From Croatia to Vernon: Young couple keeping busy managing pizza place

Two of Vernon’s newest residents are getting a fast education on the pizza-making business in Canada.

Manuela Simicic and Vjekoslav Memic arrived in the Okanagan from Croatia in September, coming to Vernon to look for employment.

“We looked for a job at Wings [restaurant] so that’s when we met Sherman [Dahl, owner of the restaurant and Pretium Group] and he offered us to manage the new business he bought, Top Choice Pizza,” Simicic told Vernon Matters.

Simicic said after some training from former Top Choice owner, Val Heemskerk, the couple, both 25, was ready to start running the pizza place on 29th Avenue.

“She taught us pretty much everything she could,” Simicic commented.

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Simicic said the people they’ve met through the business have been welcoming, but it’s been a hard transition.

“We’re still adjusting but it’s really nice. Hard work,” she said.

The two are putting in six day, 50-hour, work weeks.

They currently get Mondays off, but the busy take-out outlet is planning to open Mondays, once new employees are trained.

“We can handle it. We’re young,” Simicic said with a laugh.

While the four cheese pizza is her favourite on the Top Choice menu, Simicic said there are differences in the way pizza is made in Canada and Croatia.

“In Croatia, pizzas have a thinner crust. They don’t have as much toppings. All of Europe doesn’t have as much toppings as Canadians.”

Dahl, whose group also owns The Italian Kitchen and Wings in Vernon, is pleased with the Croatian couple, who he said meet the company’s standards to deliver integrity, quality, and customer satisfaction.

“The goal is to satisfy our customers and generate a reasonable profit, period. Years of experience has taught us that the very best people for the management/partner level are not only nice people with integrity, but they are also workers,” Dahl told Vernon Matters.

Dahl added Memic and Simicic have proven to be hard workers as they make the transition from Heemskerk.

As for the pandemic, Simicic says there is a big difference with how Canada is handling COVID-19 compared with Croatia.

“Really, really big. Croatia, when COVID started, they were really strict and we didn’t have a lot of cases. And after as we left Croatia, everything started to go down. They’re really bad. They have like 4,000 [cases] a day. And it’s a small country. It’s four million people, so 4,000 people a day is really a lot.”

Simicic said she and her boyfriend are glad to be in Canada which she says is “way safer” than Croatia.

“We are a little bit scared for our families, but they are taking care of themselves, so for now, they are OK,” she said.

The couple had been looking to leave Croatia for Canada or the U.S. for a couple of years.

“We were just looking for an opportunity to get here,” Simicic said.