With upgraded equipment and nearly double the amount of production space, the CEO of Dion's thinks the company is prepped for even more expansion thanks to its new commissary.
Mark Herman, Dion's CEO, told Albuquerque Business First the popular pizza and subs restaurant's commissary began operations in late February. Located in the former It'Z Pizza building at 4595 San Mateo Blvd. NE, the facility is around 53,000 square feet and combines food production and storage spaces with administrative offices.
Pitched as Dion's new flagship campus in Albuquerque when the company purchased the building in 2021, the commissary currently employs 65 people in a mix of production and administrative roles.
Dion's uses the commissary to house the major production functions for its signature dressings, bakery items and ingredients for pizzas, salads and subs. The building also includes Dion's purchasing and catering departments.
"We can explore the idea of producing more products here," Herman said. "I think we can do it in an environment that's great for the employees and really kind of on the leading edge of food safety."
Click through the gallery at the top of the page to see inside Dion's new commissary
It follows other recent expansions that have included Tula's, a new restaurant concept in Northeast Albuquerque, and a Dion's in Albuquerque's Ventana Ranch community.
"We have 27 Dion's and one Tula's now," Herman told Business First. "This facility could probably handle double that."
He said the company wants to "keep growing" in Colorado, where Dion's currently has three locations in Aurora, Colorado Springs and Commerce City. Texas is another state where Dion's wants to multiply. It has two locations in Lubbock.
Dion's could announce a second Tula's "sometime this summer," Herman said. He didn't share any details about where that new location might be.
"We're still a slow-growth company, because we want to make sure we keep the culture and the quality," Herman said. "So, I'm not saying we're going to open 28 stores in two years, but even if we're adding a couple [locations] per year we had just maxed out the old space."
Dion's new commissary is about 15,000 square feet larger than its previous facility, and the food production areas are roughly 35% bigger. The commissary cost upwards of $10 million to get up and running, Herman said.
Part of that cost came from upgraded equipment. For example, Herman said the equipment used in the bakery and dressing production areas are "clean in place," meaning that individual pieces don't have to be pulled apart and cleaned separately, speeding up bakery and dressing production times.
The commissary also includes an integrated silo for flour that's used to bake bread. And many of the food storage and production areas are reverse-pressurized so that outside contaminants aren't able to enter.
"One of the big advantages to it is that the employees have more room to work," Herman said about the commissary's upgraded production areas. "So even though the automation might seem to be just about speed, it's not just about speed. It's actually making their jobs easier."
Alongside the company's physical expansion, Herman said Dion's could hire around a dozen employees — mostly food production positions — to work at the commissary over the next year.
Goodman Realty Group sold the property to Dion's in March 2021. The space had been vacant since 2016 before Dion's started construction there in late 2021. Two Albuquerque-based firms, Klinger Construction and Dekker Perich Sabatini, handled general contracting and architecture for the commissary, respectively.
