It’s an exciting week in Oakland and Berkeley! Our popular Kale salad is returning to the menu! The idea for this salad comes from Regional Manager Naji Duran-Janini. Naji said, “This is the salad I make at home all the time. The salad was really a collaborative effort with Saeki (fellow Regional Manager). He really wanted to do something with kale. We had a lot of fun creating it together.” The Kale Salad comes with kale (really??!!), feta, matchstick carrots, green apples, cucumbers, roasted pumpkin seeds and a house-made Tahini dressing.

In the world of pizza, the Buffalo Chicken special is back! This spicy special is made with our free-range chicken breast flavored with a cayenne pepper “wing sauce”, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and topped with our house-made blue cheese dressing. This pizza is available stuffed and thin crust for a limited time!

Our CEO (Kevin) grew up in Buffalo, NY and drew inspiration for this pizza from the sauce of his homeland. Kevin writes, “Growing up in Buffalo, pizza night always meant pepperoni pizza and a bucket of chicken wings with blue cheese dressing. The flavor of Buffalo wings and pepperoni pizza work really well together, so I figured why not try combining those flavors on our pizza?”

We think you will enjoy this combination just as much as Kevin did as a kid in Buffalo.

One of the many things that makes Zachary’s a special place to work is that we are an ESOP. This means that all of the employees at Zachary’s own all of the stock in the company. See more information about Zachary’s here and ESOPs in general here.

This year, the ESOP Committee has a theme – Fit and Clean 2017! Our first event was a yoga class at Zachary’s (check it out!). Our second event was a hike at Redwood Regional!

Regional Manager and ESOP Committee member Kate Erickson bravely and excitedly choose the path (East Ridge Trail!) and led a group employee owners. Fun! We will have many more Fit and Clean adventures to share in 2017, so stay tuned!

Big news! The first ever Zachary’s yoga class took place on Thursday, January 5th and it was AMAZING!

Zachary’s is an employee owned company (read more here: https://zacharys.com/about-us/our-people/) via our ESOP. We have a committee of dedicated employee owners who work to educate the crew about the ESOP itself and the benefits and responsibilities of being an employee owner. This year, the ESOP Committee decided to focus their efforts on a theme: Fit and Clean 2017. To kick off the year, Zachary’s hosted a yoga class, right here at our College Avenue location in Oakland, CA.

The fantastic and fun, Molly Pearson, agreed to lead the way. Amidst the cacophony that is an early morning at Zachary’s (think drilling, hammering, an industrial grater slicing major amounts of mozzarella, trucks delivering loads of produce, flour, pizza boxes and more, the whirring of the Hobart, the playful banter of the morning crew… you get the picture), a brave bunch of employee owners donned their yoga gear and stretched and twisted and Warriored together.

Though peaceful it was not, the morning was certainly full of beauty and joy. Yoga, pizza and some pretty fabulous employee owners made for a special start to another day at Zachary’s.

We have a pretty amazing crew. We’ve got folks who have been with the company since 1983 and folks who just started last week. We have stunningly fast pizza makers and exceptionally warm and welcoming hosts and servers. These amazing folks thrive in a chaotic and sometimes downright wild environment. No one, in our humble opinion, deserves a more fantastic holiday party than these truly fabulous employee owners.

We celebrated in style at the Lake Chalet in downtown Oakland.

New Specials!

In Oakland and Berkeley, our Roasted Potato pizza is back! Just in time for the official start of winter! This deliciously comforting pizza is stuffed with oven roasted red potatoes, chopped onion, garlic, fresh rosemary and Monterey Jack cheese. It’s available stuffed or thin crust. It’s truly a potato-lover’s dream come true.

In Pleasant Hill and San Ramon, we have our always-popular Super Veggie special (this one is a regular in Oakland and Berkeley)! This veggie-tastic special has zucchini, yellow squash, red bell peppers, broccoli, white corn, yellow cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese. It’s available stuffed or thin crust.

We are hiring hard-working, energetic people at all four of our locations – Oakland, Berkeley, San Ramon and Pleasant Hill!

Why work at Zachary’s?

• We are 100% EMPLOYEE OWNED!
• No experience is necessary. We will teach you the Zachary’s way!
• We have a generous paid time off policy.
• You can earn company stock and retirement benefits at no cost to employees as an ESOP participant.
• Our hourly wages are among the highest in the industry.
• We have paid 30 minute meal periods for shifts longer than 5 hours (and you can eat as much pizza as you want!).
• Flexible hours are available.
• You will work with great people in a fun and fast paced environment.

Apply online or visit any of our locations and pick up an application in person.

The Warrior’s are back! We are celebrating with our “Za-Curry’s” Chicken Pizza! It’s got curry-spiced chicken and onions, golden raisins and mozzarella cheese. It’s available thin crust only for a limited time in Oakland and Berkeley. Cheers to an awesome season! GO DUBS!

At our San Ramon and Pleasant Hill  locations, we are keeping the Zachary’s Western for a bit longer!

This pizza, a creation of San Ramon/Pleasant Hill Regional Manager and overall pizza virtuoso (not sure if you can be a pizza virtuoso… why not?), Luis Ibarra, is packed with Italian sausage, onions, bacon, our sweet-smokey barbecue sauce and loads of mozzarella. It’s available stuffed and thin for a limited time only!

October is National Employee Owner month! Woo-hoo! We kicked off the month by sending two of our fantastic employee owners, Katie Leary and Tabitha King to the ESOP Association Conference in Tahoe.

Tabitha and Katie came back from the conference filled with ideas and employee-owner enthusiasm. Here are some of their highlights from the conference:

• Being around people who were super enthusiastic about engaging their employees and fostering the ownership mindset
• Learning more about how an ESOP can benefit the company and individual employees
• Getting lots of ideas for fun ESOP events and ways to engage employees in what it means to be an employee owner
• Seeing other companies’ displays of how they celebrate their employees
• Nerding out with fellow SF bay area ESOP members like Recology
• Playing beginner’s poker and not knowing how to bluff
• Getting a glowing review of Zachary’s pizza from Jackson Hardware CEO and ESOP Conference president Matthew Olson

As you can see, Tabitha and Katie stayed busy, learned a lot and had some fun. We are so excited that they were able to attend the conference and come back with so much to share!

This October, Zachary’s is supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For the month of October only, we will sell pink T-Shirts and pink Baseball Caps at all four of our Zachary’s locations.

Rachel and Kylee (fantastic mom-daughter team working at Zachary’s) are modeling the shirt. Their lives were touched by breast cancer and they are passionate about raising awareness and support.

Employee owners, Vicente and David are modeling our hats. Don’t they look great?!

All proceeds from the t-shirt and hat sales go to the American Cancer Society.

Our super popular and super delicious Roasted Pepper special is back in Oakland and Berkeley. This is an all-time favorite of our beloved crew. It comes with red, green and yellow bell peppers, Anaheim chiles, Pasilla peppers, onions, yellow cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese. It’s available stuffed or thin. This is a veggie-filled special for all of the veggie lovers out there! HOT TIP: If you do dabble in carnivorous delights, add pepperoni TO THE TOP of this pizza. Trust us, it’s goooood.

At our San Ramon and Pleasant Hill  locations, we are keeping the Zachary’s Western for a bit longer!

This pizza, a creation of San Ramon/Pleasant Hill Regional Manager and overall pizza virtuoso (not sure if you can be a pizza virtuoso… why not?), Luis Ibarra, is packed with Italian sausage, onions, bacon, our sweet-smokey barbecue sauce and loads of mozzarella. It’s available stuffed and thin for a limited time only!