The Pizza Party Experience: Mikey Sorboro’s Journey Building Late Night Slice | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Mike Sorboro He is the owner of Mikey’s Late Night Slice, a pizza business he launched in 2009 that began as a food truck concept and has grown into several popular locations around Columbus, Ohio. Mikey’s mission is simple, serve delicious New York style pizza and create a fun late night experience for everyone. Over the years, Mikey’s Late Night Slice has been recognized for its creative pizzas like the Pizza Dog and Cheese Us Crust, which have delighted crowds looking for something different. He has grown the brand from a single truck to multiple thriving spots, all while receiving praise for a lively atmosphere and late night vibes. Before launching this venture, Mike got his start in entrepreneurship with ECT Petty Cab in 2008, showing his knack for building unique businesses that stand out.

He studied at D. Ohio State University, exploring liberal arts and sciences before pursuing his passion in food and hospitality. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBac Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. All right, back to our guest today, the founder of Mikey’s Late Night Slice, Mike. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. All right. So before we get into how you started the pizza business, what was ECT Petty Cab?

Mike Sorboro: So environmentally conscious transportation, ECT. That was kind of like the first thing I ever did as far as I would say like an entrepreneurial business. So it would be a loose version of a business, but I traveled a lot in my 20s. And one of the things I saw while I was kind of traveling around was these Petty Cab, these human powered bike taxis that were all over the Gaslamp District in San Diego.

And I knew at the time I was living in Vegas, I was going to be moving back to Columbus, and I was like, what am I going to do when I get back there? And I thought that these human powered taxis would be the perfect thing for my neighborhood, which is the short north district of Columbus, just north of downtown. So I got obsessed with this idea of these Petty Cabs.

I dug in, which I often do, I think this will end up being a theme for, you know, kind of my story here, is I just dug in, got obsessed with these things, learned everything that I could possibly learn about them, ended up buying five of them and got back to Columbus, and these things got delivered about two weeks later. And that was the start of ECT Petty Cab. Where do you buy a Petty Cab from?

There’s a number, probably not a lot, but a number of Petty Cab manufacturers state side that create these things. And it’s a little, it’s a thriving little industry into of itself, which is kind of cool.

Anthony Codispoti: So when you say you did a deep dive, you were obviously looking at multiple manufacturers, but what were you doing to better understand the business opportunity there?

Mike Sorboro: I mean, really just learning the business of bike taxis. And by business, I mean, it was really pretty simple. And I would, I think this is still applicable today, even though this was, you know, 14, 15 years ago, 16, something years ago. So, you know, for a little business where you ride one of the bikes and then rent out the other, you know, few that you have, it’s a really cool little business, you know, and I would say it’s enough to, you know, be really independent and make, you know, some decent cash. You rent out the sides for advertising, you rent the bikes out just like, you know, a taxi company would rent out a taxi, got a little garage for him, a little repair shop. And it’s just, it was a really cool little business. I’d say it was a wonderful way to kind of dip my toe into what entrepreneurship would end up being like.

Anthony Codispoti: And so you get these five taxis delivered. Are you driving or writing, propelling one of them? I don’t know what the right verb is. One of them yourself. And then you’ve got some buddies who were signing on to do this too. Or how does it work when you’re purchasing?

Mike Sorboro: You absolutely nailed it. It was all friends. I had my bike and then I had four other bikes that I would rent to my friends. And this was, this was, you know, we were in our mid to late twenties at the time. So the perfect thing for a bunch of nomads to just hop on, make a few bucks at the end of the night. I mean, we were just like a little biker gang. We just happened to have these giant tricycles and we’d hang out at night and we’d take people to and from their last mile, you know, we were never really a long form of transportation, but it was a really fantastic way to just get from your parking lot to the bar or from bar to bar or from bar to home. So, you know, in the neighborhood, you know, the, you hear about the last mile, we were like a really cool hip version of the last mile transportation.

Anthony Codispoti: And so how did you charge? Is it like per ride per mile?

Mike Sorboro: You charge per pound because we had a, we had a, we had a strict limit of four people in the back of a cab. Now that could be four ballet dancers or that could be four linebackers.

It doesn’t matter. You could just fit four bodies in the back of one of these things. And I tell you one thing, where you’re driving these things, you know, you think you might be when you’re in a car, driving along the flat, flat area, but when you’re in a bike taxi carrying four other humans, you know, little hills become very apparent when you’re driving up and down a road. So, it was absolutely the best exercise you could have probably gotten and still made money.

Anthony Codispoti: And so you, you just charge per ride or per body or what was that? What was that?

Mike Sorboro: I guess, I guess I probably dipped the question there. We did per minute. So it was, you know, and a lot of times we just estimate like, you know, from here to there, that’s, you know, about a six minute ride, you know, that’s going to be about, you know, $25, something like that.

Anthony Codispoti: And so, but you’re leasing the bike to your friend. So he’s paying, I don’t know, 100 bucks a night for it or something like that. And then whatever he makes, he keeps.

Mike Sorboro: Exactly. So on the, you know, weekday nights, early shifts, 10, 15, 25 bucks, weekdays, 35 bucks for the night, weekends, you know, gets up to like 50 or 60 bucks depending.

So we never really tried to, you know, make a ton of money off of our other drivers, but just enough to keep the bikes out there and to make sure everybody’s making money. And how long did this last? ECT, ECT pedicab is still in existence, actually. So I don’t know. No, I’m not. I don’t know anymore.

I got, you know, I had to sever ties only because I was just more distracted with pizza. But yeah, my buddy ended up buying that. And I think it’s still on the road today. Like you, if you see the white bike taxis in the short north, those are, how those things are still roaming around and mechanically sound is a testament to modern engineering and modern repair methods.

Anthony Codispoti: But yeah, they’re still out there. Okay. So you got distracted with pizza. How did this come about? How’d the idea for the pizza?

Mike Sorboro: So by being on those bike taxis at the end of the night, like I said, you’re taking a lot of, you know, people from the bar to home. And at 2 30 in the morning, you’re hearing a lot of like, all right, hey, where’s the pizza by the slice of this neighborhood? Where’s our, you know, where’s our late night food?

And I kept hearing that so much by being on the back of the pedicab or by driving all these people home. I started to think like, I’m like, all right, well, where is the pizza by the slice? You know, we had plenty of Eurocarts, plenty of sausage options, you know, there is there was a lot of street meat, but there wasn’t really a place for late night pizza.

And this was at the time an emerging busy bar district. So that’s where the inspiration came from. It was literally just of hearing it by, you know, being being in that late night spot and realizing that there was probably a need for this. So that kind of became my mission, like, let’s try this pizza thing.

Anthony Codispoti: And so what was the first step? Did you like buy a food cart and start slinging up some pizzas?

Mike Sorboro: Or, you know, it’s funny, it’s almost the exact opposite of anything that you could probably imagine. If I were to be like, write a probable story down, and we just like flip it upside down, and you’d be like, all right, start, let’s start there. So we had a, there was a little food shack, and it was directly down from my apartment. There was a big parking lot directly downstairs from where I was living. And it had, and I guess back in the 80s, it used to be a like an office for a used car lot that operated there back in the 70s and 80s. So there was this little lean to and it was about a seven foot by 20 foot shack that used to operate as the office for that. So I asked my landlord like, Hey, do you mind if I rent this thing? And he’s like, it was a storage shed at the time. And he’s like, what do you want it for? And I’m like, I want to try this pizza thing. He thought I was crazy. He’s like, go ahead, you got to clean it out and fix it up yourself.

It’s, you know, 250 bucks a month or something like that. So I did, I got in there and I started hauling out all this old like car lot stuff that was still lodged in there from, you know, just 30 years ago, it hadn’t been touched since, and I ended up doing all the painting and the plumbing and the electric anything I thought that I could do to get this little 140 square foot shack ready to be a pizza shop. And I even, you know, one of the first things called the health department in and I was like, I want to make this a pizza shop. And they’re like, how, but they said, if you have, if you have this sink and you have this other sink and you have, you know, the walls are cleanable and the floor is good. They gave me this little checklist of things that it needed to be to be a restaurant. And so that’s what I did.

I just went down that checklist and made sure that, you know, this place could technically be a kitchen. And I would ride the bike taxi for a week or two. And at the end of those week or two, I’d have a, you know, $1,000 saved up from petty cabbing. And I’d go on the auction site that I found or craigslist. And I’d find the cheapest piece of restaurant equipment I could possibly find that I thought I needed for a pizza shop. And then I’d ride the bicycle and I always say I’d ride my giant tricycle for another week or two and have, you know, five or 600 bucks saved up.

And I get on there and buy another, you know, used oven or a used refrigerator or I mean, really, I just piece this thing together as much as I could. The funny thing is, is I’d never really worked in a restaurant. I had done a lot of front of house stuff, serving tables, stuff like that throughout my twenties, but I never really worked in a restaurant. I certainly never worked in a pizza restaurant. And I had no idea how to make pizza or I didn’t have a recipe for pizza.

Like, you know, grandma’s recipe that I have to get to the people. In fact, at some point, we were like, all right, hey, there’s a pizza shop ready to go. Who knows how to make pizza here? That’s why I say it was kind of done in reverse because, you know, we literally, I worked for months to set up a pizza shop. And then we had a pizza shop set up. And then it was like, all right, now we need a pizza recipe.

Anthony Codispoti: This is funny because, right, there is this theme of sort of you like doing this deep dive into like, okay, like I called the health department and like, you know, I came up with this checklist of things to do. But somehow your to-do list, part of it got inverted. And so down at the bottom of that list was like, okay, let’s figure out how to make pizza.

Mike Sorboro: Yeah, exactly. And we didn’t even, for the first little while we were open, I would say the first like two months, we never even made our own pizza. We would buy pizza from other pizza shops. And we would just like, essentially, we were buying like ready to go pizza and just like heating it up and selling it. And at that, you know, at one point, the pizza shop we were kind of partnered with, they’re like, all right, listen, we, you know, we got our own pizza shop to deal with, go, you know, buzz off, find somebody else.

All right. And I had no idea that food service companies existed, like the GFS’s and the Cisco’s and the RDP’s, I had no idea those things existed. So I started buying like raw ingredients from Trader Joe’s for a little while.

And we’re, I’m literally like brown grocery bags of like, they’re dough balls that you can still buy to this day, you know, when they started making those. And then at some point, I found out about like, you know, the GFS of the world and ended up partnering with them. But yeah, for the first little while, we were just cooking other people’s pizza, selling it out. And we were just getting to capacity of all of these things until people were like, go get a food service partnership and like actually order raw ingredients.

Anthony Codispoti: And so what was the reception like on the consumer side in the early days? Was it just like, hey, you’re in the right place. And so you put a sign up and people just showed up or how did you sort of promote yourself?

Mike Sorboro: Yeah. And that’s, that’s, that’s the whole other side of this thing is that we didn’t just take this crappy little shack and start slinging slices out of it. Like we did some really cool stuff back in the day that I think, you know, really set us apart and continues to set us apart to this day or at least in the spirit of those old days of the shack. And like one thing we did, we have, we were, I think we were actually one of the first people to hang big patio lights, like from our little shack out to this like chain link fence. And it just created this really like inviting atmosphere. Also one of the big things that we did against the brick wall that was across the parking lot from us, for some reason, it was just painted this big white square that was painted.

It was probably the old sign or something, but we had this giant white square. And so I was like, that looks like a movie screen. So I bought a projector and we project movies on that screen every night. And we started doing like movie nights, like we play like all three naked guns, you know, in one night and we, you know, get on social media and be like, Hey, we’re showing the naked gun trilogy, you know, come on out and watch this or we’d have Disney night or, you know, a teen movie night stuff like that. So it was a little bit of just this like quirky little pizza shop that did this quirky little stuff. We had a lot of like signs on the building that were just funny. My background when I was serving tables was at like Dick’s last resort. I’d worked in a number of those around the country.

Anthony Codispoti: So service that’s sort of played over the top.

Mike Sorboro: Exactly. Just, you know, kind of like sassy service. So, you know, and I lived in Key West a little in my twenties as well. So I mean, just having those like, it was those shacks with a little bit of personality is what I really intended to make this thing. It was never necessarily about pizza. It was about the spirit of this little shack and the personality of it that really, I think drew people to the uniqueness of it because it really at some point, and we didn’t maybe know this at the time, but we were kind of creating a little bit of pop culture in this dark little corner of the short north that I think still has a little bit of, you know, there you can still it still resonates today.

You know, we still try to be not only a pizza shop, but we try to be just a really cool spot to come out and take people to and to hang out at and we happen to sell pizza.

Anthony Codispoti: So I want to ask about the licensing of showing those movies at what point did somebody let you know that that was an issue?

Mike Sorboro: I’ll tell you an even funnier story when it comes to licensing. So around July 4th weekend of 2009, you know, I had this pizza shop ready to go and I had spent every dollar I had getting this thing ready to sell pizza and I had rent due, you know, it was July 4th weekend and I, you know, I think I had, you know, rent at the time and I called the health department up and I was like, all right, we’re ready to go. I need you guys to come in, inspect this thing and I got to sell pizza and they’re like, all right, well, we’re really busy right now and it’s going to be about five to six weeks because we’re backed up and I was like, all right, put us down and I hung up the phone and we opened quietly that night. Five or six weeks of late night slices existence, you know, we were unlicensed just because I didn’t have an option. Like that wasn’t even, that wasn’t even a possibility to wait five or six more weeks. Like I had sunk everything and here’s by sunk everything, we’re talking like five or six, maybe $7,000.

Like in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of starting a business, practically nothing, but when you’re, you know, a 20-some-year-old who’s just trying something out, that was, you know, that was, that was blood money. I needed that.

Anthony Codispoti: So, that was… What, you’re nervous at all that you were going to get caught during those five or six weeks?

Mike Sorboro: You know, I think the invincibility of just, you know, being that age and having nothing to lose made me not really care all that much. And of course, if I would have, we would have dealt with it and we would have, yeah, we would have made something work. It wouldn’t have stopped any of the momentum or any of the enthusiasm, but yeah, I would have worked through it. It would have been fine. But yeah, it was, we opened, I say we opened, we opened unofficially July 4th weekend of 2009 and we officially opened about six weeks later.

Anthony Codispoti: So, if anybody from the health department is listening, I’m sure that they’ve long since moved on from their positions.

Mike Sorboro: Well, yeah, I am comfortable telling the story at this moment because it’s, it’s just a fun anecdote.

Anthony Codispoti: Statute of limitations are running on every day.

Mike Sorboro: And so, did anything ever happen with you guys showing the movies or does that still happen till today? No, we don’t do that anymore because, you know, we have, we have things to lose now. Yeah. It’s funny when you’re, you know, when you have nothing to lose, like things you’re like, I don’t know, deal with that.

Anthony Codispoti: What are they, what are they gonna take? Yeah, what are they gonna take for me? Yeah. So, at what point did you realize we’ve got something here?

Mike Sorboro: You know, I can tell you almost with like pinpoint precision, and this is before we opened when I was building this thing. I used to drive up and down the short north and, you know, I’d always see Jennie’s, the first Jennie’s location, I guess the second one they did outside the North Market.

Anthony Codispoti: It’s a popular ice cream shop where they serve very creative flavors.

Mike Sorboro: Correct. Jennie’s blended ice creams. They’re coast to coast at this point. And that, they’re their second shop, they’d have a line, you know, almost at any hour they were open, a line like just wrapped out the door down the block. And I always thought like if I ever had a business that had a line out the door and down the block, I’m doing something right.

And it, it didn’t take us too long to start getting lines out the door and down the block. And it wasn’t just because pizza. I mean, pizza by the slice in a busy bar district isn’t all that earth shattering.

It’s not a groundbreaking concept. But when you combine the things that we were doing with it, the way we made that shack look and call it luck, call it first to the draw or whatever, but, you know, something about that little shop had a little spark of magic and people just latched onto it because I think it really started to like, it became a destination. And I think that was a fun thing about it. It kind of defined what our little funky neighborhood, not by itself, but it added to what that neighborhood was becoming. And I think that’s, that’s the cool thing about that shack at the time.

It’s just, you know, people wanted something unique and that kind of played on their personalities. They were proud to show it off. They were proud to bring people to it. They were proud to say like, you know, this, this is what this neighborhood is all about. So yeah, it was, it was fun to, you know, kind of be a part of that spark.

Anthony Codispoti: How did or how has it, maybe it continues to this day, the quality, the taste, the consistency of the pizza evolved. You started out selling somebody else’s pizza and you migrated to buying stuff from Trader Joe’s and you found Gordon’s and, and so like how, like what have been the steps and the evolutions of the product along the way?

Mike Sorboro: Sure, sure, sure. You know, the, I would say a number of the things that we did back in the day are still the way we do things today. Of course, there’s been efficiencies. We, you know, have created, we’ve spent 15 years creating systems and processes and efficiencies around this thing. And I wouldn’t say we’ve done it quickly because I will certainly say a lesson about my, my business along the way is doing it slow, hard, and expensive.

If I write a book, it’ll be called slow, hard and expensive, the late night slice term. But yeah, the pizza itself today is just, it’s, it’s, it’s very similar to the way it was back then. You know, maybe some of the ingredients have changed ever so slightly to reflect just better and bigger buying power and just things that we had to do to be able to scale. But the flavor profile is pretty damn close to what you’d get if you were to taste that pizza from that long ago.

Anthony Codispoti: And so at what point did you decide, okay, this is going really well, we’re going to expand beyond this one little shack in an old used car lot. Yeah.

Mike Sorboro: So number two was the pizza truck. So it’s, it’s pretty common to think that we started off as a pizza truck, but we really started off as in a pizza truck without wheels, because it was about the same size. It just happened to be against the building and be its own thing. And does that original location still exist?

So yes and no. So there is still a pizza trailer in that parking lot to this day. That’s our short north location connected to Oddfellow’s liquor bar, although the original shack that used to house the original late night slice that has been gone for about 10 years, give or take, because it, it got to the end of its useful life. Let’s just say it was never duct tape finally fell apart. It was so bad. Like it was a, it was a danger to be in by the time we tore that thing down. It had, it had got to the end of its useful life for sure.

Anthony Codispoti: So you expanded into a pizza truck and where does the pizza truck park itself then?

Mike Sorboro: Yep. So the pizza truck came about because we just, you know, we weren’t trying to get in and this was, you know, later in the year in 2009. I would say this was before there was a, you know, pizza truck rage that kind of went on, you know, the whole gourmet pizza truck movement. This was before that we just wanted something that we could take to the festivals and to, you know, private parties and stuff like that. And the idea of a food truck made a lot of sense to us.

We ended up finding one about an hour south of Columbus, and it was a old box truck that happened to have a pizza oven already in it. Like it was literally made for what we were doing. And asked my buddy if he had wanted to get in on this business with me. And that’s how my partner Bryce got involved in the business. He ended up buying the food truck and entered in the business. He’s our CEO at this point.

Anthony Codispoti: Okay. So, and was it instant success for the truck as well? Yeah.

Mike Sorboro: Yeah. One thing I will talk anyone out of buying a food truck. Anyway, but the one thing I will say about having a food truck is it’s a wonderful way to take your brand to the people, to big groups of people. So the pizza truck for us was an amazing way to build our brand. And we didn’t really realize we had, we went into that, you know, unintentionally, we got this truck just to see if we could take, you know, pizza to big groups of people. And we ended up realizing that this was the best form of marketing that we probably could have done, because it took the brand to people, you know, that, that, you know, people in Dublin that weren’t going to come to the short north for whatever reason, or people that would only come to Confest for whatever reason, or people that went to Buckeye Games, but would have never, you know, seen our brand in the short north. So, you know, the brand became mobile. And that was one of, I think one of the absolute keys to success for late night slice in those early days.

Anthony Codispoti: So why would you talk somebody out of a food truck?

Mike Sorboro: Food trucks are, oh, God, food trucks are so hard. They’re so hard. I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s a reason that it’s an easy point of entry. And that’s the good thing about food trucks is it’s a low cost, low cost, low risk entry into food service to starting your own, you know, restaurant. But if you look at what a food truck is, you know, I mean, you have all the problems of a normal restaurant, you have, you know, the food issues, you have staffing, you know, you know, team issues, and you have all of the problems of a 20 year old step van. So like, not only do you have all the problems of a restaurant, you have all the problems of an old car. So I had this joke that like not there hasn’t been anyone in Columbus that hasn’t seen a late night slice food truck broken down on the side of the highway, trying its hardest to get to its event, because that’s what food trucks do. They just, unless you have, you know, 250 to 400 grand to spend on a brand new food truck, you’re getting a 20 or 30 year old step van that’s been modified to be a food truck. And those just come with inherent problems. I mean, it’s just the nature of the beast.

So food trucks are just problem management. And when it gets cold out, you know, there’s an eighth inch of aluminum between you and, you know, 20 degrees. So inherently, it’s a little bit seasonal. Not a lot of people are out walking when it’s cold. So there’s a seasonality aspect to it as well.

So it’s a, it’s a rough business, you know, that’s, it’s a anybody in the food truck business that’s been in it for a minute will tell you how damn hard it is.

Anthony Codispoti: So it was good for you guys from a branding marketing perspective, getting your brand out to more people in the city of Columbus. Was this sort of a pathway then to you guys opening up a first sort of traditional physical location?

Mike Sorboro: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if you that would say the third thing we did was Woodlands backyard, I’m sorry, Woodlands Tavern. So they had a kitchen that was, you know, built into their bar. And it was dark at some buddies in there. They looked over and they’re like, Hey, why is that kitchen dark? And the bartender told them they’re like, Yeah, our owners don’t want to deal with the kitchen. So they called me right then and there.

They’re like, Hey, we’re at this bar. It has a, you know, a kitchen that the owners aren’t using, you should talk to them. And that was our, you know, our first, I would say first brick and mortar, although we were in somebody else’s house. That was our first like, that was our first actual spot.

Anthony Codispoti: So how did that proceed? Good success right from the start?

Mike Sorboro: That was a good visibility. Yeah, that relationship is fantastic. You know, that got us in front of a lot of people and me and that those bar owners, you know, we really, they opened about a year before we did. And, you know, we’ve, there’s still dear friends to this day.

We really grew up together. And so it was really nice to have, you know, somebody willing to not only take a chance on us, but be patient why we grew and you know, let us kind of try some things with our brand in their house. And it’s been a, it was a fantastic way to build brand.

Anthony Codispoti: And so what’s the state of the brand today? How many locations, how many employees kind of paint a picture for us?

Mike Sorboro: Yeah, so late night slice to this day, we have nine locations, one out of Columbus and Cincinnati. We have a partnership with the Hollywood casino, a bunch of brick and mortar is of our own.

We still have the trailer down there. We, we employ 220 or so team members at this point. And we just opened three locations at the end of last year, 2024. So the last quarter, we did a partnership with Pins Mechanical Company to open two locations in their spots.

Small 10 pin bowling. Yep. Correct. Yep.

Yep. Really large format anchor tenants of a large developments. So they had a hot dog concept that they didn’t want to spend any more time on. So we took over those hot dog shops and those have been absolute slam dunk locations for us. And then we just recently opened on Ohio State campus as well. And all three of those locations are going great.

Essentially, those three locations are going to practically double the size revenue wise of the business. So yeah, it’s been a busy year. We’ve become really laser focused on, you know, what we want to do, where we want to go, how we want to do it. So we’re excited, man. It’s a good time for late nights.

Anthony Codispoti: Three locations just in the last quarter of 2024 that for a company your size, that’s a lot of growth all at once.

Mike Sorboro: Hell of a sprint. It was an incredible sprint for us. But I think it goes to show you, I mean, I think it’s common to say in a growth spirit like that, that, you know, the wheels got shaky, but they never came off. And at this point, you know, we had such a great team that the wheels never really even got shaky. It’s not saying we were without, you know, incident or hardship or we had, you know, or with our struggles, for sure.

But, you know, as far as opening three locations and as many months goes, it was really smooth. So, you know, we realized that, you know, we got to, I always use this metaphor that we have a really good car, we have a really good pit crew and we want to drive fast. So, we just got to make sure we’re on the right road in the future.

And that’s what we’re really focused on right now. So, what does the future look like? Future looks like more locations in and out of Columbus. So, we think there’s still room to grow in Columbus, but really for the brand to be able to, you know, stand up as high as we wanted to, we’ve got to have proof outside of Columbus. Unfortunately, our Cincinnati spot, you know, that was kind of a victim of, I’m going to the area that we opened up in wasn’t progressing as fast as we thought it was going to. So, I don’t think that’s our best foot forward as far as an out of market location.

It is still in Ohio. But yeah, I’d say that’s the future right now is looking for a, you know, outside of Columbus location or two or three and making sure this brand can stand on its own without being as recognized as they are in Columbus.

Anthony Codispoti: Are these going to be corporate owned locations? Are you guys exploring the possibility of franchising?

Mike Sorboro: Yeah, all corporate owned. Yeah, we haven’t really done any franchising and we don’t really have much interest in it.

Anthony Codispoti: In what particular challenges do you foresee going into new markets where exactly like you said, maybe you don’t have the same name recognition that you do here? Sure.

Mike Sorboro: You know, I mean, we have a, we’re very, very lucky to have as much brand equity as we do in in Columbus. That’s a really awesome thing to be known for what we do in this market.

So, I think what we really got to see is, you know, how far does that brand equity stretch? You know, will that, do we have recognition in Cleveland? Do we have recognition in Dayton?

I think the answer is yes. And we just got to make sure that, you know, in an area or a market where we have less brand recognition and less brand equity, that, you know, we’re still providing a really good service, a really good product and a really good difference in a arguably a crowded market, you know, no matter where you go, pizza is always a crowded market.

Anthony Codispoti: Do you guys feel like you’re ready? Are there announcements coming or are you still catching your breath from that growth curve of the end of last year? year?

Mike Sorboro: Yeah, I mean both. I mean I would say there’s not an announcement ready but we’re looking really really hard at outside markets right now. So it’s a combination of really finding the exact spot and making sure that we don’t mess it up.

So we’re certainly you know this is one of those things we’d rather do it right than do it fast and it’s taken us this long to get this far so you know we’re not in a hurry but at the same time you know we want to keep this momentum we want to keep this enthusiasm going because it’s it’s fun you know and we found they were the team that is chomping at the bit to keep this kind of momentum going and that’s that’s that’s what pushes us is the teams ready and the teams excited.

Anthony Codispoti: So you’ve kind of touched a little bit on what the vibe of the brand is kind of paint a little bit more of a picture for us on what the experience is like going to the restaurants. Yeah, you’ve got these unconventional pizzas like cheese crust and pizza dog, DAWG like yeah kind of walk us through how all this connects.

Mike Sorboro: Sure, so in you know in the early days and I think the locations that we’ve talked about up to this point we’re all kind of like an old style of our locations you know they were a walk up shack, a concession stand really, a pizza truck, a food truck and you know the third thing we did was a bar kitchen you know so really just a counter that you can walk up to. You know it took us probably five to seven years to get our first brick and mortar that was just ours and I think one of the hardest things when you’re you know your entire experience, your customer facing experience to this point was standing in line outside and waiting for a slice of pizza. Our challenge there was how does that convey to an in-shop experience where people actually walk in a door and that was one of the most fun things for me being kind of the experienced guy on the team was you know how do we take that experience of people standing outside in a line and make that you know a fun and engaging indoor brick and mortar experience. So once we opened our fourth street restaurant which was our first real you know brick and mortar space that was the big challenge there like how do you you know how do you teach people that this isn’t just you know standing outside and waiting for you know slice of pizza at a concession stand you know we have a bar now we have you know aligned queue we have you know things on the wall we have entertainment on the TVs so I think to answer the question like the the the the vibe of late night slice is pizza party and that’s how it’s always been everybody loves a pizza party and that’s what we try to do and that’s where we try to compete which is I think a lot different than you know most people in the pizza realm try to do um winger in pizza a lot of people compete on the traditional forms of pizza they know that we have the freshest ingredients we have the best tasting pizza we have the cheapest pizza so you have people competing on quality you have people competing on price you have people competing on enthusiasm like they had just won a big award or you know the the pizza guy came to their place and gave him a big score you know they compete on that kind of momentum and there’s probably like four to five other ways that traditional pizza shops compete and technology that’s another one we have the best app think deny our dominoes you can compete on the style of pizza you have you know edge-to-edge toppings you have deep dish you have you know cheese crust rile stuff crossed you compete on innovation stuff like that so where we choose to compete is completely different we choose to compete on experience so you know we take the world’s favorite thing which is pizza we take the world’s second favorite thing which is booze and then we take everything around that from our social media to our in-shop experience to the stuff we play on TVs to what we have our team members wear how they talk our menu design our interior design we take every aspect of the world’s two favorite things and we make those things fucking awesome so that’s what we’ve really focused on doing and I think that’s what makes us really stand out in a arguably crowded market is that we don’t really compete on pizza in fact if a pizza play is like you know Donato dominoes or Donatos or Papa John’s opened up next to us I wouldn’t consider that competition because you know yeah we happen to sell pizza we happen to sell the same thing but people don’t come to us necessarily for pizza they come to us for everything the fun atmosphere that we have that we’ve designed around pizza caveat to that we have one best pizza best tasting pizza in Columbus for about eight nine years now first place in the 614 so we actually do have good pizza we just don’t choose to make that you know say we’re the freshest and the best and the cheapest or whatever you know we really compete on everything around the world’s two favorite things

Anthony Codispoti: that’s fascinating because if anybody’s listening to that first part of your story about here’s what we compete on they’re probably secretly thinking like okay like that’s all great Mike but that sounds like you’re covering up for mediocre pizza but it’s not I mean you’ve won best pizza in Columbus for eight or nine years in a row and so I don’t know it’s just sort of credence to what you were saying of hey we don’t that’s not what we’re promoting where what the brand is really built on is this whole experiential thing and the fact that you led with that in your description and it wasn’t until the end where you said oh by the way yeah we’ve got the best pizza in town and you know here’s the award to prove it I think speaks to exactly what it is you guys you’re trying to accomplish

Mike Sorboro: yeah I mean you ask anybody within my earshot right now what is your favorite pizza you’re gonna get 150 different answers and they’re all gonna be for the most part based on the pizza that they grew up with in wherever they grew up at you know you always have this affinity to the style and it could be the best or the worst pizza and it probably is to somebody else the best or the worst pizza but pizza is such a personal thing to people it’s such a it’s such a private thing that you you practically can’t compete on and there are groups that try to talk about the best pizza there is no such thing as the best pizza because it’s such a personal thing to people and like do you want to talk the best Chicago deep dish do you want to talk the best new york style do you want to talk the best Detroit do you want to talk the best philadelphia style the best columbus style like and then it goes into the whole I mean there’s there’s so many layers you could do to dissect pizza that the perfect pizza doesn’t exist because it’s all personal preference so we just try to make a damn good pizza and we have a lot of fun in doing

Anthony Codispoti: that so I’ve lived in columbus for I don’t know over 30 years now what is columbus style pizza this is

Mike Sorboro: now it’s it’s a thing so picture the masses picture the dinados so the edge-to-edge toppings party cut which is that you know the square cuts as opposed to the triangular cuts they use a flavor profile wise they use a mozzarella and provolone blend of cheese we’re depending on where you go throughout the country it’s either sometimes all provolone all mozzarella you know slices and whatever so there’s definitely a different flavor profile to a columbus style pizza but it’s kind of the one that if you’ve grown up in I would say in the the like the Ohio Valley area the Midwest you have that similar you know taste of of that flavor profile you’re just used to it it’s what you’ve kind of grown up on so and that differs by region it really does

Anthony Codispoti: uh walk us through surviving covid and then how the business has evolved coming out of it

Mike Sorboro: yeah hey we’re still here so how about that session says something then uh covid was covid was hell I mean it was it was hell it wasn’t it wasn’t all awful you know because there was a certain amount of just like I don’t know camaraderie that we got a certain amount of closeness that you know brought not only like me and my company together but our peers within the industry like it really did bring us together and it was kind of like a we’re all going through this type thing you know so you know when we got shut down we did the absolute best we could to make sure our people were taken care of but what we also did is we made some very swift measures and very swift decisions to make sure the business was in survival mode as well so those decisions were very very hard we had to let some very like key and very awesome people go in those early days one because we wanted to serve you know we wanted to mothball the business essentially but we wanted also those people to not be just drug along you know we wanted to make sure that they had the best way to survive as well and that I you know we didn’t think that the best way was be strung along in a restaurant that may not survive so um you know a little bit of mercy a little bit of self-preservation and you learn along the way you know when there’s not a playbook to read from you know you do your best to survive you do the best you can with the rules that you’re provided with and the box to your opera you know allowed to operate with it and we just got through it you know the best we could and it it was hell and it still to this day we have ghosts of that era um I would say we’re a out of that and five years oh just when you’re forced to make decisions that would have when you’re forced to make quick hard decisions um decisions that you probably knew you maybe needed to make uh moving on from a person or you know getting uh you know getting some certain things done that would have probably taken you a year because he just didn’t have the pressure you know when you have all that pressure the uh kind of like the everybody get in this room shut the door we got to figure this out type of problem and uh when you’re forced to do that really really quickly uh for the survival of the business and the survival of your livelihood and the survival of the brand um you know it’s not necessarily a bad thing although it’s just it hurts and you would have just done it differently otherwise but on the other side you know you’re a better company because you had to make those quick hard decisions um which like I said they you may you may have got to the point of those results I think it just would have taken you a long time and that’s that’s the hard thing about you know hiring friends and liking the people that you work with and um just having a small business you know small businesses are they’re they’re inherently small you get to know everybody really well they’re your family

Anthony Codispoti: yeah you’ve talked about team and wanting to take care of the team and and it’s a really good point and I and I’m kind of curious you know as you guys were going through this really aggressive growth curve at the end of last year how how what strategies have you found to kind of do a better job of recruiting folks retaining folks um you know especially in a time like that in a market where it’s hard to find folks as it is yeah you know why is it people that want to come work for you and and once they’re there why do they want to stay

Mike Sorboro: yeah you know that’s company culture is is is one of the hardest things not only to grow and to foster but to maintain and I think that’s you know the hardest thing to understand about company culture is you never stop working on your company culture you know it’s not just about creating a system a single system or a single process or hiring a certain person and then you’re like all right we have culture now like culture is something that you work on and especially in the restaurant industry or any you know hospitality let’s say or anything with a higher turnover rate you know in a year or two you know we could have a completely different team and if you’re not completely working on you know the culture of the company and what the company means to people and what it means to its customers you lose your way really quick and that’s I think one of the hardest things about COVID is we turned our you know we turned the restaurant and team members uh into the frontline police and that sucked and that was really hard on a lot of people and no matter how you know how strong your culture culture is you know when you’re asking that much of a of a of a really scared workforce stuff just breaks you know but I would say a good what we learned is a good company culture along the way we’ve learned you know a strong company culture acts as an immune system for team members that you would you know probably would have failed out easy so you know you say it acts as an immune system for bad hires because when they see such a strong uh when they see such a strong culture um you know they automatically know whether they’ll fit or not and that’s one of the things I think we learned on the outside of this is you have to maintain culture you can’t let it um something you got to work on and the results will be longer term team members and of course that means stability and when you have a stable team and they’re excited to come to work um they’re gonna allow you that opportunity to grow and that’s where we got to um in these last year or two we got to the point where our team was our teams restaurant level corporate level were so strong they’re like all right we’re ready to grow like we we’re good the shops are good now it’s not saying they’re perfect no there will always be work to do there will always be cleaning to do there will always be projects there will always be systems and processes that need to be more efficient and that need to be better and that need to be stronger but we got to a point where we were pretty good and that allowed us that gave us the permission to grow

Anthony Codispoti: what’s one suggestion you could give to another brand owner listening who’s like man I I want to build my culture I want to make it better

Mike Sorboro: uh visibility you know that’s a huge thing you know um if especially when you get to the point of multi-unit it’s easy to kind of hide up in the corporate office and you know no longer touch you know the things that your your frontline team members have to touch you know and that’s that’s customer interactions so the best things that best the when I feel the best is when I get into a shop and you know I’m like how you guys doing and they’re maybe they’re getting their butts kicked and I I jump in and I make pizza next to some new team members and man that’s awesome and that goes such a long way um and then not forgetting that you know they have a life outside this place too you know I mean being flexible with their lives and you know well with I think the current workforce giving them some you know opportunities to express themselves for them to have ownership of the place for them to make decisions and those things have to be you know systematized and they have to be within a box you can’t just let you know your new team members make all the decisions for you because there has to be guidelines and you know the bumper is along the way but providing opportunities for ownership and having corporate visibility because a long way a long way

Anthony Codispoti: Mike what’s a serious challenge that you’ve overcome personal or professional maybe both of the men are twined how did you get through that and what did you learn going through sure sure

Mike Sorboro: I mean COVID was COVID was a huge thing you know going through that we almost lost the company a number of times you know I mean it wasn’t like we just sailed through COVID you know we were like most hospitality outlets we were not immune to the hardships of COVID and there were there was a number of times that we were like all right hell of a run pack it in I don’t think we’re going to make it you know through this next thing because of either lack of money to get through or um you know hardships in business we had you know a bad decision or two um one especially hard thing that was rather recent is going through a you know a funding a funding thing that um you know that me personally I was kind of responsible for tanking and you know we had a really good relationship that was about to that was about to go out that was about to like it was about to change the way we did banking and it was a it was a banking relationship that was going to allow us to grow and that ended up falling apart in the uh the 11th hour and it’s because of a COVID decision I had made taking out you know a very small like a couple hundred or like a couple thousand dollar like loan that they that everybody was trying to take out for an Airbnb and uh that I was operating at the time an Airbnb thing um that that that decision you know through a couple of you know SBA things uh nullified this deal and uh we almost lost the company because of that and uh just because we were I mean we were we had already spent a this is we already spent a ton of the money expecting to be reimbursed and at the 11th hour we did not get reimbursed um for that and we’re talking millions of dollars here um so that was uh that was a really hard thing to get through and that was you know especially when you feel responsible for it too and you know there’s of course there’s a lot of nuance and details in there that I’ll I’ll spare you guys but um yeah it’s you know decisions like that we’re just like oh shit this thing that I did you know six years ago five years ago that I never thought you know very innocently you know did never thought it would come back to haunt us you know and cost us you know a million two million dollar deal so yeah getting through that that was that was hard you know a lot a lot of hard conversations between my partner and I

Anthony Codispoti: on that one how how do you get through something like that who who do you lean on what

Mike Sorboro: do you guys support day by day you know like you literally get it you go through it day by day and that’s that’s the only thing you can do so it you know you you talk to the people that you you can your your your kitchen cabinet you know wife family whoever you got um talk to your partners and you talk to your friends that are in the same you know luckily I have a I have a a group of guys that are in the uh you know all multi-unit restaurant guys that a lot of times if one of us is having you know some kind of issue you know we speak the same language we’re all multi-unit restaurant guys so you know it’s there’s there’s not a language barrier in there so that’s nice it’s a great help to have but you need you need that along the way you need to have not only a really strong um you know the kitchen cabinet you know the the family there to bounce ideas off of but

Anthony Codispoti: um any silver lining to that experience

Mike Sorboro: uh yeah for sure you know I mean I would say that sometimes you gotta you know sometimes in some ways um whether it’s you know your partner the universe your wife your friends your business partners banks somebody’s going to tell you to get your shit together and sometimes you got to hear that and sometimes it’s time for you to get your shit together so um you know it’s not always the best thing to hear but

Anthony Codispoti: but was it really a a matter of you not having your stuff together I mean it sounds like this was yeah it was it was an innocent mistake that yeah who could have foreseen kind

Mike Sorboro: of yeah it was more that than my you know it was not an intentional you know thing it just happened to be you know uh dots got connected and I didn’t think they needed to be but I certainly don’t think the punishment uh reflected the crime also that much and it wasn’t a crime or anything uh but metaphorically speaking right it seemed it seemed to be a little unbalanced but nonetheless um there’s something we had to get through yeah uh how recently was that uh about two years ago okay you’re you’re

Anthony Codispoti: it’s it’s still stings but it’s a bit in the rearview mirror and you guys are obviously strong today as you have you know exhibited from the growth of uh last quarter and you know the aggressive growth that you’re you’re looking forward to in the future

Mike Sorboro: yeah yeah absolutely yeah I mean like if you can if you as a company can make it through COVID the hardest thing that you know we’ve had to collectively deal with and you know you’re resilient enough to you know be here on the other side then you know I’d say you got a pretty strong chance of making it and I’d say we’re in a better position now than we’ve really ever been in to uh be poised for growth and we are going to try to do it rather aggressively not not stupidly very calculated of course um like I said we’d rather do it right than do it quick but you know like I said we got the car we got the pit crew and we want to drive fast

Anthony Codispoti: Mike you and I have known each other for a number of years so I know that you’re somebody that’s always interested in growth advancement personal development uh curious if you’ve got any recommendations for the audience in terms of like a book or a podcast or a course something that was really instructive to you that might be helpful for other folks

Mike Sorboro: sure sure you know I kind of have rule that you know if anybody ever recommends a book I just get on amazon like that minute and I’d buy it you know so that’s that’s been really fun to like build out my library by just being like what’s the book you’d recommend and I’m just like boom got it um so that that’s I think that’s a fun thing to just like build your library I think dedicating some time to reading is invaluable whether it’s I think everybody can can can set aside 30 minutes a day and I’m sure there’s not one of us with an earshot that’d be like I’d like to read more you know that’s a that’s a fairly common I’d like to do this more right I don’t think there’s a lot of people out there like well if I read less my my life would be better so you know getting through some of those you know the top 10 famous business books the yeah you know uh god I can try name 10 of them but you know the

Anthony Codispoti: the who’s your go to like what what’s what’s your top one who would you recommend if people are listening and you know that they’re going to go and they’re going to click that buy now on amazon button because of your recommendation what’s the one they got to have

Mike Sorboro: sure sure sure oh god um the millionaire next door that was an awesome one that was one it was uh it was a really fascinating book that was written in the 80s and I forget the authors there there was two researchers and basically they were you know talking about you know how um some of the it’s it’s actually been come a little bit more fashionable lately to be like by boring businesses but this book was one of the first books to to talk about how the guy next door to you who drives a 30 year old truck but owns the lawn care business he’s the actual wealthy millionaire and the people that are next to him that are really flashy and have you know all the nice cars and the clothes and everything that you know they might have high income but they’re not wealthy and so it was a really fascinating book on you know the wealth of boring businesses and the wealth creation of boring businesses um boring businesses is a relative term their words not mine um but yeah I would say millionaire next door that was that was a really fun read for me

Anthony Codispoti: that’s uh Thomas Stanley and uh William Danko were the authors yeah published in uh well maybe it’s a republished in 2010 as you’re saying it’s an older book than that

Mike Sorboro: yeah I believe I believe it was 80 that could be wrong yeah um

Anthony Codispoti: how about some daily practices Mike that helped to keep you targeted and on center mm-hmm

Mike Sorboro: um I’ll start with my morning routine and I’m not gonna say I’m great at morning routines although when I when I do do them I feel a lot better and when I don’t I feel a lot worse um funny yeah it’s funny how that works right so I try to get up between five and five thirty um I find if I go to bed early I get up early um I forgot to bed yeah early I get up early so if I get up at five I mean I got I got young kids a fairly young family three and five year old boys so you know the the first hour of hour to hour and a half two hours of my morning I find are the most productive because there’s nobody around asking you stupid questions like do you know sharks eat cheeseburgers and stuff like that which switch turns on the garbage disposal I guess what I’m saying is I have a family with a lot of border issues you know they they they don’t know when to cross so they have all boundary issues I guess is what I’m trying to say so if I have that hour and a half or two hours in the morning where I can just like you know get a little bit of work done do some reading at that at that time I usually spend about an hour working out I’ll go to the gym I’ve been doing the crossfit thing for about seven or seven or eight years now and that’s been amazing not for my joints but for every other aspect it’s pretty awesome

Anthony Codispoti: might be time to switch up and do what uh Tom Brady does with the bands

Mike Sorboro: maybe his pliability I think I can do this forever but it’s working right

Anthony Codispoti: now best decision you ever made for your business Mike ah best decision I ever made

Mike Sorboro: I’d say to go indoor you know when we when we move from the outside experience to like an inside experience that really turned this into an actual real business and that’s that would that’s something that’s you can look at that as like a pivotal spot when this became an actual real business as opposed to just an experiment I

Anthony Codispoti: think I’ve just got one more question for you Mike but before I ask it I want to do a couple things first of all for everyone listening this has been a great episode Mike’s been a terrific guest please hit the like follow share subscribe button on your favorite podcast app so you continue to get more great content like this Mike I also want to let people know either the best way to get in touch with you personally or to follow your story or that of Mikey’s late night slice the brand

Mike Sorboro: yeah I mean I would I highly recommend following our social media because it’s just hilarious again it’s something that we spend a lot of time on you know it’s not a lot about pizza but it’s just about stuff that makes us laugh and just really well done so I mean follow our social media what are your handles at late night slice so you can pretty much just look up late night slice and you’ll find us on IG Facebook Tiktok a couple others

Anthony Codispoti: so last question for you Mike as you look to the future and you can answer this question from two perspectives one for your industry and one for your business specifically and you think about all the exciting changes that are unfolding what is it that you’re most excited about if we were to talk again in one year two years three years what do you think it is we would be talking about that sure sure

Mike Sorboro: you know I think for any restaurant that’s coming up and you know I’ve had a lot of conversations and this goes maybe for the business side first what I call the four points of access and what those are are how our customers experience late night slice how they experience our brand and when we get into you know what is the next location look like we are often thinking about what are these four points of access and that is people coming in and dining into a restaurant people taking away carry out people driving up to our restaurant and then our food being delivered third party so you know we’re looking at these four points of access as you know something that if we can maximize in these next restaurant builds as best we can you know maybe a location won’t have a drive-through or a pickup window or something like that but if we can maximize the other points and make it easy for people and enjoyable to come in and dine with us we can make it easy for them to push buttons and get pizza delivered to their house or make that fun for them to just come in and grab some pizza and you know take off on their way home back from work you know we think we’re gonna have we think we’re gonna have better success than just opening our doors so we spend a lot of time thinking about all points of access I would say secondly is having a really I would say like a a destination based offering as far as our food goes so you know when we look at our pizza you know is our pizza enough to draw people in let’s say yes but where are the other opportunities to draw people into our brand our dessert program I think we’re going to be spending some time on that to where we really want people to want to come in because we have a really unique and alluring dessert set likewise with our drink program so you know we have our main set of thing and nine the nine percent of people are going to walk in for a slice of pizza but if we can make our dessert program and our drink programs amazing as well and maybe some people will come in specifically for those two I think it’s really going to set the locations in the brand up for success

Anthony Codispoti: what do you think the dessert program is going to look like

Mike Sorboro: I don’t know man I’ve been thinking about it every day so we just have these we have these rice crispy treats that we call them unicorn bars and they’re made with fruity pebbles so those are you know one part of our dessert program not bad I think we’ll always have those things but we want to make them we want to make the program a little bit more a little bit better a little bit more a little bit more alluring and drawing we just decided to launch cinnamon breadsticks because we’re already making breadsticks so we might as well make a cinnamon version look like a you know icing drizzle they’re super good too it’s it’s very common things you to expect we want to get a couple things in there that are unexpected that you know really draw people in just because of that and make us a destination

Anthony Codispoti: so something that’s unusual or I mean we talked about like chocolate cake and ice cream apple pie or like something a little bit more wild and

Mike Sorboro: bonkers wild and bonkers that’s what we’re aiming for it’s just something that’s going to make people you know maybe there’s something nostalgic that you know used to get served at the school lunch or something like that that we can bring in that is really going to make people really make people like think like hey I want to go there not only for their pizza but because they have this awesome dessert as well

Anthony Codispoti: what can you say about the drink program you guys have got a full bar at some of your locations already are these like again sort of like bonkers like wild crazy cocktail combinations that you’ll come up with

Mike Sorboro: sure so there’s two sides of that one as well so we have our alcoholic drink program which I think is is is going really well in the places that we do have alcohol and there might be different versions of that like we have a version of our alcohol program where it’s nothing but cans ready to drink cocktails you know martinis in a can cans of wine you know ready to drink cocktails seltzers stuff like that but then on the other side there’s a whole movement going on in the non-alcoholic drink side this is kind of uh I would say pushed really hard by or maybe even started by this brand called Swig out of Utah and they’re just drink focused drive-thrus and that’s all they do is these really crazy drinks dirty sodas stuff like that so I think and this is going around in the industry right right now McDonald’s has a a spin-off concept called mccosmix that’s really just heavily crazy drink focused Starbucks is doing this as well so you know I think if we can combine awesome drinks awesome dessert awesome pizza and put that all into one house where people are you know maybe coming in for a slice of pizza but they’re really excited about the drinks we offer and maybe even people are just coming in for the drinks I think we’re going to have a real winning combination

Anthony Codispoti: well fun stuff on the horizons well Mike I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today I really appreciate it

Mike Sorboro: hey it’s been a real pleasure thanks for having me

Anthony Codispoti: folks that’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories podcast thanks for learning you