price. Allowing someone to put whatever they wanted on a pizza, with over 40 selections of toppings.

We also did custom salads, which all of our competitor said would not work. We did see our sales increase week over week for over three years, as customers came to love the concept. The next obstacle was one of our partners, decided he didn’t want to grow the business and wanted to stay at the current 10 locations. This was not part of our original business plan, so we decided to buy him out so he could enjoy his retirement.

Please tell us about Fired Pie.
I did mention earlier that we are a fast casual custom pizza and salad concept. We make our own dough and pizza sauces daily in each of our restaurants which we feel is very important. We are mostly known for our amazing fast high-quality pizzas. We are very proud that we are locally owned and operated, and contribute to local communities with donations, and employing over 350 people in AZ. We continue to change as times change, and can do this quickly, our restaurants are designed with the local neighborhoods in mind. What sets us apart from others is our pizza dough and sauce recipe, which is a family recipe that is over 100 years old.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I think it is growing up with my such a close family. Both my parents came from a large family, and most of my childhood I remember doing so much with all of my cousins, and family road trips down to my family’s farm in Louisiana and spending my summers on the farm.

Pricing:

• $8.29/$8.49 for a custom pizza or custom salad no additional charges for toppings
• $3.00 for a Pookie this is a fresh baked chocolate chip or macadamia nut cookie with a scoop of vanilla bean ice-cream

Contact Info:

• Address: Fired Pie
  14740 N Northsight Blvd Scottsdale AZ 85260
• Website: www.firedpie.com
• Phone: 480-404-9996
• Email: info@firedpie.com
• Instagram: #firedpie
• Facebook: Firedpie
• Twitter: @firedpie
• Yelp: Fired Pie

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