One of the core beliefs that I have learned over the last 10 years at Dewey's, is that almost everyone that is employed with us is under-employed and on borrowed time. What I mean by this is that the majority of those seeking a job with us, (and in the restaurant / hospitality industry in general) have a need for a "low-key" job that offers decent pay with flexible work hours. This flexibility is typically sought to allow that individual the ability to work on his or her own personal goals and aspirations. Some are paying their way through school. Some have graduated and are in the familiar "what do I want to do with my life" stage. Some seek work with us until they are ready to apply for a "real" job. For others, it is their first job that their parents are making them get. Some (like me when I worked at my first restaurant) are working on a novel, or an album, or a painting that will hopefully someday lead to a successful career as an artist.

No matter what the personal aspirations are for each individual Dewey's employee, the fact is, everyone has a vision of their ideal life and it almost always does NOT include working at a pizza restaurant for an extended period of time!

"O.K., so what does any of this have to do with the Dewey's culture?" you may ask yourself. To me, recognizing the reality of our employee base has allowed me and the leaders in our company to create a work environment in which we feel that all parties can truly benefit from. One of the reasons I started Dewey's in the first place was to create a restaurant that I, and presumably other people like me, would want to work in. The original idea was to have a cool, neighborhood pizza place with a great vibe that would have good tunes, good beer, and good food. That vision also included a kitchen (I was a kitchen guy) full of interesting people to hang with and work alongside. I realized very quickly that having a bunch of cool people in the kitchen did not necessarily mean that we did a great job for the guest. (I also quickly learned that no one wants to work with a slacker.) Our goal, although not formerly stated, eventually evolved into hiring a bunch of cool, "reasonably" responsible, hard working individuals. This has led us down the path of success for 10 + years. Learning from our many mistakes along the way has also helped. So now, 10 years after opening the first store, if you ask me what the goal of the company is, I can answer you very easily. It is in fact our vision statement; Dewey's Pizza: bringing together warm, caring, intelligent people who love to serve. I, and the leaders in our company, have come to recognize that the most important component to our success has been the people that we have hired along the way. This is obviously true for any company, but I think especially so in the hospitality business.

The only way a company can grow, stay true to its soul, and remain consistently successful, is to attract, hire, and keep great people. It's that simple and it's that hard.

-Danny Meyer, Setting the Table

So, if you come to work for us, you can be assured that we are always looking for great people, almost all with talents that far exceed the mental and physical requirements needed to work at a pizza joint. Our culture in some ways is not unlike the great learning institutions, where the students and teachers, not the curriculum, create the real value. In our restaurants, it is really the unique qualities and attributes of each employee that adds value to each of the other employees, and is what truly defines our culture. Thanks for reading about us and below are a few quotes that have inspired us along the way.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

-Thoreau

We should be able to institutionalize all the demographic, communicative, respecting, loving, listening customer satisfaction kinds of things in the future by using the advantages of technology. In other words, keeping all the benefits of smallness but also capitalizing on the benefits of bigness.

-Abraham Maslow

In the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you've had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.

-Jim Collins, Good to Great