Jim Grote knows pizza. When he was 13, he took a job making cheesy, pepperoni pies at a Columbus pizza joint.
He bought that original store in 1963 and began to grow Donatos, which takes its name from a Latin phrase meaning, “To give a good thing.”
During the development of Donatos, Grote was using hand-crank deli slicers to cut pepperoni for toppings. In order to achieve pizza perfection, he wanted to use an exact amount of pepperoni on each pie. With this challenge in mind, the Pepa-A-Matic was born.
The slicer has a system of scales that are used to weigh the pizzas as they are assembled; each ingredient added on top must meet the exact weight requirements. This created Donatos’ “edge to edge” signature, as toppings and dough are weighed to an exact 100th of a pound.
In her book, The Missing Piece: Doing Business the Donatos Way, Donatos chairwoman of the board and Grote’s daughter, Jane Grote Abell, writes, “He was determined to ensure that every piece had the same amount of toppings for every pizza. This literally kept my dad up at night.”
Dave Parsons, head of Donatos press and communications, says the Pepa-A-Matic isn’t used in any modern-day restaurants, only for frozen pizza.
While the company grew to more than 200 locations across 10 states, Columbus is home-base.
“With the way that we give back in the neighborhoods and communities where our pizza is served, a special relationship has developed,” Parsons says. “Columbus is special to Donatos because this is where it all started, and it still remains the company home to this day.”
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
