The World's Fastest Pizza Makers? They Live Here.

Courtesy photo/Domino's Pizza The pizza-making team of Robert Donner, Emmanuell Dicks and David Grisard have won the 2009 Domino’s Pizza Order Up! contest, held annually in Las Vegas.

Domino's Pizza has again crowned three Alexandria residents its world's fastest pizza makers.

The pizza-making team of Robert Donner, Emmanuell Dicks and David Grisard have won the 2009 Domino’s Pizza Order Up! contest, held annually in Las Vegas.

The three speedy pie makers are members of Team Washington, a franchise that has won 15 of the last 22 Domino’s World’s Fastest Pizza Maker titles, and are the first to win the title in its new group competition, according to Ester Tadena, a Domino's Team Washington spokesperson.  

"Team Route 1," as the three men call themselves, made seven pizzas in an impressive 1 minute and 11.89 seconds, earning them $18,000 in prize money.

Runners up included a West Coast team, who took second place with a time of 1:16.7 and a Bethesda team led by Jim Moran, Jr. (yes, the Congressman's son) who took third place with a time of 1:22.28. The Bethesda team members are also employees of Team Washington.

"This being a new contest, we knew we had to take it home," said Donner, a Regional Supervisor for Team Washington. "The tradition has always been there. And the passion that [Domino’s] has to be number 1 just pushed us to get it."

The finalists represented Domino's Pizza stores from around the world, as far away as Malaysia. They had to hand-stretch fresh dough, pizza sauce and top four medium and three large pizzas with a variety of toppings as quickly as possible.

While speed was important, it was only part of the recipe. Quality was moderated by judges highly qualified in Domino's standard pizza-making practices. If the pizza was not perfect, it was returned to the competitor who remade the entire pizza, while still being timed.

Domino's began the "World's Fastest Pizza Maker" competition in 1982 to honor pizza makers who best exemplify the company's philosophy of keeping efficiency in the store to allow sufficient time for safe, timely pizza delivery.  "The competition emphasizes Domino’s commitment to safely delivering piping hot, great-tasting pizzas to our customers' doors as quickly as possible," Tadena said. .

The “Order Up” competition was held May 11 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Courtesy photo/Domino's Pizza "This being a new contest, we knew we had to take it home," said Donner, a Regional Supervisor for Team Washington, posing with Dicks and Grisard in Las Vegas.

The Story of Team Washington

They met three decades ago as fraternity brothers in Mississippi, two compadres who would grow up to run one of the biggest, most profitable Domino’s Pizza franchises in history.

Right here in Alexandria, on Duke Street on the West End.

Frank Meeks and David Carraway were more than best friends. In the deep South of the late ‘70s, they shared classes at the University of Southern Mississippi, and at night, with the cicadas chirping outside their window, they drank beer out of long-neck bottles andswapped dreams of brotherly entrepreneurship.

To make an extra buck for beer and books, both delivered pizzas for a fledgling company called Domino's , which at the time only serviced a handful of college campuses nationwide.

Born and raised in Mississippi, Meeks earned a degree in political science and English from Southern Mississippi, with the goal of attending law school. To help defray the cost of his degree, he began delivering for Domino’s in 1979. Not long after, he became a store manager, and decided that pizzas, not law school, were in his future.

A year later, Meeks left Mississippi to work as an aide to Senator Trent Lott, then a member of Congress. During his time on the Hill, Meeks helped open Domino’s locations in Northern Virginia.

The idea of starting his own Domino's franchise to service the powerful, burn-the-midnight oil staffs on the Hill and K Street corridor intrigued him, but Domino's corporate did not believe its model would work outside college towns — plus 17 banks turned Meeks down for start-up capital.

“When Frank approached Domino's about building the first store not centered around a college campus, he was laughed at,” said Donner, a longtime friend and the regional operations manager of Team Washington. “Every bank turned him down, so he turned to his friends.”

Meeks eventually did cobble together the seed money from friends, family and other business partners, and in 1983 he was awarded franchise rights for Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District.

photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks Team Washington became one of the most successful franchises in Domino’s Pizza history, driven by Meeks’ enthusiasm, competitive nature and “get it done” attitude.

On May 15, 1983, the 26-year-old opened the doors to the first Domino's in the Washington area, at 5418 Duke Street near Landmark Mall, in the rundown shell of a former High’s Dairy Store.

Carraway soon joined his fraternity brother as partner, and with pluck and perseverance the two became the backbone of Team Washington, a 58-store pizza-making goliath which last year booked revenues of $62 million. The Duke Street location alone makes 90,000 pizzas per year, ranking it one of the top locations in the DC area, Donner said.

If Meeks was the driving force behind Domino's spectacular growth in the DC area, Carraway was known as its “can-do guy.” Meeks, an indefatigable runner who lived in Mount Vernon, was famous for leading his army of pizza delivery managers in spirited Monday morning runs down the George Washington Parkway. “Frank was all hustle and bustle,” Donner recalled.

Team Washington became one of the most successful franchises in Domino’s Pizza history, driven by Meeks’ enthusiasm, competitive nature and “get it done” attitude. It was not uncommon for Meeks to have his store managers compete in a 10-kilometer foot race before the start of manager meetings, and his competitive nature led him to offer extra incentives to any Team Washington team member who won the company’s Fastest Pizza Maker Competition.

“Frank pioneered pizza delivery in our nation’s capitol, delivering Domino’s pizza to the White House under five different U.S. presidents,” Domino’s CEO David Brandon said at the time. “He was so well-known, he was once featured as a “question” on the game show, ‘Hollywood Squares.’”

Meeks was quick to a competitive challenge, whether it be a sprint to the finish or a race of wills to see who could build a pizza the fastest. Meeks nearly always won, but one Alexandria employee, an Afghan immigrant named Waheed Asim put even Meeks to the test, capturing the title of “World’s Fastest Pizza Maker” seven years running, from 1987-2004.

These days, Waheed is an entrepreneur living in Kingstowne, while his brother Farid Asim, this month celebrates 23 years at the Duke Street location. “Frank was always promoting the idea of hustle,” Farid Asim said. “If someone beat him in the time it makes a pizza, he would give them $200 from his pocket.”

He would remember the birthdays of his most productive employees, sending them checks for $100. He rewarded others with gas cards or Air Jordan sneakers -- anything to keep the pizzas moving off the production line. “He took care of everybody,” Asim recalls. “He put in health insurance for everybody here and would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.”

Meeks died in 2004 after a longtime illness. He was 48. A Domino's franchisee for a quarter of a century, he opened and operated 60 successful stores, and was responsible for sponsoring 30 team members into the ranks of its franchisees.

“Under Frank’s leadership, Team Washington became synonymous with high energy, teamwork and phenomenal results,” Brandon said. “He made an indelible mark on all of us.”

Meeks was active in the Alexandria community, donating hundreds of pizzas every year to Children’s Hospital, the March of Dimes and the Washington Animal Rescue League, a tradition which continues. In 2003, the Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce named Meeks “Citizen of the Year”.

It stands to reason that one of the great franchises in the history of Domino’s had more than one great driving force. When the legendary Meeks was among the initial inductees into the Chairman’s Circle Hall of Fame in 2001, Meeks recognized his right-hand man as Carraway.

When Meeks stepped away from the business in 2003 to battle his illness, he named Carraway, his long-time operations director, the president of Team Washington, and watched his franchise continue to flourish.

“David was a guy who was a real force and inspiration in this business for a long time,” Brandon said. “For 20 years he was the operational leader behind one of the most high energy and accomplished teams in the history of our company.”

Carraway, who lived in McLean with his wife and four children, died in 2007 of a brain tumor. His widow, MaryLynne, now runs Team Washington. “David was a fighter and he cared deeply about everybody,” Brandon said. “He was also a man of unbending integrity, a committed family man, a competitor, and a gentleman.”

Added Donner, “You can still feel their presence in our office and in our stores ... Frank and David set into motion a lot of core values which are still with us.”

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Contact the writer at jarundel@localkicks.com