Andrew Dana is the Founder and Co-owner of Timber Pizza Company and Call Your Mother Deli. He started both successful restaurant concepts in Washington, D.C., establishing them as local favorites known for their high-quality and creative food offerings. Prior to launching his two restaurant brands, Andrew served as the Director of Business Development at Everfi, a company that powers social impact through education. He prides himself on being a new dad, a Washington D.C. native, and an encyclopedia of carbohydrate knowledge.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Andrew Dana shares how he turned a business school project into fulfilling entrepreneurial dreams
- Why a focus on creating a memorable experience is important for a restaurant
- Andrew advocates for simple, quality ingredients to develop an award-winning recipe
- Hiring great people and implementing systems to maintain brand magic across multiple locations
- Providing perks, growth opportunities, and a fun work culture to retain talented employees
- How challenges can lead to business improvements through perseverance
- How new restaurateurs can be hands-on and outwork the competition in the early years
In this episode…
Opening just one successful restaurant takes passion, persistence, and a focus on creating an unforgettable customer experience. But what are the primary factors in building a whole brand of thriving restaurants?
According to Andrew Dana, Co-owner and Founder of Call Your Mother Deli and Timber Pizza Co., the key to building a successful restaurant brand involves a few core elements. First, it’s crucial to have a deep passion for the product — developing a unique, high-quality menu item through trial-and-error and a focus on quality ingredients is vital. However, Andrew emphasizes that the experience is just as important as the food itself — creating a fun, memorable atmosphere through factors like music, ambiance, and exceptional customer service. At the heart of Andrew’s approach is cultivating a vibrant, engaged work culture. He prioritizes hiring people who will have fun and enjoy coming to work every day, offering them perks like gym memberships, language classes, and opportunities for career growth to incentivize his team and show they are valued.
On this episode of the Top Business Leaders Show, Andrew Dana, Co-owner and Founder of Call Your Mother Deli and Timber Pizza Co., chats with Rise25’s Chad Franzen about keys to building successful restaurant brands. Andrew shares his passion for carbohydrates and how it inspired his pizza concept. He explains how starting with a mobile pizza oven allowed him to learn the business before opening his first brick-and-mortar location, and emphasizes the importance of creating a memorable customer experience.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Andrew Dana on LinkedIn
- Call Your Mother Deli
- Timber Pizza Co.
- Dani Moreira on LinkedIn
- Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
- SpotOn
- Rise25
Sponsor for this episode
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise25 Media. We featured top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world
Chad Franzen 0:18
Chad Franzen here co-host of the show where we feature top restaurant tours, investors and business leaders. This is part of our spot on series. SpotOn has the best in class payment platform for retail and they have a flagship solution called spot on restaurant, where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They’ve served everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom and pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spoton.com This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help b2b businesses get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a b2b business and want to build great relationships with clients, referral partners and thought leaders in your space. There’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com. Andrew Dana is co owner and founder of Timber Pizza Company and Call Your Mother Deli. He wants to know in the boxing ring to know at starting restaurants and decent on the golf course. Andrew is a brand new dad, proud DC native, and an encyclopedia of carbohydrate knowledge. And overall a great guy. Andrew, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?
Andrew Dana 1:24
Oh, wow, incredible.
Chad Franzen 1:27
Good. How did you become interested in carbohydrates?
Andrew Dana 1:32
Oh, man, I’ve you know, I’ve been a carbs man since before I can remember. So growing up, my dad would go get bagels every Saturday. And I remember I would sort of eat nosh on a bagel while I was thinking about my other bagels that I was going to have. So I would sort of have an appetizer bagel while I was like, okay, and this one’s going to have melted cheese and this one’s going to have peanut butter. So from as long as I can remember I’ve loved food, love carbs. So it’s just just been in me, I guess.
Chad Franzen 1:58
Would you say based on your knowledge and based on what you hear the carbohydrates get a bad rap.
Andrew Dana 2:05
100% 100% carbs. Carbs give us energy. They’re good for you. The guy who just won the New York Marathon. You know what he had for breakfast today? The marathon and Bulla oatmeal, carbohydrates people? Let’s go. Come on.
Chad Franzen 2:19
So, you know, you’re a founder of two restaurants. How did you kind of begin your journey in the hospitality industry?
Andrew Dana 2:24
Yeah, you know, I like had odd jobs in college and stuff like that. But you know, I think the dream really started to grow when I was in grad school. So I went to Fordham to get my MBA, focus in marketing. And, you know, while I was there, I was living in Brooklyn and just eating at these like world class restaurants just like not only is the food great, but the experience the ambiance, everything’s just top notch. And I was like, just really fallen in love with the industry. So I actually wrote my capstone business school project on a pizza restaurant, thinking like, Oh, that’d be a fun sort of, you know, pie in the sky dream one day. So I graduated, moved back to D.C. and was working for an education technology company and like, listen, good company, good job of making decent money. But I couldn’t get the idea of opening a pizza restaurant out of my head, just like the idea grew bigger and bigger every day. So after two years of working for this company, just one night, I was like, I have to chase my dreams, like I have to go do this. And so I started to look at like actual locations, and I would tour the locations and they would be asking these questions. And like, I didn’t even know the questions meant, I definitely didn’t know the answer. And I like I didn’t even know what the question was. So I was like, Okay, I need like, what’s a bite size way I can, like, dip my toes into the water, and came up with a mobile pizza oven. So it’s not quite a food truck. But we’re pulling a woodfired oven behind like a 1967 Chevy C 10 truck, and just sort of like learning on the go, you know, going to every Farmers Market any like anybody who would have us anywhere we would show up for two years and you know, got pretty good at making pizza and really learning about sort of how important service and all that was. So after ‘11-’14 opened our first pizza restaurant, June 2016, and sort of just been off to the races ever since.
Chad Franzen 4:08
Wow, amazing. So how did you kind of come up with good pizza?
Andrew Dana 4;13
As I said, I’ve been eating carbs my whole life. So I had like a vision of what I wanted it to be like I really like I love New York style like Dec oven pizza where it has the crispy bottom. But then I also love Neapolitan pizza like I love the char of the fire and I love the fresh mozzarella. And I was like why can’t these two just like have a baby right? So I was calling it Neapolitan ish, where it was cooked in woodfired oven but at a lower temperature. So it’s crispy Allah like a New York style pizza. And then we’re using like, you know, cheese blends like New York, but then fresh mozzarella like a Neapolitan. So we just sort of I had this vision of like, how can we combine the two then I just started reading a ton about dough and pizza and just just started doing recipe testing. I was you know, I was doing this in my parents back alley, which sometimes they enjoyed. Sometimes they’re like, oh my god, what is our son done? Worked out.
Chad Franzen 5:10
So what was most? I mean, I’m sure you have a huge list but what was most surprising to you as you got started in 2014 with your kind of your makeshift food truck type situation.
Andrew Dana 5:24
What was most surprising? I mean, I’m like the food level, right? Like I was not a chef, I had no chef background, I was learning all this on the fly. So how much temperature affects dough was like, I couldn’t believe it the first time like, it was a hot you know, humid summer day and we opened up the dough and it all over approved because when it’s hot and humid, the East just goes nuts. I opened up the dough tray and was like, What the hell like I have soup here. So there was like a lot to learn on the food side, right? Which eventually we met. My now-wife and business partner, Danny, she came on as Chef and really helped stabilize a lot of things. But I think the other thing that I learned that I think I sort of like knew, but like really solid was, people don’t go just to eat just for the food. Like it’s an experience. And that’s like from your first touch point to like, how warm is the goodbyes, you leave? Right? And so even when we’re selling pizza at a farmers market, we’d have great tunes, we’d be dancing, whoever’s taken orders would be, you know, super friendly. When we’re cutting the pizza. We’re saying Have a great day. You know, Billy, all that stuff. So, you know, we’d like from the get go, it was really supposed to be like a, you know, an experience, not just about the food?
Chad Franzen 6:37
Was the experience and the food kind of your marketing? Or did you do other things besides, you know, obviously going and being the guy at the events, or being the guy at the farmers market? Which is great, great marketing. But did you do anything broader than that? Or was it just kind of in that way?
Andrew Dana 6:51
Yeah, I mean, that was like the lion’s share of it, for sure. Like I always said, the way we started was like marketing where you didn’t lose money. So that was kind of cool, where you’d actually be selling. But then like, obviously, we did a ton of social media stuff. You know, back in 2014, a bunch of food trucks were really taking off in DC. This was like when the whole food truck movement was exploding. So we did like different collaborations with different food trucks just to get in front of different eyeballs. So like us, just showing up and selling and being ourselves was definitely like 90% of it. Yeah. But then doing collaborations with other food businesses to try and get in front of other people, and then really relying on Instagram, and a little bit of Facebook, and Facebook’s pretty much out now.
Chad Franzen 7:34
But so you did that for two years. And then your first brick and mortar came in 2016 was Timber Pizza Company. How did that go?
Andrew Dana 7:44
You know, so we opened June 28. And I think we had like $3,000 in the bank. And we knew we had payroll in two weeks. And I was like, we gotta make money from day one. We don’t have time to not be profitable. We got to figure this out now. And thank God, it was busy out of the gates. And it went really, really well for the first year. So the first year was great, right? And then so we’ve been open about a year. And then Bon Appetit comes out with their top 50 best new restaurants list. And we didn’t even know this list was a thing. And then we were on it. And like overnight, our sales went up 40% sort of now sustained, you know, eight years later, whatever it is. So that really changed the game. So we’re like the first year went great. And then it went sort of better than best case scenario after that for the second year. And that’s what led us to be able to open more timbers and then that led to us meeting our initial investor and business partner and Call Your Mother and sort of us cooking up the Call Your Mother dream.
Chad Franzen 8:26
So when you open up a brick and mortar did you have kind of, I mean, obviously you already you were already confident your products and maybe maybe your service, although I’m sure there was more service. Now that’s brick and mortar. Did you have kind of a vision for the vibe or how you wanted the place to feel and take me through what that was, is?
Andrew Dana 9:00
Yeah, so I I can sort of envision the finished product before sometimes I even have like a name right. So I knew I wanted this like the pizza restaurant, I wanted it to feel like summer camp in the Adirondacks. I don’t know how I came up with that. But that was the VOCs I wanted, like tons of reclaimed wood and like a copper bar top and, you know, a bunch of tunes from like the late 90s When I was in middle school, so I could like envision the experience where it’s, it’s fun, it’s loud, you order at the counter, and then the food gets brought to you. So it’s not like too stuffy, you know, server style. And then I wanted everything to be communal. So everything on the menu you can get for one or to share. So you can get a cocktail and a bottle to share or as a one you can get the salads in solo portions or to share. And then there was just picnic tables. So you were like, forced to sit next to your neighbors. And it just led to this sort of like electric environment at the you know, that first year where it’s just like so fun and you’re rubbing elbows and everything and everybody’s sharing everything. So I sort of saw that vision and then we sort of built around it to make it come to life.
Chad Franzen 10:08
Were enough, when you first opened were enough people aware of your brand because of you know, the prior two years that it was not that big of a deal or did you have To make some
Andrew Dana 10:16
It was like a little of both, like we had built a decent following, but nothing like crazy. You know, we had been doing basically farmers markets five days a week hitting all different parts of the D.C. area. So we did okay following like Washington City Paper ranked as one of the best three pizzas in D.C. So we’re like building a name for ourselves. But then we definitely like we had to build a more because, you know, sales that work at a farmers market are very different than sales that work out of a restaurant. So we definitely had to amp it up a little bit. And, you know, most of our stuff has been organic, just getting on some cool live Washingtonian, putting us on like the top restaurant list all that stuff. So I think in restaurants, for sure, like the more organic the PR can be, the better. And we’re just very blessed to get on a lot of sort of cool organic lists, and that helped to sort of grow the clientele.
Chad Franzen 11:09
I’m just saying that helps them when you open to other locations, and people already know about you.
Andrew Dana 11:13
For sure, for sure. So then we had, you know, a brand name around timber in the in the market. And so when we announced we’re gonna open Call Your Mother, like, before we even opened the sort of the reception to that was crazy, where people were so excited, I think, you know, we’ve built up a reputation making pretty good pizza, let’s see what these cats can do. And they do bagels, and then we sort of follow the same exact game plan. So we sold at a farmers market for basically a year before we opened the first brick and mortar Call Your Mother. And we could not make enough at the farmers market. So we’re you know, it sort of turned it took on this life of its own. There was long lines it was selling out. And then we opened the first color mother, October 2018. And it was just bananas from day one, like lines down the block where we like looked at each other and said, oh shit, like, how are we going to make this many bagels? So and went from being like, is anybody going to show up to like, Oh my God, how are we going to like handle this? Many people make this many vehicles.
Chad Franzen 12:14
So yeah, I want to talk to you a little bit more about Call Your Mother but how did you? You know, I’ve eaten millions of pizzas. I love pizza, but I couldn’t come up with like an award winning pizza recipe. How did you kind of develop that?
Andrew Dana 12:30
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it started with that foundation of having like a crispy crust in that wood fired oven. And then it was just like not doing too much. And using great ingredients. I think a lot of times people try and do too much. And I think part of the blessing is like we weren’t chefs to start out with, right, so we weren’t trying to make things too Sheffy. We’re just like, okay, zucchini in season, I can wrap my head around that what can we do with zucchini, and we’d love to keep things pretty simple and fresh and seasonal. And then being at all the farmers markets. You’re just like rubbing elbows with the best farmers and purveyors in the markets. So you’re like building these great relationships with them. And so, you know, I just walked down and I say, Okay, what’s in season and they say, Oh, we have the best whatever, nectarines and we’re like, okay, let’s put a nectarine on a pizza. And we ended up doing a pizza with nectarine, jalapenos and bacon that sold like crazy. So it was like keeping it simple using just great ingredients. And then just, you know, trying to come up with some interesting combinations.
Chad Franzen 13:33
Have you always had this kind of entrepreneurial spirit? You know, most people feel like people who aren’t entrepreneurs feel like they could never open a business because they don’t have everything figured out already. Have you always been like this?
Andrew Dana 13:43
You know, like, when I look back, it’s so it’s like a sort of Yes, right, like so when I was in fourth grade. I remember making bracelets to sell in fourth grade, just like a little hustle. And then I remember doing like lemonade stands. But then I sort of lost it for a while like I didn’t do anything entrepreneurial in high school or college. I think you sort of hear how hard it is. And I think I said oh, like maybe it’s too hard. I can’t do that. And it actually took going to business school for me to get some of that like confidence and mojo back where I just had this moment where I was like, nobody here knows what the eff they’re doing. Like we’re all sort of trying to figure it out. Right. And so I had this moment where I was like, if they can do it, why can’t I do it? So I think it was like in me at like a young age lost the confidence for you know, eight to 10 years and then then got the mojo back and went for it.
Chad Franzen 14:32
So you mentioned obviously you also founded Call Your Mother Deli I believe in 2018. So that would have been two years after your first brick and mortar with Timber Pizza. How did you come up with that name?
Andrew Dana 14:47
Yes, sort of. So same like Timber. I can see the vision like the finished product. So growing up, my Jewish grandparents lived in Boca Raton, so we would go down there, you know, right pops of color. My grandparents were so fun. They love like going out and like so it was I knew I wanted it to be this like bright, fun, colorful restaurant that like didn’t take itself too seriously. And I think a lot of sort of delis and bagel shops. They all sort of have the same feel. It’s the white subway tiles. It’s the somebody’s last name. And so I was like, I just want this to be something totally different. And we struggled for a long time to come up with the name. We just like couldn’t figure it out. So one night, I was at my friend’s house, and I was like, what’s something funny, our Jewish grandmothers would have yelled at us and somebody said, You should eat something, put some meat on your bones. And then my friend’s sister said, Call Your Mother. And I was like, it was just like, fireworks went off. And I was like, Oh my God, that’s it. It’s fun. It’s memorable. It’s so like, quintessentially Jewish, but it also spans all cultures, right? So my wife, who’s the chef and business partner, she’s from Argentina, she instantly got it, her mom loves it. So I just checked all the boxes, and we went with it.
Chad Franzen 15:55
So you mentioned you wanted kind of a different vibe. What is the vibe then at Call Your Mother Deli?
Andrew Dana 16:01
Yeah, it’s just I’d say super fun, super playful, super nostalgic, right. So you know, the latte that were coming out in the spring. So in a couple of weeks, we’re coming out with a Strawberry Pop Tart latte. So it’s like, all flavors that are reminiscent of our childhood. So if you grew up in the 90s, like so many of these flavors are for you. The playlists are from the 90s. Lots of like, classics with just like slight twist. So our bacon egg and cheese has spicy honey on it just like little choice to like amp stuff up. super nostalgic, super fun.
Chad Franzen 16:19
Who came up with…who’s coming up with all these ideas?
Andrew Dana 16:39
I mean, almost everything is, is my wife and I so you know, originally at the very beginning, my wife and I, all we do is sort of live the brand. So everybody’s always like, where do you find inspiration. And like we spend all day every day together? This is all we talk about this is it. You know, we now have 13 locations and have an incredible team. So now we have a culinary team and you know all this stuff. So it’s you know, now it’s a whole team effort. But in the beginning, it was just my wife and I helping with some recipes, her helping me in the front of house. So it’s sort of like the total team effort.
Chad Franzen 17:14
Is there one specific thing that you learned from doing the pizza business that you have taken with you now to Call Your Mother that you probably that, you know, like, Oh, if I hadn’t known that I wouldn’t nearly be as successful now with Call Your Mother as I would, as you know, I would be without it.
Andrew Dana 17:30
Yeah, I think some of that goes back to just like what I was talking about with like, how do you make great pizza is, you know, I think people here like use the best local products and like some people that can sort of like roll their eyes a little bit like Oh, but it’s so much easier to buy peaches from, you know, whatever the main broad liner is, but truly, when you’re sourcing, like the best ingredients, it is that big of a difference, right? Like the peach that you buy for 10 cents from your rod liner versus like the best local, right peach is the difference between like in holy shit experience, and like, Oh, that was pretty good. And so that’s been like, you know, we’ve tweaked a lot of stuff over the years. But one thing we’ve never cut corners on is quality of product and using the best seasonal products. So.
Chad Franzen 18:16
So now between the two brands, how many locations do you have?
Andrew Dana 18:20
Now our trial level 16 or 17?
Chad Franzen 18:26
What is the biggest challenge that comes with? You know, obviously, you started from nothing, basically, and now you’re at 17 locations. What’s the biggest challenge now that you face now compared to then?
Andrew Dana 18:37
Yeah, I mean, so like, the first two years, Dani is my wife, we were in timber every single day. Like there was no chance we didn’t know exactly what was happening and could control every aspect and the same in the first couple years or Call Your Mother. Now that’s impossible, right? So like, the biggest challenge is, how do you maintain that magic? How do you continue to have great service and the best food. And it basically comes down to hiring incredible people, incentivizing them to want to grow and stay with you for a long time. And then creating just world class systems. Right. So you know, a good example is early on a Timber. We had a pizza that had like golden brown, sort of sauteed onions. And the rest of you said golden brown sauteed onions. Now you’re golden brown, very different than my golden brown. So we’re like, Oh, my God, we have to have a picture of exactly what golden brown is. So we have learned to remove all gray area, have great systems. Just don’t leave anything up for interpretation, and then hire sort of incredible people and incentivize them to want to stick around and help improve the brand.
Chad Franzen 19:41
What do you do? I was gonna ask you about your culture. What do you do to kind of keep people around incentivize them, is they’re kind of a characteristic you’re looking for when you hire great people?
Andrew Dana 19:52
Yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on the position. I think at its core, we just want to work to be fun every day. Like this is a restaurant you know, yes, we’re trying to grow a big business but we’re not like we’re not you know, curing cancer or anything like this should be fun every single day. So you know, a I think we pay above market but that doesn’t matter if you’re not having fun every single day, right? We try and throw sort of as many perks is we can that make sense. So free gym membership, we offer free language classes. And then we do this, like the 401K and health insurance and all that, which is not typical in restaurants. And then we just like try and create tons of growth opportunities. So, you know, a good example is we had a guy who was in our baking team, who then wanted to get into accounting and switched over to the accounting team. So we really, like, if there’s something here you want to do, and you’re gonna work hard, we’re gonna figure out how to sort of help you on your career path and make your dreams come true. So. But as I said, the number one thing is it has to be fun, if this is what you’re going to be doing five days a week, majority of your time, you gotta like, like, your co workers, you got to have fun, or else all the other perks don’t really matter.
Chad Franzen 21:01
As much as you mentioned, you got an MBA, your journey is a little different than a lot of people I talk to, you know, they started out as a busboy in high school or something, and then they just stayed in the restaurant industry. Well, what did you take away from that MBA that you might get helped your success so far that you might not have had if you hadn’t gotten that degree?
Andrew Dana 21:19
Yeah, I think like hard skills, almost none. You know, I think, as I was saying earlier, I think it just gave me a confidence, right? Like I sort of going through college, I don’t know, they’re just like, there’s, I was never a great student. Let’s start there. So you’re always sort of on the backside of the class and not going to your homework, you can like sort of lose confidence. And in grad school, you know, kudos to Fordham. It’s not like a ton of like, homework, it’s more fun projects, and can you come up with a business? And so I think part of that I was just in my realm. And I just had this moment where I was like, I’m just as good as all of these people. So I think what grad school did was sort of give me my swagger back. And, you know, I did teach me how to read a p&l Better than I would have otherwise Sure. But like, I probably could have learned that on YouTube without going into all that student debt. And, you know, outside of that, there’s not like a ton of hard skills I learned, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because I was in New York for two years and was getting inspired by the restaurant scene there. And then, you know, just get my confidence back. And here we are.
Chad Franzen 22:32
Yeah, just a couple more questions for you. What has been there ever, was there ever a point where you were like, I don’t think this is going to work out. In your journey is maybe towards the beginning, or were you always doing pretty well, and you were just doing your thing?
Andrew Dana 22:47
You know, like, I’d say, year one, one, it was just the mobile business, it was hard to see how this could turn into like, a real career because we were grinding, like riding 80 hour weeks, and they’re just like, wasn’t enough revenue to make it like a real career. And so there was a couple of times in the first year, I was like, Jesus, like how are we going to turn this into like something where we can actually make real money. You know, and then the first year of actual restaurant, as I said, day one, either we have to make money today, or this is going to close, this is going to be the shortest opened restaurant of all time. And so there might have been like two days where like, oh, shit, like holding onto our chair, like, we need to, you know, hit sales. But then we’re like, pretty blessed for a long sort of stretch. Obviously, early pandemic, I thought it was going down the toilet, I remember standing outside my mom’s house me at the bottom of the steps her at the top, because you know, you wouldn’t go near anybody. And I’ll just saying, Well, you know, we had a good four year run, I guess I gotta go figure out something else to do. But after feeling sorry for ourselves for a couple of weeks, we sort of got back in the saddle. And and everything worked out.
Chad Franzen 23:57
As long as you mentioned that, how did the pandemic? Did it affect your business? Did it change your business? But are there still changes that you implemented as a result of it? How did that affect you?
Andrew Dana 24:05
Yeah, you know, it actually forced us to get much more efficient. So pre pandemic, we did no online ordering. We just for Call Your Mother as order in person. And that’s it. And that timber is order in person or call on the phone, old school style. And we thought we were sort of maxed out on throughput. And, you know, during COVID, if you didn’t take online orders, you were just going to die a painful death. So we said, Okay, we got to figure this out. And it forced us to get much more efficient made us realize that we could actually do way more throughput. And then as the world slowly you know, opened up and we were doing in person and online, we realized we could handle it. So it actually helped us realize we could do way more in sales without hurting sort of the product quality or the service. So you know, insane to say that one of the worst things ever was actually kind of good for our business in the long run, but it did force us to get much better and more efficient.
Chad Franzen 25:04
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs in the hospitality industry?
Andrew Dana 25:11
I you know, I think there’s like two main things is don’t run. What’s the process? Right? Like, I see so many people who they start a business and they want to fast forward to sitting in the C suite not grinding. And I think those first couple years, you just you have to grind, you have to be in it. I’d say a new business is like a newborn baby that needs constant love and attention, like maybe down the line, it can take care of itself a little bit. But at the beginning, don’t rush to be the boss and sit in the back office, like know, every single aspect of your business be superduper hands on, because nobody’s going to care as much as as you do. So that’s like the don’t rush the process is like really be in it. And then the other thing like, is just outwork people like, and that’s it. So when we started timber as a mobile truck, we started out of a food incubator. So there’s a bunch of other food trucks starting at the same time. And I would say every other food truck had more experienced chefs better funding, you know, all that stuff. But they didn’t work as hard as we did. They would say, oh, you know, I’m going to take this weekend off because I want to go to the beach, or I don’t want to work a double today, where we were just like, Okay, we’re gonna show up every single day for two years and good things will eventually start to happen. So don’t rush the process and just outwork everybody else, and you’ll be surprised what can happen.
Chad Franzen 26:31
Nice, very nice. Hey, I have one more question for you. But first, how can people find out more about both places? Call Your Mother Deli and Timber Pizza Company?
Andrew Dana 26:39
Yeah, I mean, Call Your Mother Deli. That’s our Instagram handle. All your mother deli.com is our website. Same TimberPizzaCO is our Instagram handle. And then Timber Pizza? Is our website. Get on our emailing list. Our Instagrams are pretty fun. Check us out in D.C. and then Call Your Mother. We’re also in Denver now. So we got three locations in Denver. Check us out.
Chad Franzen 26:59
Oh, nice, very nice. So last question for you. When you are a customer at either one of those places, do you have like go to items?
Andrew Dana 27:08
For sure. So with Timber, it’s like I pizza every day for the first 90 days were open. And then I had to have a little sit down with myself. Easy, big guy. So I bet like every pizza on the menu has been my favorite at some point. But now I’m into like a very basic, I just like cheese pizza or margarita pizza. I like it very basic. So that’s kind of boring. And then on the on the bagel menu. There’s really two there’s the Grand Villa. So it’s a cinnamon raisin bagel, peanut butter jelly with homemade Peanut Butter Granola. So it’s like a big kids peanut butter and jelly with the crunch of the granola. It’s incredible. And then it fell more than a lunch mood. We have the grandezza which is basically a turkey melt with fresh mozzarella pesto and red. Red pepper relish.
Chad Franzen 27:55
Sounds pretty good. Sounds glorious. Hey, Andrew has been great to talk to you today. Thanks so much for all of your time, your thoughts, your insights, your stories, really appreciate it.
Andrew Dana 28:03
Thank you anytime.
Chad Franzen 28:05
So long, everybody
Outro 28:07
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