Nick demonstrates that true longevity and scale in a family enterprise are only possible when deeply rooted values dictate everyday behaviors. His insights emphasize that leading with “courage over comfort” and maintaining a unified, purpose-driven culture allows teams to adapt, overcome crises, and thrive across generations. This message directly aligns with The Third Layer’s overarching philosophy: to drive performance through connection, you have to start internally with commitment from your leaders, people, and stakeholders. As outlined in Knight Agency’s approach, sustained business success requires building a story from the inside out. Home Run Inn exemplifies this model, proving that by engaging employees with a clear purpose and holding everyone accountable to shared values, a business can transform its historic legacy into a durable engine for modern growth.
About Nick Perrino
In this episode of The Third Layer, host Marshall connects with Nick Perrino, Chief Revenue Officer at Home Run Inn, to explore the evolution of his family’s century-old, Chicago-based pizza business. Now in its fourth generation, Home Run Inn has scaled from a Prohibition-era tavern into a massive restaurant and frozen food enterprise, but its success remains deeply anchored in its foundational values. Perrino highlights the complexities of multigenerational leadership, detailing how the family balances professional roles with family dynamics through intentional communication and robust conflict-management frameworks. He emphasizes the critical importance of a “learner mindset” and the courage to lean into discomfort, lessons powerfully reinforced during their massive operational pivot to double production during the COVID-19 pandemic. By hiring, firing, and operating strictly by their core values (Family, Pride, Grit, and Courage), Home Run Inn has created an environment of deep trust and high performance. For family business leaders, Perrino’s reflections offer a powerful blueprint for aligning stakeholders, nurturing internal talent, and preserving legacy while adapting to immense market demands.
Insights From The Conversation
“We made sure the team knew… guys, these values are North Star. We will hire by these values, we will fire by these values… we want that to be in our DNA.”
“…if a family business wants to make it to the third, fourth generation, which is really hard to do, you have to have good process around managing conflict and healthy conflict.”
“I’m a big believer in walk your talk. If you say you’re going to do something and do it, and that helps with that belief and getting people to rise up.”
Big Ideas & Takeaways
Operationalizing Core Values: Using defined values—Family, Pride, Grit, and Courage—as the ultimate filter for hiring, firing, and daily decision-making to maintain cultural integrity.
Navigating Multigenerational Leadership: Implementing strict boundaries between family, shareholder, and operational roles so that business decisions are guided by professional accountability rather than familial emotion.
Embracing the Learner Mindset: Adopting a “live the questions” philosophy to foster continuous personal and organizational growth, encouraging leaders to seek deep understanding before reacting.
Courage Over Comfort: Training leadership to sit with discomfort and tackle difficult conversations head-on, ensuring honest feedback and preventing reactionary decisions during periods of high stress.
Scaling Through Crisis: Leveraging deep internal trust, visible leadership, and over-communication to rapidly adapt operations, as demonstrated when the company successfully evolved its manufacturing lines to run continuously during COVID-19.
