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Anatomy of a Leader: Peter Mammas, President and CEO, Foodtastic

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Today, Peter Mammas runs a food empire that includes 23 brands with over 1,100 restaurants and $1.1 billion in sales.

But the President and CEO of Foodtastic, since 2016, who was born and raised in Montreal, initially wanted to be a pilot when he grew up then in his teens he wanted to be an architect.

He went to Concordia University taking Civil Engineering.

“I found out that I loved restaurants and I wasn’t going to stay behind a desk the rest of my life,” he said. 

“I was working in restaurants while I was going to school and just fell in love with the restaurant business.”

Image: Peter Mammas

Mammas was 12 years old when he first started working in a restaurant for his father. 

“It actually wasn’t doing too well. He kind of told me I couldn’t play hockey on the weekends anymore and said I had to come work at the restaurant because he couldn’t afford staff. So at 12 years old I was for lack of a better word slave labour. I was washing dishes. I learned the kitchen. I went up to the coat room. I became a bus boy. I became a bar service guy. I became a waiter, a manager then eventually I became an owner.”

He was there at the Psaropoula Greek restaurant until he was 18 when his father sold it. Then Mammas went to work as a waiter for other people and started his first restaurant when he was 21 years old.

After keeping his restaurant Faros for about a year, he sold the property and went on to launch Nickels Deli with pop diva Celine Dion. 

“Through coincidence we met with René Angélil’s cousin and he brought René (who was managing the singer’s career) over and they loved the place and they asked if they could be partners and if one of their singers could be a partner as well. I didn’t know who Celine Dion was at the time but I heard of René and heard only good things so I said yes,” said Mammas. 

Nickels was sold in 2007 as well as another concept Baton Rouge Steakhouse. 

In 2016 Foodtastic was formed and Nickels was bought back in 2017.

Today the company’s diverse range of brands includes popular names such as Freshii, Quesada, Second Cup, Pita Pit, Milestones, Fionn McCool’s, Shoeless Joe’s, Benny, La Belle et La Boeuf, Monza and many more. 

“We sold Baton Rouge to a company called Imvescor. We sold it to them in 2007 and then in 2013 they reached out for me to go help them out which I did and while I was there I got the bug to work again. The bug of the restaurant industry again and I said I think I can do a better job than what’s being done there and I hope to start my own company as a restaurant consolidator,” he said.

Milestones (CNW Group/Foodtastic)

Mammas said the social aspect of the food industry – the interaction with customers – was something that always appealed to him. 

“It’s also an industry that’s a lot of fun I find and there’s a lot of instant gratification. When somebody comes in they come to get a great experience, and if you can give them some good food and good service, you’re gratifying people. And I kind of enjoyed that part of it. Making people happy and having a social atmosphere where you’re working,” said Mammas.

“I was in engineering and that’s like with numbers and analytics and you were just working at a desk, drawing and coming up with solutions but there was no interaction, no instant gratification there. I think in our industry when you’re a people person it’s something that you get drawn to I guess.”

Image: Peter Mammas

Mammas loves eating food. He loves trying new food. When he was little, it was primarily Greek food. But as he grew older his palate just grew and grew. 

“I’ll try anything. I actually went to China and tried snake,” he said. “I’ll try just about anything once.”

“We want to continue growing. We’ve gone from pre-COVID $100 million system sales to today $1.2 billion. I want to get to $2 billion and $3 billion within five years. So to do that we’re going to have to keep growing organically which we want to grow at around 10 per cent a year but we also are going to have to be doing some M&A (mergers and acquisitions) and purchasing some other great brands.

“And we’re looking for anything we’re not really in. We don’t have a breakfast place. So we want to buy a breakfast place. We don’t have sushi. So we want to buy a sushi place. QSR (quick service restaurant) burgers. We want to buy QSR pizza. We might want to buy a few more bar brands. There’s quite a few white spaces still available for us. So the next 24, 30 months we’re going to try to grow that portfolio in Canada.”

Alessandro Preda, CEO of QSRP and Peter Mammas, President and CEO at Foodtastic

When Mammas looks at a potential brand to purchase, he always tries out the food before. If the food is great, he can see the opportunity to buy the brand and grow it. But on the other hand, he’s also bought brands where the experience wasn’t great but he felt he could fix it and still grow it.

The process of acquiring another brand primarily comes from Mammas initiating the conversation. 

One day his son came home and said ‘enough’. He had spent $55 in a week at a place called Quesada. Mammas didn’t know what that was. The son said it was a great burrito place and Mammas should go buy it and then give him gift cards so he wouldn’t have to pay anymore. Mammas went and tried it, loved the food, reached out to the owners and seven months later bought the company.

“It’s worked out well for me. We’ve made mistakes and we’ve learned from them but once a mistake is done it’s in the past for me. I’ll always look to the future. What can I do better?”

Mammas has owned restaurants since 1990. 

“I’ve never seen a period as difficult as I would say the last four years. The industry has really been tough on a lot of restaurateurs, especially independents. We went into a period of COVID where restaurants were closed. We’ve transitioned to a lot of third party delivery services taking away a lot of the profits from the restaurateurs. We’ve gone into this period of employee shortages that have really hurt the restaurant industry specifically because the Millennials kind of prefer now working at home or in other jobs,” said Mammas.

“And another period of hyper inflation with food costs going through the roof. What has happened in the last four years honestly is that the resilience of the industry has been remarkable but we probably lost more restaurateurs in the last four years than we lost in the last 20. The industry is really tough out there right now.”

Because of the tough times in the industry, Mammas sees more consolidation coming. For many owners, a solution to the tough times is turning to the franchise model. 

“I think right now it’s gotten to the point where the margins in the industry are really tight and for people to make money they need to be part of a larger group right now much more than I would say 10 or 15 years ago where a lot of independents could move forward. Right now I think the landscape is a lot more geared towards the bigger groups,” added Mammas.

Peter Mammas at the Canadian Franchise Association (Image: CFA)

He has always thought of the company as a family.

“My leadership style is finding great people, empowering them. I don’t micromanage. And I want them to have fun. I want them to enjoy what they’re doing because if they’re enjoying what they’re doing they’re going to do it 150 per cent. So I really try to make sure that the people are in the right place, they’re doing something they love and that they want to grow,” said Mammas.

“I don’t want people that are negative. I don’t want people that nitpick and I don’t want people that always look at the past. I want people that are happy to be here and want to grow and be part of the team, be part of the family and do the right thing.”

Mario Toneguzzi
Mario Toneguzzi
Mario Toneguzzi, based in Calgary, has more than 40 years experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald covering sports, crime, politics, health, faith, city and breaking news, and business. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief with Retail Insider in addition to working as a freelance writer and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Mario was named as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024.

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