We’ve stumbled upon an opportunity & I need everyone’s assistance in helping me find the Fool’s Tax…
This opportunity in on a busy road, in a busy gas station, oil change shop & car wash…it is a non-branded service selling Citgo gas…the car wash is reasonable well known…
Not in a “bad” neighborhood, but not a great one either…a Target Super center is across the street, a Logan’s Steak House next door, and a few other fast food options, but no real “pizza joynt”…
REAL SMALL footprint…not enough cooler space…all exhibition kitchen…old/smal deck oven…no stove or fryer…
I imagine we could “shuutle-in” dough balls…
No options for stove or fryer (unless we go ventless)
I’ve never been inclined 2 buy a pizza from this style of venue, but the traffic seems awesome…
I’ve never been inclined 2 buy a pizza from this style of venue, but the traffic seems awesome…
What would make anyone else be so inclined?
Place has had several operators over the years…
Will this make you one of the several that have tried and moved on?
REAL SMALL footprint…not enough cooler space…all exhibition kitchen…old/smal deck oven…no stove or fryer…
Even before opening you have been shackled by limitations.
You did not indicate what the selling price is but with old equipment and the small area the price would have to be very low to even consider a look IMHO.
Do you have ‘rough’ business plan that will estimate your hours of operation, labor, rent, food costs, price point, insurance, marketing projections, etc and what your break-even would be? How about a serious marketing plan to ‘rescue’ the location from obscurity? Have capital in hand to run it for 6 months in case you are not profitable or make bills for a little while? Have you seen financials of previous place to see if they make sense on the surface?
All those basic start-up questions. PLUS . . . do you lie awake at night wishing you could open a second location with a different concept? Does it give you nausea to think about it? How does this new opportunity fit into your existing business plan and growth projections?
That would let you know if you can realistically do the volume and expect that many customers. We had a small shop opportunity and just could not get the numbers to line up for profitability.
Do you have a management team/staff that can run the operation? Staff reliability to trust running it alone in wee hours?
new location intersects w/ old location if I were a “traditional” store…delivery radius overlaps 2+ miles…
thats is why I’m strongly considering the LC model (like the Hess stations) and capturing the “drive-by” customers…
will have to buy an oven…I’m partial to conveyors (CTX) but natural gas is FREE & included in the rent…the deck oven that is there will be removed (its old & small)
I’m looking at some decks on ebay, and a couple of older MM 250’s, but I hate the noise…its a heat-only hood, and I may be stuck w/a deck choice only…haven’t baked on a deck since high school…
I’m guessing they will direct customers to the vast array of chilled beverages that are for sale just feet away in the convenience store area . . . .not allowed to compete with the landlord, ya’ see.
I have trouble with the idea of setting up the store with a competing concept of my own, especially with the intention to sell it. I’d much rather just setup a second store of my own there, even just to test the market for another store in that direction. You could use this C-store to setup a customer base and then move the store a mile down the road away from your existing store when the time comes.
I agree about you needing to be able to ring drinks. I understand that they want that profit, but people don’t want to stand in line twice. So if they have a self serve fountain station, you should be able to ring up the beverages and keep a very small fee for doing that. Even .25 cents a drink commision will go a long way.
Don’t give up on a cinnamon pizza or calzone sorty of affair. Roll out a dough skin, slather and
with melted butter or liquid margarine and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar.
OR
premake a crumble of butter/margarine and cinn/sugar. Spread across pie
Finish with a drizzle of vanilla icing from a squeeze bottle. It will rock. Calzone would be a very thing crust with the filling, and icing. You could do very small 6" or 7" pies or sell ‘slices’ from a larger pie if you can get it to hold well.