TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) - They rolled out the red carpet and set up the big screen for an event at High Level Distilling in downtown Toledo on Friday night.
Toledo's own Marco's Pizza, founded in Oregon in 1978, was the featured company on the Jan. 29 episode of Undercover Boss. If you've never seen it, the show follows an executive as he or she works undercover in their own company to get a look at the inner workings.
About 140 people showed up to watch Marco's Pizza President and Chief Operating Officer Bryon Stephens and other Marco's employees on the CBS show.
Dinner included quite the spread from Maumee Bay Brewing, but the closest thing to pizza served was a Marcos Cake.
During the special episode of the Emmy-award winning show, Stephens went undercover as a bearded employee named "Jay."
"We think we do a great job listening to feedback all the time from our franchises and our employees," Stephens explained. "But this gave me that chance to really go out there and experience it live and for real."
Stephens worked at Marcos Pizza stores in Dallas, Charlotte, and Orlando, as well as the distribution center in Maumee.
It was at the distribution center where he worked with supply delivery driver Tom Smith, who moves 20 to 30 thousand pounds of supplies in the middle of the night 5 to 6 days a week.
"Bryon was awesome to work with," Smith told us. "The one thing I said on the show and the one thing I'll still say to this day is the man never gave up. Even the times I thought he was going to, he didn't."
Stephens says the show was a lot of work, often 10 hours of shooting a day. But it was worth it and will have a lasting impact on how the company runs.
In fact, they are now implementing a lot of changes because of what he experienced on the show - that includes improved security for delivery drivers and automating things they've traditionally done by hand, like rolling the pizza dough.
At the big reveal at the end of the show Bryon gave the employees he worked with generous gifts from Marcos.
Tom, the supply delivery driver, received almost 60 thousand dollars worth of money to help him and his family, including a generous chunk to start a college fund for his 3 kids.
