Here’s How Her 24-Hour Pizza Pivot Turned Into a $20 Million Deal

Katie Lee, founder of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta, built her career in restaurant kitchens before turning a pandemic pivot into a national frozen pizza brand. Her handmade pizzas are now sold in every Target store nationwide as part of a $20 million retail deal.

Watch now to learn about a $20 million Target deal, and the discipline required to scale without losing the craft.

Sponsored by:

• TOAST AllIn1 Restaurant POS

Chapters:

[02:05] - A Team of Misfits

[04:10] - Learning in Restaurant Kitchens

[07:15] - Italy and Finding the Craft

[13:05] - Sobriety and Starting Again

[23:40] - Walmart’s Golden Ticket and Target

SPONSORS:

RESTAURANT INFLUENCERS IS PRESENTED BY TOAST —

Restaurant Influencers is brought to you by Toast, the powerful restaurant point of sale and management system that helps restaurants improve operations, increase sales and create a better guest experience.

• Toast AllIn1 Restaurant POS

Episode Links:

Katie Lee Instagram

Katie’s YouTube

Katie’s Pizza and Pasta

Katie’s Pizza Online

Katie’s Pizza and Pasta TikTok

Katie’s Pizza and Pasta Facebook

Key Takeaways:

Survival Can Spark Scale: When dining rooms shut down, Katie Lee focused on survival, not reinvention. By turning a restaurant pizza into a frozen product in 24 hours and launching direct-to-consumer with her existing team, she proved that speed and simplicity can unlock entirely new businesses.

Craft Over Reinvention: Instead of redesigning for retail, Lee kept her frozen pizza true to what came out of her kitchens. That restraint, rooted in years of repetition and Italian influence, helped the product resonate with consumers and buyers alike.

Trust Makes Growth Sustainable: Sobriety, family, and learning to step back reshaped how Lee leads. From relying on her team during COVID to scaling production for national retail, her growth was powered by letting others own the work and succeed alongside her.

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ABOUT KATIE LEE —

Restaurateur, entrepreneur, author and innovator. Katie Lee’s journey from high school dropout and recovering addict to successful founder of Katie's is the embodiment of resilience and passion. She launched her first restaurant in 2008, igniting the artisan Italian pizza movement in the Midwest. Today, Katie is leading a transformative shift in the frozen food industry, blending authentic artisan techniques with national-scale ambition.

ABOUT RESTAURANT INFLUENCERS —

Restaurant Influencers is a weekly video podcast series presented by Entrepreneur Media and @CaliBBQMedia. Every week host and restaurant owner @ShawnPWalchef talks with business leaders like Shaquille O’Neal, Rob Dyrdek, Emeril Lagasse, Mayim Bialik, Jon Taffer, Robert Irvine, Toast co-founder Aman Narang, and more, about their secrets to Smartphone Storytelling, marketing, branding, and how to show up where customers are engaging online.

Published by Entrepreneur Media

Produced by Cali BBQ Media