Nick's Pizza&pub

Nick Sarillo started Nicks Pizza & Pub partly because he felt the community needed a family-friendly restaurant. A former construction worker, he was frustrated with the options available for his own family. In the next 15 years, Nicks Pizza & Pub did indeed becomea sort of community center. Scarcely a week went by without fundraisers for local charities or people in needand Nicks would contribute 15 percent of the gross profit generated by events. It also had a vibrant culture built around what he called his trust-and-track (as opposed to command-and-control) approach to managing. He was nave about finance, however, and, out of ignorance, took on too much debt over the years. The result: he was running out of cash and three weeks from bankruptcy in 2011. With all other options exhausted, he wrote an email to customers explaining the situation, taking full blame for it, and asking for help. The customers rallied and literally saved the company. Sales almost doubled for the next two months. Some even called the bank, urging it to help Sarillo find a solution. The company survived; Sarillos debt was restructured, and he learned a hard, but crucial, lesson about the balance sheet.