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Mountain Mike’s Pizza promotes Carol DeNembo to chief marketing officerMountain Mike’s Pizza promotes Carol DeNembo to chief marketing officer

The executive had been vice president of marketing since 2018

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

April 16, 2024

2 Min Read
Mountain Mikes Pizza Logo
Mountain Mike's Pizza logo

Mountain Mike’s Pizza has promoted Carol DeNembo to chief marketing officer after being the chain’s vice president of marketing for the past six years.

Jim Metevier, who was promoted to CEO of the Newport Beach, Calif.-based chain in February, praised DeNembo for her hard work, leadership, and creativity.

“Since her arrival, Carol has been an invaluable asset and an absolute marketing powerhouse for Mountain Mike’s Pizza, always uncovering creative, innovative and effective ways to interact with our guests and propel the brand as we enter new markets across the country," he said in a press release announcing her appointment. “Carol’s exemplary leadership of our marketing initiatives has been paramount to the significant sales and franchise growth we’ve experienced in the last half-decade, and her custodianship of our brand has truly been best in class.”

Carol_DeNembo.jpegThe casual dining chain of nearly 300 locations credits DeNembo, left, for helping secure its partnership with the San Francisco 49ers National Football League team in 2018, with the Los Angeles Angels Major League Baseball team in 2022, and with the Sacramento Kings National Basketball Association team in 2023.

Those partnerships have resulted in increased orders via the chain’s apps during promotions with the 49ers and Kings and loyalty and transaction growth among Angels fans, the company said.

Related:Mountain Mike’s Pizza promotes Jim Metevier to CEO

Mountain Mike’s principal owners, Chris Britt and Ed St. Geme, praised DeNembo for her continuing efforts.

“Growing our brand through high-visibility sports activations is one of many powerful arrows in Carol’s impressive marketing quiver, and we are constant admirers of her tremendous work,” they said in a joint statement. “Carol’s elevation to Chief Marketing Officer is a testament to her hard work and consummate dedication to the Mountain Mike’s brand and family, and we have the utmost confidence she will continue to propel the brand forward — and upward to summit the highest peaks.”

Management also praised her for her marketing of limited-time offers such as heart-shaped pizzas, garlic “Not-Knots,” cinnamon “Not-Knots,” and other specials.

“I’m honored to operate as this brand’s CMO, and it’s deeply rewarding to be part of the Mountain Mike’s Pizza team, especially as we experience ongoing national expansion, growing guest loyalty, significant interest from new franchisees and a mounting list of impressive industry accolades,” DeNembo said in the release. “It’s been a privilege to work in lockstep with leadership to help position the brand on a national stage and lead a passionate marketing team that loves to think outside the pizza box to find creative ways to foster deeper engagement with our valued guests.”

Related:For Gobinder ‘Gary’ Birring, Mountain Mike’s is a family business

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
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