"WHY " WE GO TO PIZZA EXPO" Nick Bogacz Co-owner with wife Angie Caliente Pizza & Draft House Pittsburgh, Pa. Here at Caliente Pizza & Draft House the countdown is always on for Pizza Expo, literally. Three years ago I went to the Expo for the first time with my three managers. We were like kids in a candy shop taking in all of the vendors and watching all the competitions. We gained many Ideas that we wrote down in our notebooks and brought back with us. We purchased some equipment at show pricing, which is easily the best pricing of the year for many vendors. We loved the seminars and learned a lot that we used when we got home. We left Vegas rejuvenated and counting down till the next year. Year two we came back and I brought my team of six with me. It will always be one of the highlights of my pizza journey as my regional chef, Eric Von Hansen, competed in the Pan Division for world's best pan pizza and won. That created a culture in our stores that persists to this day. We have marketed our company as pizza champions and we've seen an ongoing 20 percent bump in our business. Year three we showed up with seven managers and entered in three competitions. One of my managers won a gold medal in the World Pizza Games and two others won firsts in our region for their pizzas. The friends we have gained from networking at the Expo and the knowledge learned by my staff alone have been worth the price of the trips - winning competitions was just like some extra cheese! One hundred fifty days and counting! "