Stylish Interiors: pizzerias you’ll want to visit again and again

We open pizzerias everywhere — in historic neighborhoods, in drab nine-story apartment buildings, in trendy shopping malls, and in remote small towns. Different locations call for different architectural solutions, and new markets demand new formats, but thanks to our unified design system, the result is always the same Dodo Pizza.

In a large restaurant chain, it’s easy to fall into one of two extremes: either implementing a new, creative concept at every location, or adhering to a rigid template where all restaurants are indistinguishable from one another.

Dodo strives for balance. Today, the company’s design is a comprehensive design system for its restaurants. It is guided by several principles.

1. A unified framework. We have standardized everything that affects the brand’s reliability and recognizability: seating arrangements, base materials, lighting solutions, zoning logic, guest flow scenarios, seating near the display window and kitchen, and the children’s area. This is the framework that makes Dodo recognizable in any city.

2. Conscious diversity. We distinguish between useful categorization and harmful standardization. Our goal is not to make all pizzerias identical, but to maintain a consistent brand experience across different — and sometimes starkly contrasting — spaces. To achieve this, we deliberately leave room for local solutions: in the decor, graphics, accents, and how we work with the context of the neighborhood and city. This is a safeguard against the very facelessness that QSR market researchers talk about: when everything is more or less the same, and guests stop perceiving the interior as a value.

3. Design as part of the business model. We view the interior not as an expense, but as an asset that helps drive revenue growth and retain customers. Internally, design is tied to specific metrics: LFL, average check, NPS, and retention. We know that an inviting and comfortable interior gives guests more reasons to stay, order dessert, bring their children, and recommend us to friends.

To ensure that every pizzeria has its own unique atmosphere, we at Dodo create a design tailored to each specific space. First, we identify the location, agree on the format, and work out the seating layout, display case, and engineering requirements — and only then does the management company’s design team get involved.

The department overseeing the pizzerias has a holistic view of the entire chain: which formats already exist in the city, how they’re performing in terms of revenue and foot traffic, and what types of space usage are important specifically in that neighborhood. Dozens of decisions depend on this — from the layout of seating areas to what the facade will look like on a specific street.

The team relies on a common design system, but each location is developed as a standalone project. Some locations focus on daytime family dining, others on evening gatherings, and still others on a high volume of takeout and the Easy Spot format with a smaller dining area. As a result, two pizzerias in the same city can have very different atmospheres, but to the guest, both still feel very «Dodo-like».

Every interior design project culminates in construction drawings, so for each pizzeria, the company provides the partner with a complete set of design documents — detailed instructions on how to build that specific pizzeria in that specific location.

This approach simultaneously reduces risks for both the partner and the investor — fewer surprises on the construction site — and helps the company maintain the desired design standards even as the chain grows rapidly.

We’ve always had ambitious plans — to meet them, we strive to build restaurants as quickly as possible. But over time, we noticed that some restaurants were becoming outdated too quickly: they stopped meeting corporate standards and required additional investment in renovations within just three years.

So we decided to change our approach to construction: to learn how to build pizzerias not only quickly, but also reliably — and therefore profitably. Over the course of a year, management developed a new design system that allowed partners to open pizzerias built to last. They implemented a set of construction guidelines for pizzerias, contract templates for contractors, a quality control system for project execution, and revamped the design team’s structure.

To make it easier to share this experience, they decided to compile and document it in articles. This is how the Roombook came to be — a collection of articles on how to design and build high-quality pizzerias.

Roombuk serves as a bridge between the design team and our partners. It helps explain not only what needs to be done, but also why it should be done that way: how a specific material affects durability, ease of cleaning, and guest perception; why the checkout area is designed this way rather than another; and where the line is drawn between cost savings and a loss of quality.

Originally, it took over 220 days to open a new pizzeria in the chain — a long and unpredictable process. Large chains build their own locations quickly, so now Dodo’s central team not only designs but also manages the construction, handling the entire process from concept to launch.

The result: a pizzeria is built in 140 calendar days with a clear budget per square meter and the partner — the management company — taking full responsibility for operational tasks: finding contractors, sending invoices and contracts, and handling communications.

Two videos: one explaining how construction management works, and the story of the first construction project completed in 140 days.

At Dodo, stylish design isn’t an end in itself. For guests, it’s not just the aesthetics that matter, but the entire experience of their visit — in which the interior is one of the key elements, though by no means the only one.

We want guests visiting Dodo in a new city to feel just as comfortable as they would at their local pizzeria. That’s why we’ve designed intuitive navigation, predictable layouts inside the restaurant, and flexible seating options for every occasion: whether you’re grabbing a quick bite alone, coming with kids, celebrating a birthday, or simply waiting for a delivery.

We want guests visiting Dodo in a new city to feel just as comfortable as they would at their home pizzeria. That’s why we’ve designed intuitive navigation, predictable layouts inside the restaurant, and flexible seating options to accommodate various scenarios: whether you’re grabbing a quick bite alone, coming with kids, celebrating a birthday, or simply waiting for a delivery.

Pizzeria interiors are designed to be easy to keep tidy: the right materials, a well-thought-out layout for storage and cleaning supplies, and a flow that keeps guests and staff moving without unnecessary cross-traffic. This is complemented by strict cleanliness standards and regular inspections. As a result, guests remember not just that Dodo is always bright, clear, clean, and not overwhelming.

For us, stylish design is the result of a vast system at work: the design team, the design manual, project documentation, standards, and the people on the ground. It isn’t just about taking pretty pictures — it helps the business grow and gives guests the kind of experience that makes them want to come back.