Designing Businesses People Want To Belong To

For a lot of brands, community is something they talk about after the P&L. It shows up in mission statements, wall art, and the occasional fundraiser. Yet the real test is simple: when people think about your company, do they remember a transaction, or do they remember how it felt to be there.

On The Bliss Business Podcast, we sat down with Carl Comeaux, CEO of Crust Pizza Co., to explore what it really means to build community and connection in a growing franchise system. From how he picks franchisees to how he designs kids’ experiences, Carl treats community as the business model, not just the marketing story.

Community Is A Strategy, Not A Slogan

Carl is clear that community did not begin as a branding exercise. It started with where they chose to put their restaurants. Crust locations are intentionally placed in neighborhood, grocery anchored centers so they become part of daily life, not just a destination off a highway.

As the company grew from a handful of stores to dozens of locations, the team went back and asked a simple question: why are we successful where we are. The answer kept coming back to the same thing. Their best performing locations were deeply embedded in schools, churches, and local non profits.

The more they gave to the community, the more the community chose them. That realization moved community from a nice value to the center of the growth strategy.

Choosing Franchisees Who Want To Be Local Mayors

In franchising, the person who holds the license often determines whether the brand feels like part of the neighborhood or just another sign in the strip. Carl treats franchise awards as a culture decision first and a sales decision second.

They look for operators who genuinely want to be community focused, who see themselves as local mayors, not absentee investors. If a candidate is not sold on community first, he knows the model will eventually break, no matter how strong the pizza or the site selection.

To understand what makes franchisees successful, the company even profiled performance across the system. They found that many top performers are strong achievers who lean toward task and numbers, but who are coachable enough to grow their empathy and people skills. Others start out more naturally empathetic and must grow their operational discipline. In both cases, the non negotiable is coachability and alignment with the idea that the more you give, the more you receive.

The goal is not to find perfect people. It is to find people who are willing to execute a proven plan and pour their energy into the community around them.

Systems That Keep Everyone On The Same Island

Many franchise systems end up with what Carl calls two islands: the corporate island and the franchisee island. When those islands drift apart, trust erodes and culture gets replaced by conflict.

Crust has worked hard to bridge those islands with practical systems:

• Weekly emails that keep everyone aligned on what is coming next.

• A Franchise Advisory Council that meets quarterly to review results, set priorities, and surface issues from the field.

• Clear communication lines where council members are responsible for sharing updates with specific groups of franchisees.

These structures make sure people know where the brand is going and how their input helps shape that future. They also create a safe place to bring up pressure points before they turn into resentment.

When COVID hit, these systems were stress tested. Dine in volumes dropped and takeout surged, but rather than fracturing, the organization pulled closer together. For Carl, that is the sign of a healthy culture. Pressure either pulls you apart or pulls you closer. Good systems and honest communication made it the latter.

Nostalgia, Kids, And The Power Of Shared Moments

Carl believes that pizza is more than a meal. It is a memory factory. He remembers going to Pizza Hut as a kid, sitting under dim lights with red cups and sharing a pie on Friday nights. That experience disappeared as many chains shifted to takeout only.

Crust is intentionally bringing that kind of nostalgic dine in experience back. About half of their business is on premises, and they design every detail with connection in mind:

• Locations that feel like neighborhood gathering places for date nights and post game celebrations.

• Kids eat free nights to give parents a break from cooking.

• Half off wine or beer nights that give adults a chance to slow down and talk while kids enjoy the space.

They also lean into kid centric experiences. Children get dough balls to play with at the table. There is a mascot named Tavi, with coloring pages and games that turn a meal into an activity. They even run reading reward programs that echo classic “book club for pizza” initiatives from decades past.

These details might look small on a spreadsheet, but they are the things people remember when they decide where to go next Friday night.

Purpose That Comes From Hospital Hallways

Community for Carl is not theoretical. It is deeply personal. His perspective shifted even more when his wife and one of his twin sons each faced cancer. His son was treated at St. Jude, walking a protocol that had once had a fifteen percent survival rate and now has a vastly higher success rate thanks to decades of focused research.

Those years of hospital hallways reshaped his sense of purpose. The company now raises significant funds for St. Jude and similar organizations, with a long term vision of directing at least half of his future wealth to causes that change the odds for families facing childhood cancer.

Growth targets and unit counts still matter, but they sit inside a much bigger story. Revenue is fuel for impact, not the finish line. That kind of purpose changes how leaders approach decisions, sacrifice, and resilience.

Letting Growth Test And Strengthen Culture

Scaling always exposes weak spots. Crust has had moments where the wrong franchisee slipped through and created cultural friction. Rather than ignoring those signals, Carl used them to tighten the vetting process and get clearer about who should not come into the system.

He is candid that growth will always test culture. The question is whether leaders treat those tests as warnings to be avoided or as feedback to refine how they hire, support, and communicate.

For Carl, every challenge is an invitation to get closer, learn faster, and recommit to the values that made the brand special in the first place.

Key Takeaways

• Community Can Be A Growth Engine
  When locations, leaders, and programs are designed around genuine community engagement, connection becomes a competitive advantage, not a side benefit.

• The Right Franchisees Are Culture Keepers
  Awarding franchises is a values decision. Operators who want to be local mayors and are coachable on both metrics and empathy are the ones who sustain the brand.

• Communication Systems Hold The Culture Together
  Advisory councils, regular updates, and clear roles for sharing information keep corporate and franchisees on the same island and make scale possible.

• Experiences Matter More Than Transactions
  Nostalgic dine in rituals, kid friendly touches, and surprise moments of generosity turn a restaurant into a place people want to belong, not just buy from.

• Purpose Expands The Meaning Of Growth
  When leaders tie expansion to a larger mission, such as funding life saving care, revenue becomes a tool for impact, not just a scoreboard.

• Pressure Reveals, Then Refines Culture
  Seasons like COVID, difficult franchise relationships, or personal crises can either fracture a system or deepen its unity. Intentional leadership and honest reflection make the difference.

Building community and connection in business is not about slogans or occasional charity events. It is about who you invite into your system, how you communicate, what experiences you design, and why you are growing in the first place.

Carl Comeaux’s journey shows that when you treat community as the core strategy, choose franchisees who want to be rooted in their neighborhoods, and anchor growth in a purpose that reaches far beyond your own balance sheet, you end up building more than a franchise. You build a network of places where people feel like they truly belong.

Check out our full conversation with Carl Comeaux on The Bliss Business Podcast.