When one thinks of CiCi’s Pizza, images of baseball teams, swim meets and youth group dinners come to mind. CiCi’s seems to have a mantra for service within their franchise concept. But what about the pizza? CiCi’s is after all, a proper restaurant with an emphasis on family dining. CiCi’s cites the ultimate pizza experience as a gourmet buffet, where all you can eat under $6 is “almost too good to be true.” Connecwithcharlotte.com caught up with local owner Mark Hattrich and district manager Tom Hamilton to sort out how service to the public meets up with affordable quality dining.

cwc: Firstly, are y’all from these parts?

Mark: I was born at Presbyterian Hospital, in fact. I’ve been married twenty-four years and have three children: two boys, 18 and 16 years and a girl, 9 years old. My oldest is going to Bryan College, just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, to play baseball.

Tom: I’m from New Jersey and moved to Charlotte for an opportunity in the restaurant industry. I found my wife down here though, marrying Southerner Jennifer! We have three kids at eleven, nine and six years; boy, girl, boy. They attend school in Cabarrus County.

cwc: Mark, you have two restaurants in Charlotte. Tell us about them.


Mark: One of our CiCi’s pizzerias is located in University City on University Boulevard, 1.3 miles from UNCC, Highway 49. Our second restaurant is in Kannapolis, at 1000 Cloverleaf Plaza, right off exit 58. We began with the Kannapolis restaurant ten years ago, and added the University location seven years back.

cwc: Other than serving the community, is there a particular direction in which CiCi’s aims, to positively affect the community?

Mark: We try to endear our restaurants to the community that we serve. We do our best to be involved in various aspects of the community, whether it is through the school system, the church or through local sports programs. We have been very active with many groups, such as the YMCA. We have been with them since we started and they have been a great supporter through their youth programs. We’ve been able to give back to them in various ways. We do fundraisers and events for local sports programs, providing teams an inexpensive way to reward the kids and have fun in the process.

cwc: What would you consider your biggest accomplishment within the restaurant industry to date?

Mark: Our biggest accomplishment has been in being able to take the CiCi’s culture and duplicate it in our restaurants at the highest level. In 2000, we were the #1 restaurant in the CiCi’s chain to best depict the CiCi’s culture. I guess that would be considered the “franchise of the year” award. And we’ve had quite a bit of internal success with our management team. A gentleman by the name of Eric Wollenhaupt started as a general manager at our Kannapolis location. He moved into a district manager role with me, then moved to corporate and has just become an owner/operator in Las Vegas, Nevada. My colleague here, Tom Hamilton, started out as a manager, replaced Eric as GM and is now district manager. Tom is working toward being the operating partner for our group. Christina Wall started out with us when she was fourteen years old and is now a manager of our store. She has done a phenomenal job for us. We just certified another young lady, Kenzie Baker, as an entry level manager. Being able to promote from within has been a strategic part of our business plan and we’ve seen quite a bit of success in that area.

Tom: We try to be masters, not only of the concept and the brand, but we hold the way we interact with our guests on a daily basis in the highest regard. When we do connect with Charlotte and surrounding counties, we impact people’s lives. That’s what we like to do. In a sense, the people we come into contact with are our accomplishments.


cwc: As far as pizzerias go, what is the one thing that separates CiCi’s from the rest of the pack?

Mark: Several things. One is our deep, sincere desire to serve each and every guest that comes through our door to the highest possible level. The quality of our pizza is excellent. We make our dough from scratch and shred our own cheese. The vegetables are sliced here fresh. We do our best to provide a high quality product at a very affordable price. We have been able to maintain the highest level of service, cleanliness and quality of product and stay affordable. With times being as tough as they are, we believe that we are one of the best values in the city. A family can have an entire meal in a wonderful environment at an affordable rate.


cwc: Not including cheese, what are the three most popular toppings?

Mark: Pepperoni, pepperoni, pepperoni. It’s all about the pepperoni.

cwc: Okay, but what would come in second place behind the pepperoni?


Mark: There is no second place. Alright, possibly in second place would be our macaroni and cheese pizza for the kids. Kids absolutely love that product. Who would think that you could take a macaroni and cheese and put it on a pizza? It has been phenomenally successful. Third would be our cinnamon rolls. We make them fresh daily here at the restaurant. When they come out of the oven, it’s almost like a feeding frenzy at the buffet. Sometimes we have teeth marks on the buffet because they don’t quite make it to the cinnamon rolls!  

cwc: What is the biggest challenge you have overcome?


Mark: Our biggest challenge is overcoming the costs that are associated with doing business. It is a challenge to be able to maintain the integrity of who CiCi’s is and make it affordable for the average person and his family on a regular basis. With the rising cost of energy, everything else goes up behind that. Surcharges are astronomical. The cost of cheese, oils, tomatoes…everything goes through the roof. The challenge is to make sure that our people are productive and that we are efficient at the things we have been taught to do to maintain affordable levels.


Tom: Trying to get the word out about who we are and what we stand for to people who haven’t experienced CiCi’s Pizza is a challenge. We do a lot of fundraising in the community, but there is always someone out there who hasn’t experienced us. Day to day, we are looking for different avenues to try and reach those people.


cwc: What is the best advice you have ever received?


Mark: Firstly, a Zig Zigler quote, “You can get what you want if you can help enough other people get what they want.” An old schoolmate’s grandfather said, “If you watch your pennies, you’ll never have to worry about watching your dollars.”

cwc: Ouch! Good advice.

Mark: The thing that attracted me to CiCi’s in the first place was the ability to give back to the people. We get to come in here and yell, “Hey, welcome to CiCi’s!” and interact with the people. There’s nothing that thrills me more as an owner, than to be able to go to work, have fun and directly impact the people around me. The kids make this business work. CiCi’s was built for preachers, teachers and coaches. All of them revolve around family. When you bring a child a piece of pizza or make their favorite kind and bring it out to them, their faces light up like you did something great. It matters to them. The greatest thing that ever happened to me was six months after we opened our restaurant in Kannapolis. It was right around Christmas time and I was walking through the mall. I looked down and I had a little girl attached to my leg. Before I could say anything I looked over and had a little boy attached to my other leg! They were three and five years old, respectively. I looked down at them, pushed the hair back from their faces and they said, “Hey, Mr. CiCi’s! You remember us?” These two children had come in on a tour of the restaurant, something we provide. They had made their own pizzas and it had impacted them in such a wonderful way. The mother came running up to me and apologized, saying that they loved the experience and thought we were the greatest thing in the world. That’s when I knew we had arrived. What I set out to do had been accomplished and then I had to set out to duplicate that on a daily basis.

Tom: I keep a daily reminder of why I’m in this business, which is to impact people’s lives through our pizza. I keep a message from a young girl. I had just bought her a dollar gift; a little, funny pillow. The last time she was in the restaurant I had forgotten to give her a present. She called and left me a message. “Thank you, Mr. Tom. Thank you, Mr. Tom! Bye-bye.” I keep it so that when I have obstacles in my way, I listen to it. This is a family I have come to build a relationship with over the years. That’s pretty cool to me.


Mark: We had a situation in Kannapolis with a lady expecting twins. She had to have the Bavarian Crème dessert with extra crème throughout her pregnancy. After a while, she didn’t even have to ask, we just knew. We watched those babies grow up. I have pictures at home of these children at eighteen months in our restaurant, covered from head to toe in pasta. I took the pictures and I keep them as a reminder of the things that go on. I think it’s cool that we knew these children even before they were born. The concept of CiCi’s allows us to build those kinds of relationships and memories. I’m 47 years old! I can come in here, act like a big kid, have a blast and make a living doing it. Is this a great country or what!