Pizza and 1.7 M Instagram Followers

**Christopher Penn** (0:07)
This is Marketing Over Coffee with Christopher Penn and John Wall.

**John Wall** (0:15)
Good morning, welcome to Marketing Over Coffee, I'm John Wall. Today, we are talking to Frank Kabatas. He runs East Village Pizza, which is funny on the tagline I got, it said, in the competitive New York City pizza market. That is the greatest understatement of all time. I think New York City pizza market is like the Super Bowl of pizza. It doesn't get more combat ready than that. But thanks for joining us today, Frank.

**Frank Kabatas** (0:38)
Thank you very much and thanks for having me. Pleasure.

**John Wall** (0:41)
How did you get into the pizza industry? Let's start there. How did this become part of your life?

**Frank Kabatas** (0:47)
How did I get into the pizza industry? Very strange. I got here in 1997 from Turkey. My background is Turkish. When I got here in 1997, I did not know what I need to do. And before that, I never had pizza. I never even ate pizza. I never had pizza. I never worked in a pizza shop. My family has nothing to do with it. But once I got here in the United States, and I got in New York and I'm still in New York, I was like, what should I do? I have to do something that is not only a job, it has to give me something craft, something artisan that I can keep going on. I ended up working in East Village Pizza, the pizzeria that I own right now, because my brother was working there. After I worked there about six months, I did delivery with bike and then making box and preparation. I did barely speak English at time when I got here, very, very little words. And I got fired after six months. In the six months, in that six months, I start going to school in Long Island University on Degalp Avenue.
Because I had to learn English. I knew that I had to learn English. I went to the school for two years, and a half year, six months for computer science, but I dropped. I needed the money. That's a little quick brief about it. So I had to work. I desperately needed a job. I don't have no luxury to choose from here to there. I was 23 years old, and I said myself, I need something craft. I need an artisan things that I could do all my life because I'm here. I don't want to spend time doing part-time jobs or little jobs that from one day or one year, one year. I have to have something in my hands to keep going on to ability, talents, whatever you call it. So I ended up working in East Village Pizza. When I started working in East Village Pizza, I was like, I can do it. I know I'm doing deliveries right now. I know I'm doing pizza boxes, making prep, but I can actually do these things for sure. I took it from there. Even though I got fired, I went to West Side to work in a different pizza area. The only hard thing was for me to find a job because I didn't speak English. The guy that hired me in West Village, that I worked for him for two years, John, I asked him, I need a job. He goes, okay, I need someone come work, but I didn't understand what he said because he was too fast. If he was slow, I would probably understand a little bit. But I looked at his face, he knew that I didn't understand. He grabbed my arm, took me behind the counter, and then here is the job, work. I worked for him for about two months, I mean, two years, that I have learned a lot from him about pizza. That place, I start making pizza. I was working about 12, 13 hours, sometimes more. And then I was going to school for five days, for four hours a week. And my trade commute was taking about an hour from here to the, from West Side to Avenue Jane, Brooklyn. So I had like four or five hours sleep, daily basis in about like, I'm not going to exaggerate, but almost two years, maybe more.
That's how my pizza journey started. I didn't choose it. I could say I had no choice. But once I started, I took it as a craft. I took it as an artisan, things that I could do for my lifetime doing it. Because I don't like doing things like half an hour here, one hour there. Like every corner that you do something, I don't like that. I have to have an occupation. I have to have a talent in my hand. And I know that I have one talent, but I didn't know which one. So I figured out later on I had a talent for pizza. And for the first slice of pizza that I in my whole life, that I ate, the first slice was in East Village pizza.