Jackson Mayo and his young family are the epitome of having a dream and working every day to obtain it. In the middle of COVID-19, when many small businesses were struggling, Jackson took a daring leap to open a pizza place in March of 2021.
Roundabout Pizza was the first business to move into the newly built Beverly Corners complex, and Jackson put his heart and soul into creating his dream family business. He did much of the labor to get the restaurant started, being there daily to help with the contractors he had hired, or just putting his own elbow grease into the vision. Jackson and his wife had a three-year-old at the time of opening, and they knew it would take a lot of time away from the family to create this business. It was, in fact, a full-time job for the first two years, with Jackson rarely taking a day off.
Jackson has fond memories of working in his family’s restaurant, RJ Cafe in Lake Cowichan, in his youth, and drew on these memories and experiences when beginning his journey to open Roundabout Pizza. Once the dream and idea began to percolate, Jackson dedicated countless hours to researching pizza-making online and on YouTube, experimenting with various baking techniques and assembly methods to perfect a pie that caters to a wide range of finicky preferences. Jackson learned the importance of little things like maintaining strict rules around dough temperatures to ensure a consistent outcome—a goal he continues to uphold, such as during the heatwave when he came in early, as usual, and added some ice to maintain the consistent temperature needed for a consistent outcome of the dough. As he says, people do not become regular customers until their third visit: the first time, a person comes to taste; the second time to see if the product is consistently the same; and the third time, a customer is born, knowing they will always get what they look forward to from past experiences.
Jackson’s family was recently blessed with another child. Though Jackson still comes in early in the morning for at least four hours to test the dough temperatures and make sure everything is ready for the day, he can now rely more on his incredibly faithful staff, many of whom have been there since the beginning. This allows him to enjoy more family time with his wife and young ones.
When speaking with Jackson, I mentioned that I was impressed with his staff retention rate, which can be rare and, in my experience, indicates that the owner must treat their staff very well. Not only have many of them been there since the beginning, but they are all the friendliest young people! I mentioned some of the sweet boys that my son had played hockey with, and Jackson said he liked using the hockey analogy with his employees. He motivates his staff by comparing them to a rep team, stating that while there are some great house teams and some not-so-great ones, a rep team is expected to work above and beyond to achieve their best results. He believes it’s important to instill pride in the young staff, reminding them that they have the honor of making someone’s dinner and that the care they put into making a pizza will be appreciated by a family or group.
Some staff members are now moving on to college, but their contributions have been vital to the business, and they will always hold a special place in the family. Jackson stated that he is a “glass half full” kind of guy. Though his business does not have the luxury of buying in bulk and therefore feels the pinch of the current recession and the increased cost of food, he is grateful for his growing business and continues to enjoy satisfying the local’s love for a delicious pizza pie.
“Our pizzas are made with love from locally sourced fresh Vancouver Island ingredients including our house-made sausage and donair meat. Our sauces are also made in-house, including our tzatziki, BBQ sauce, sweet sauce and most notably our signature marinara pizza sauce. We carefully crafted our signature house-made crust to arrive at a happy medium-rise, health-conscious, fluffy crust. Our house-made dough is made using minimal oil and traditional ingredients, including extra virgin olive oil and double-sifted flour.”
“We Deliver” (250) 746 2299
Tuesday – Thursday 11:00am – 8:00pm
Friday to Saturday 11:00am – 9:00pm
Sunday – Monday 2pm – 8pm
