Tag Archive: Wisconsin

  1. Monical’s Nutritional Calculator

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    nutritionalcalculator

    In response to both increased guest demand and pending legislation under the Affordable Care Act, we decided to update our on-line nutrition information to make it more user- friendly.  We searched for a provider who could give us a more comprehensive approach for accessing our nutritional information.  After reviewing a large number of nutritional information pages on restaurant websites, we concluded that a “nutrition calculator’ would be an excellent approach for us to follow.  The nutritional calculator allows guests to “build” their meals and then receive a broad range of nutritional information.  A bonus of this effort was that the nutritional calculator would also list potential allergens to assist guests with food allergies in making safe meal choices.

     

    We selected Nutritional Information Services (NIS), a company headquartered in Washington D. C., as our nutritional information provider.  We submitted to NIS all of our recipes (including specialty recipes from our franchisees) along with portion information and product specification sheets for all of the food products we utilize in our operations.  Utilizing our information, NIS built a calculator specific to our corporate menu which will be linked to our new website.  While the calculator will be specific only to the corporate menu, each individual franchise location will have a link to a PDF, which will contain nutritional information specific to their local menu.

     

    Healthy eating is a product of making good choices based on accurate information combined with an active lifestyle.  For most people it doesn’t mean giving up the things you enjoy, just making choices with balance and moderation in mind.  Monical’s Pizza is working to provide enjoyable food of high quality with the information our guests need to make good meal decisions.

  2. The Shipping Project

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    As the holidays are coming, many people are making a list and checking it twice.  For those loved ones who have moved away from their hometown, they often would like a “taste of home” as a gift.  We have researched, long and hard, on how to ship Monical’s pizza.  So here is the story.

    In order for us to ship our Oven-Ready (frozen) pizzas, they have to be manufactured in a USDA-approved facility. To date we haven’t found a manufacturer who can make our pizzas to our standards. We make them in our restaurants and can maintain quality that way, but aren’t able to ship them due to the USDA restriction. We continue to work on this and are making some progress, but don’t yet have a satisfactory solution to the issue.

    The biggest challenge to manufacturing the Oven-Ready pizzas on a large scale was the quality.  Monical’s dough process requires two days with multiple “hands on” or manual processes.  This “handmade” process ensures that our doughs (the crust), the heart of our product, maintain the real “Monical’s” texture and taste.

    After researching the possibility of producing USDA-approved frozen pizzas ourselves and discovering that it would be cost prohibitive, we began searching for an existing manufacturer.  With only one exception every manufacturer we contacted wanted a guarantee of production of units far in excess of our estimates.  We first met with this manufacturer in July of 2010 to tour their facility and discuss a potential partnership with them manufacturing our frozen products.  After some time spent reviewing and revising a proposed agreement, we were able to begin the production of our first test batch of frozen pizzas in September 2010.  Our dough production procedures were quite a bit different than the manufacturer was accustomed to and several modifications to our procedures needed to be made to fit into their production process.  Five different product batches were produced in September without achieving the desired crust quality.  We continued to work with the manufacturer to achieve our product quality goal.  Monical’s started with smaller test batches.  5-10 pizzas went well.  So we moved to 50 pizzas.  Still successful.  However when we made 300 pizzas, the production run uncovered glitches in the process.  Because the finished product did not meet our quality standards we decided not to sell the product and instead donated those pizzas to a local food pantry.  To date we have not been able to develop a process that will produce the infamous Monical’s crunch, flavor and aroma.  And isn’t that what you want?  So we will continue to investigate but wanted to be sure our loyal customers knew the “real” story.

  3. Monical’s + The Marine Corps = Happy Kids!

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    Everyone knows Monical’s for the Family Pleaser, the Salad Dressing, and the Breadsticks (are you hungry yet?) but we wanted to highlight another reason why Monical’s truly does “Bring People Together”.

    2013 continues our 9+ year partnership with Toys for Tots.  Many people only think of Toys for Tots near the holidays.  Preparation to pull off the toy drive takes all year.

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    Toys for Tots started in 1947 in Los Angeles by Major Hendrickson.  That year, 5000 toys were collected in LA alone.  Now the organization has grown to over 750 areas.  In Kankakee County, Monical’s works with Herb Volpe, who is the local coordinator for the county.  Herb handles distributing the collection boxes, coordinating volunteers, collection and sorting of toys.  He works with over 70 businesses and in 2012, Herb and his team collected 11,733 toys, 859 books and 445 stocking stuffers.

    Monical’s Pizza Restaurant in Bourbonnais is particularly successful with the toy drive.   We spoke with Jon the manager to find out their secret.  His answer:  EMPLOYEES! Besides the generous Bourbonnais community, the Monical’s staff adds to the collection to help even more kids receive gifts on Christmas.

    The Toys for Tots collection boxes will begin appearing in October.  Monical’s is happy to partner with Toys for Tots again in 2013 and together with your help, we cannot wait to see how successful this year’s toy drive will be!

  4. Another great recipe from a loyal fan!

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    Here is an amazing recipe that was submitted by John Sales, Jr., a loyal guest and one of our biggest facebook fans! He says: “I’ve been known to refer to Meatloaf as FOTG ‘Food Of The Gods’ with this recipe it’s closer to the truth!!”

    If you are not near a Monical’s location, you can order our dressing online by clicking here.

    Find this and other recipes right here on our blog by clicking our ‘Recipes’ link above (or click here).

    Sweet & Tart Suffed Peppers

  5. Monical’s Named “Best Practices” Finalist!

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    People Report and Black Box Intelligence have announced 13 finalists for the 2012 Best Practices awards, which honor four restaurant companies for exceptional workplace practices and results. 

    In addition to Monical’s Pizza, the finalists include BJ’s Restaurants, The Capital Grille, Corner Bakery Cafe, Eat’n Park Restaurants, La Madeleine, Le Pain Quotidien, K&N Management, Longhorn Steakhouse, Maggiano’s Little Italy, McDonald’s, Red Lobster and White Castle.

    “These companies represent some of the best workplaces in our industry,” said Joni Thomas Doolin, founder and chief executive of People Report.

    The Best Practices awards, which represent industry segments from quick service to casual dining, will be given Nov. 8, during the 18th annual Best Practices Conference in Dallas.  People Report said the finalists were evaluated on their retention of both managers and employees, the diversity of their workforces, compensation practices, community involvement, corporate responsibility, employee funds and foundations, and initiatives in sustainable business practices.

    Dallas-based People Report provides employment analytics for its members on a monthly basis.  Its sister company, Black Box Intelligence, provides weekly restaurant industry financial and market data.  Together they report on more than 33,000 restaurant units with one million employees

  6. C is for Cookie (or Calzone!)

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    Do you remember the Sesame Street song “C is for Cookie”? We do! We thought we would try to come up with Monical’s menu items to fill up the rest of the alphabet! We were able to come up with 21 of the 26 letters in the alphabet. How many can you list?

    A: Apple Slices
    B: Breadsticks
    C: Cookie or Calzone
    D: Delight (pizza combination)
    E: Extra Meat or Veggies (pricing per topping)
    F: Family Pleaser
    G: Gluten Free Pizza
    H: Half Sandwich and Salad Combination
    I: Italian Special (pizza combination)
    J: Juice
    K: Kid’s Menu
    L: Lasagna
    M: Mozzarella Sticks
    N: Nacho cheese
    O: Oven-Ready (Frozen) Pizza
    P: Pecan Grilled Chicken Salad
    Q:
    R: Ravioli
    S: Sweet Tea
    T: Turkey BLT Sandwich
    U:
    V: Veggie Toppings (or pizza combo)
    W: Wings
    X:
    Y:
    Z:

  7. Charlie’s tradition

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    Charlie eats at his favorite restaurant on shot days.  I took this picture on July 27, 2010 at Monical’s- 3542 N. Vermilion, Danville, IL.

    Mommy gets spaghetti and Nana gets pizza so he’s all set!

    The employees and customers at CVS thought this picture was just adorable. They said it belonged in a restaurant or a photo contest. All of our friends and relatives (as my daughter and I both have 8×10’s in our kitchens) say he should be a bright blue-eyed Monical’s Poster Child.

    We just had to share this with you since it’s our favorite snapshot. Enjoy!

    Mick & Ruby F

  8. Monical’s Menu helps this Mom ‘Git-R-Done’

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    Monical’s Menu helps this Mom ‘Git-R-Done’
    Growing up my elders always told me, “the older you get the quicker time goes by” and man, were they right!  Like many working mothers I wear many hats and I have found, after having children, that time speeds by even faster.  My daughter, Josephine, is 17 months old and my son, Gavin just turned 3 on February 7th.

    To celebrate we had a party and of course this party had to have a theme, activities, prizes and not to mention a fantastic menu.   The theme was easy, Disney Pixar CARS as Gavin is a HUGE fan! Decorations, no problem!  Some handmade some store bought. Goody bags….check! Name the character trivia for the game and car related prizes such as car wash – piece of cake!  Coloring books, crayons,  stickers and more to keep the kids occupied – fantastic.  Now the burning question….what will the menu be and how can I relate it to this theme?

    Hmmmm. I pondered for a while then thought, “my family LOVES Monical’s and the Manteno, IL location always gives great service and the food is out of this world”. That settled that question but now, how can I make it fit the theme?  Looking at the menu and recalling the names of character in CARS it hit me; we will have – Ramone’s Rollies, Sally’s Salad, Route 66 breadsticks, Francesco Cheese Fries, Guido’s Italian Special Point Pizza and Tow-Mater and Cheese Pizza!  What a hit!!  Everyone revved their engines and raced to the food table to fill up their tanks and enjoyed every bite!

    Car related puns aside, the service and food as usual were fantastic and left them craving more!  Thank you Monical’s for being a true “Family Pleaser” and for helping to make my son’s birthday party a true success!

  9. Re-heating that “Magical Moment”

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    Top Tips for Re-heating Monical’s Thin Crust Pizza

     We love to tell our guests then when it comes to our pizza, we are experts at creating that “Magical Moment.”  You know, that moment when the cheese settles and the pieces separate into deliciously crisp, bite-sized squares of flavor-filled perfection.  While that moment lasts through the meal, we get questions all the time about how to create that moment at home without taking home one of our team members.  Whether you’re working with take home Monical’s or even leftover Monical’s here are a few of the top re-heating tips we’ve put together over the years.

    Re-heating Overview:

    Once you’ve got that pizza in your house, you have a decision to make – do you just want it warm, or do you want it warm and crispy?  The Monical’s Magical Moment we’re trying to re-create is all about the pizza being crisp and warm…so that’s where we’ll spend most of our time.  But if you’re in the microwave crowd, don’t worry – we’ve got a ”hot” tip in here for you, too.

    No matter which method you choose, when it comes to re-heating pizza, you always have to start with pizza that is at room temperature.  So before re-heating, pull your pizza out of the refrigerator and let it sit for approximately 15-20 minutes. (Reminder: do not leave pizza unsupervised during this process – our pizza has a tendency to mysteriously disappear when left unattended.)

    Stove Top:

    Get out the trusty old frying pan (bonus points if it’s a cast iron skillet) and turn the burner on low for a 1-2 minutes to warm up the bottom of your pan.  While the pan gets warm, prepare a tin foil dome to act as a cover. *For a crispier crust, one family member suggests brushing a very slight layer of butter on the bottom of each pizza slice. With the pan warm and the dome ready, place your room temperature pizza in the pan and heat at medium-low heat for 4-5 minutes while the pan is covered with the domed foil lid. The foil will help reflect heat back to the toppings without trapping steam inside.

    Oven:

    How you re-heat using an oven will vary between oven types and based on what you are placing the pizza on for warming. If you are using a pizza stone, place that in the oven.  If you do not have a stone, place a sheet of foil directly on the oven’s surface. Set the oven to preheat to 450 – 475 degrees and lay the room temperature slices on the stone/foil.  Leave the pizza in until the oven finishes pre-heating or until you see the cheese bubbling.

    Toaster Oven:

    Toaster ovens are a good option if they are available. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put your room temperature slices on some foil for about 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbling.

    Microwave Oven:

    This is the least preferred method for heating, but we would be remiss to leave this option out. Crispiness is not really an option here, but we do have a trick to keeping the pizza crust moist.  Place your room temperature pizza in the microwave, with a cup of water, and use the defrost setting in 30 sec. increments to prevent overheating. Remove when warm.

    If you have tried one of these or have your own way we may have missed, please take a minute to share your thoughts.

  11. We love trying your recipes too!

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    With the cooler weather quickly approaching, why not try this amazing meatloaf! This recipe was submitted by Christine Loy, a loyal guest. She says: “The sweet and tart makes all the difference. It is awesome!” If you are not near a Monical’s location, you can order our dressing online by clicking here.

    Find this and other recipes right here on our blog by clicking our ‘Recipes’ link above (or click here).

  12. A duo meant for the ages… “Sweet & Tart”

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    For 50 years, Monical’s has been famous (in part) for our Sweet & Tart Salad Dressing.  Our Guests have learned to use it not just on salad, but also on pizza, breadsticks, sandwiches and just about anything else on the menu.

    [youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=fGoeVbU5gZY]The original Sweet & Tart recipe dates back many years, and the recipe is not easy to reproduce or duplicate. The slightest variation in the way it’s made can cause changes in color, texture or taste. Because of the incredibly loyal following this dressing has, our Guests or our Management Teams notice changes immediately. It’s then that our Quality Assurance Team must spring into action and work with vendors to find a solution.

    We not only purchase the dressing in large quantities for restaurant use, but also sell it (a lot of it) in pint bottles. We recently developed a “light” version with a nearly identical taste profile that is (shameless promotion to follow) for sale online or in our restaurants.

    Due to the extreme popularity of our Sweet & Tart Salad Dressing, we know we must do whatever is necessary to monitor and protect the quality and consistency of this product.  Salad dressing may not seem like a big thing to many restaurants, but to us and our Guests, it’s a significant part of what makes Monical’s special.

  13. Join Monical’s in taking a bite out of Childhood Hunger

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    Monical’s Pizza Joins Share Our Strength’s Dine Out For No Kid Hungry™

    September 18 – 24, 2011

    Restaurants Across the Country Embrace Week-Long Event to End Childhood Hunger in America

    Bradley, IL… Monicals’s Pizza is proud to announce its participation in Share Our Strength’s Dine Out For No Kid Hungry™, a week-long national restaurant event in cities across the United States. From September 18-24, Monical’s will be offering 20% off a one topping Family Pleaser® and making a $1 donation for every one purchased to NO KID HUNGRY. Participating store locations are available at DineOutForNoKidHungry.org and www.monicalspizza.com/shareourstrength.

    20% off Family Pleaser offer Aug. 29-Sept. 25, 2011

    This is one of the many ways thousands of restaurants all across America will be raising funds this September to support No Kid Hungry™, Share Our Strength’s national campaign to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. More than 17 million children in America—almost one of four—struggle with hunger. With the support of thousands of restaurants like Monical’s Pizza, dozens of corporate partners and millions of consumers, Share Our Strength is changing that.

    “Monical’s has been a an active supporter of numerous community services throughout our 51 year history. I can think of no better effort than to eliminate childhood hunger in America. That’s a cause we can get behind,” states Janelle Reents, President.

    “We are asking everyone—private citizens, businesses, policymakers and other nonprofits—to help us end childhood hunger in this country,” said Bill Shore, Founder of Share Our Strength.  “We continue to be amazed by the generosity and commitment of the restaurant industry and its customers. Last year, they raised more than $1.5 million through Dine Out For No Kid Hungry, a record high and twice what was raised the year before. Our goal is to involve as many restaurants and their customers as it takes to make No Kid Hungry a reality by 2015.

    “I encourage everyone to dine out often at participating Dine Out For No Kid Hungry restaurants in September, then visit our web site, Strength.org, to learn what more they can do to make sure every child in America has access to the nutritious food they need.”

    Share Our Strength’s Dine Out For No Kid Hungry is sponsored by Sysco, Ecolab, American Express, USA Today and the National Restaurant Association.

    About Monical’s Pizza

    Founded in 1959, Monicla’s Pizza consists of 63 restaurants in Illlinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.  More information about our company can be found at www.monicalspizza.com.

    About Share Our Strength

    Share Our Strength®,a national nonprofit, is ending childhood hunger in America by connecting children with the nutritious food they need to lead healthy, active lives.  Through its No Kid Hungry® Campaign—a national effort to end childhood hunger in America by 2015—Share Our Strength ensures children in need are enrolled in effective federal nutrition programs; invests in community organizations fighting hunger; teaches families how to cook healthy, affordable meals; and builds public-private partnerships to end childhood hunger, at the state and city level. Working closely with the culinary industry and relying on the strength of its volunteers, Share Our Strength hosts innovative culinary fundraising events and develops pioneering cause marketing campaigns that support No Kid Hungry. Visit Strength.org to get involved.

  14. If you love Sweet & Tart Dressing …you’ll love these recipes!

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    Here is a quick and easy recipe for Sweet & Tart Taco Salad! It’s great for Dinner,  Picnics or Pot-Lucks! Swing by Monical’s today to get your Family Garden Salad and Sweet & Tart Dressing! If you are not near a Monical’s location, you can order our dressing online by clicking here.

    Find this and other recipes right here on our blog by clicking our ‘Recipes’ link above (or click here).

  15. “Does this bag make my pizza look hot?”

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    Over half of all Monical’s pizzas are eaten outside of the restaurant. Because of the special nature of a thin crust pizza (and ours in particular), getting our food to its destination in good condition has long been a significant goal for our company.  Packaging is an important part of this goal.

    Long ago, we discovered that the best way to package our thin crust pizza was:

    1)  On a cardboard circle

    2)  Wrapped in foil

    3)  Placed inside a bag

    We found this system to be the best at providing a hot carry-out or delivery pizza. To be honest, this method sacrifices some crispness in the crust. Putting a thin crust pizza in a box maintains more of the crispness, but sacrifices some heat. We’ve found that most of our Guests prefer the pizza hotter than crisper. As a result of listening to our Guests, we’ve kept our current packaging (thin crust) all these years.

    We still continue to explore and experiment with new forms of packaging, hoping always to improve the experience of our Guests when they’re eating Monical’s at home. So far, we haven’t found a better substitute to our current packaging.

    However, the quest continues…

  16. Community Programs

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    One of the reasons I love being part of the Monical’s family is because of the dedication to giving back to the great communities we serve.

    We believe that reading is one of the most important things a child can learn. Monical’s promotes childhood literacy through the School Reading Program and Summer Library Reading Program. Both programs instill the importance of reading while making the learning process fun and exciting for children.

    Monical’s also helps new families with our Lamaze program (no, Monical’s doesn’t teach breathing techniques for when you eat too much pizza). When expecting parents go through a Lamaze class at a participating hospital, they get a coupon for a free Monical’s Family Pleaser®, something which will help on one of those nights when the new parents are simply too tired to cook.

    There are so many great programs here at Monical’s, and it’s more than just about pizza – it’s family. We are privileged to be a part of our communities, honored that our communities include us as one of their own, and we’re thrilled to give back whenever we have the opportunity.

    Full descriptions and opportunity for participation by organizations are available for review in the Community Programs area of our company webpage.