This one might rival our airline passenger (An Unlikely Hero).   An unsuspecting waitress serves a discerning food critic and lands her joint on GQ’s America’s Best list.  Tomatoes Apizza, a Metro Detroit pizzeria, received the following note from a customer:  “My compliments to Danielle, our waitress who took the order, put down her pad, and under an emergency staffing shortage prepared our pepperoni pie exactly right.”

Danielle Brehm, the waitress, had no idea she was serving Alan Richman, a GQ writer on a high profile, 20,000-mile search for the perfect pizza.  Danielle’s quick thinking and willingness to jump into the void proved invaluable to Mike Weinsten, Tomatoes Apizza’s owner.  In a time of crisis, Danielle simply stepped into the breach. She had no idea who she was serving.  “She took care of him,” says Weinstein, emotion in his voice. “She made a solid pie.”

Without Brehm, the pepperoni pie from Weinstein’s pizzeria wouldn’t have landed at number 21 in GQ Magazine’s “Best Pizza in America.”  Danielle is a model of good behavior-if everyone showed the initiative she did in managing through a crisis (no chef? no problem-I’ll do it myself) corporate America would look a hell of a lot better.

At the end of the day, “when the going got tough, at the moment of pizza truth, she made a pie that changed everything.”

Pizza lover’s bonus gqpizza/american pie