We currently own/operate one store…but possibly be looking for another…How do you mnge both succesfully…Do you work in one nd hve someone in the other?..Act as a gm and just pop into both?
any advice is much appreciated
I am probably not going to respond the way you were hoping so I apologize ahead of time.
We opened a location in 1994. After 12 years our 1st store was running like a champ. We had mgmt set up and ready to go. We actually managed the store and weren’t working IN the store. We were able to take some much needed time off and things always ran smoothly. We socialized with friends, even played a little softball. Financially we were doing great.
Then we got the brilliant idea to open another location. Some of our thoughts were:
There are two of us so one of us can always be “available” to work at either store.
One of our salaries can move to the new location and pay for extra managers.
We can get out of debt pretty quickly because store 1 has always been solid and can financially support us while the other is up and coming.
The town has a need for a place like ours
and on and on.
We bought and opened store 2 in 2006. Boy we had forgotten how hard it is to “start” a new restaurant. We forgot the customers like to see us there and shaking there hands. We forgot our managers are human and will fail us. We forgot how hard it is to find good mgrs. We never realized brand new equipment would actually need repairs just like the 14 year old stuff. We never realized the simple paperwork would be double. We never realized taking just one day off would require covering 4 shifts now instead of 2.
I could go on and on. I don’t want to be a downer but man I truly didn’t have a clue even though I knew it would be difficult for awhile.
Our second location has good sales, and all the things we thought were actually true but to live it is sooooo different.
Just really think hard what it is you want to do all this for. Truly what is important to you and your family.
We wanted to do all this for a good retirement, a better life. And if we keep going yes we will have a great retirement. But it dawned on me one day that my whole life is passing by. My daughter is growing faster than I can believe. My husband and I are graying faster than we can color. And dog gone it I had a good life and I still do but I want to live and be a part of that life. I want to socialize with the friends we haven’t seen in 2 years. I want to play one more game of softball before my knees are shot. I want to know for sure when my daughter graduates I will be able to go without some big incident happening.
As I posted in another thread, we have decided to sell. Odd really. Never thought I would want to sell a restaurant just because…
So from this perpective consider all things, and count all the costs.
Kris
There are many approaches to running multiple stores. The approach one chooses would depend, in part, on the skills of the operator, distance between the operations, the potential ability of the businesses to carry “administrative” overhead and a host of other factors. Perhaps the most important factor in the whole scenario if the ability of the owner (s) to delegate. It is one thing to operate manage or direct one location and quite another to manage multiple locations. Possibly the major issue is whether the operator has the ability to get the necessary tasks done through others. The ability to delegate, or the lack of, has determined the success or non-success of many an operation seeking to go from one to two or more operations.
One approach to test the waters relating to the ability to manage two or more operations might come from an old saying, “the test of one’s management skills is not how his business operates when he is there but rather how it operates when he is not there”. How effective are your employers and maybe asst managers when you are not there? Do you attempt to groom your employees so that they are able to make reasonably intelligent decisions during the course of their shifts on their own? Do you teach your employees how to resolve situations that may fall outside the usual boundaries of circumstances meaning that they have a fundamental understanding of how your business should operate and can use that understanding to make decisions in these areas? Try leaving your business for a few days and see how things went while you were away. If they fall apart or even show signs of confusion then it would be a good guess to say that you might not be ready to manage more than one location.
Do you have methods to determine the condition of your business whether you are there or not? This is especially important in matters financial.
These are just some immediate random thoughts that may possibly have merit. I would also say that maybe the easiest and most simplistic way to find out where you are is to assume you already have two locations and begin to supervise your existing store as you would have to with two locations. Just might be cheaper to experiment in this manner rather than make an investment in a second location and find out you are not ready, not able or simply not inclined.
WOW GMAC you nailed this one. I have had the thoughts of expanding and went through the process you described just to find I have no desire to run multiple locations.
Emphatically…DON’T DO IT!
I too have been in the business 14 years, starting from scratch. I built a successful business which became the pride of the county, through a quality product, personalized service, a young yet well trained (and supervised) staff, and a highly energetic and involved owner.
Five years ago, after developing enough leadership within to the store to allow for significant time off, while still making good $$$, I got the bright idea to open a 2nd location. After all, I had a young manager who had foregone college and was committed to the pizza business just like me.
Long story, short version is I am now the proud (and worn out, feeling broke) owner of two locations, both of which operate fairly well, with me running back and forth between them. My protege has been gone almost a year now, and I haven’t replaced him. (I will add that he was very well paid for his effort, between his wage and bonuses. I think he was just going through life changes.)
My life has been on hold for the last year as I scramble to finish a franchising program which will allow me to sell the 2nd location to concentrate on the original, which has no longer been the cash cow since the economic slowdown (we’re a dinner time only business) and new competition in town.
I cannot describe the feelings of regret and remorse which come over me at least 3-4 times daily as I realize this was of my own making. It has given me a new perspective, and I realize that I love the pizza business and love what I do, I just wish I could do it a little bit less. My wife and family (8 children) have suffered as well as I have been working the proverbial restaurant hours this last year (9-12 hour days) for less income than I received 5 years ago working half the time.
IMHO, two locations will double everything but the net $$. I’m sure there are other success stories out there, but I’m with Kris on this one. GMAC brings up good points, but my experience is that even “good” managers will let you down in time, and with two locations, you don’t have the leverage you’d like, should it become necessary to “make corrections”. You won’t know how good your staff and leadership skills are until you aren’t there and can’t be there. By then it will be too late.
Did I forget to mention that customers enjoy seeing and interacting with the owner of the business?
The ONLY way I would consider a 2nd location is to have an operating partner (less than 50% owner) who has invested a significant portion of the upfront costs. (This can be accomplished without franchising, but will require a lawyer’s help.)
Kinda long, but I feel particulary qualified to speak out on this one.
We opened our first store in a pizza location that had failed as was closed for several months. We bought the equipment, developed recipes and opened the doors. We purchased our second store four months later. We have run both for nine years using a general manager (GMs last about 2 years on average for us) Staff comes and goes in this resort town. Very few stay in town longer than 3-4 years. If we hire someone that works as a cook or Asst Mngr one winter and then GM for two more, we count ourselves lucky.
Neither of us have worked in the store regularly. Both of us have mainted outside employment of various kinds at various times. I stay on top of the numbers and pay the bills for the store. I also do the marketing. Those tasks take about 2-4 hours per week. Other than that, the GM handles the show, hiring, training, food buying, payroll (we use ADP), etc.
How does it work? We take out about 12-14% of sales for ourselves. We run pretty high volume in the winter months (100K month) and pretty low in the off-season (25K) and in-between during the Summer.
Your second store will be less expensive to run. Your buying power will save you money with your vendors, insurance is less than half what the first store costs you, if you already have reduced work comp and unemployent rates, you will keep them (asuming you operate under the same corp). You can-cross train key people and have more good hours for them to work. If your markets are close enough together, your advertising costs will leverage each store. Printing costs are nearly 40% less at the second store if you run the jobs together.
It can be done. It can be very profitable. Success depends on systems, consistancy and planning. The process does NOT involve doing more work, it IS all about working smarter.
I too fell victim for the Store #2 blues that Kris and PizzaChop describe.
You would be surprised what goes on in your stores when your not around.
Our dear friend Jrokk lost everything when he opened Store 2.
Bigger doesn’t necessarilly mean better.
I agree with bodegahwy. I have had my original pizza shop for 8 years, opened a second 3 years ago, and about a week away from opening my 3rd. In order to make it work, you can’t try to do everything yourself. You have to delegate responsibilities. When I first opened my first shop, I kind of looked at it like it was my baby. I felt that I was the only one that could do things right so I was there all the time. I literally had no life! Eventually I started to have a different outlook on the business. I started treating the place as a source of income instead of my"baby" and let the emotional attachment go. I started trusting that that my employees were plenty capable if given the proper training and guidance. I no longer had to be in the shop any more and was finally able to work on the business instead of in the business.
The number one thing that allowed me to branch out and open another location was: IMPLEMENTING SYSTEMS! If you no longer want to be stuck in your shop working everyday, you have to have all of the necessary systems in place. There is no way around it. You need to have procedures, instructions, forms, etc. for every single thing that is required to run the day to day operations of your business. Every possible situation needs to be covered. If all of the systems are in place, you business can just about run on auto-pilot.
You also need to hire good managers that understand what their role is. They need to be able to think on their feet and have good problem solving skills. To make their job easier, create a manager’s handbook for them. Include in it, answers and procedures for every possible problem that could arise. Also include step by step directions for every aspect of the manager’s job (ex. what needs to be done each night, when to do it, when to do inventory, when to order supplies, when to call in employees hours, when to order from Pepsi, when to change fryers, money handling procedures, etc.).
Another thing, never try to micro manager. If you’re going to give your manager that title, let them do their job. Don’t try to come in to the store and give orders to the employees and undermine your manager’s authority. I have found myself micromanaging in the past and eventually the employees started not respecting and not listening to the manager. They were looking at the manager as a joke and felt that they only had to do what I told them. What is the sense of having a manager if you are going to be their all of the time doing their job? You need to have the proper chain of command in place. If an employee has a problem, they go to their manager with it. If the manager can’t come up with a solution, then they come you. Trust me, this will save the 50 phone calls that you would get every night.
Once you have successfully implemented the necessary systems in your pizza shop, then and only then do I suggest opening a second. If all of this stuff is in place, operating 2 locations won’t be as hard as you would think. I actually find that it is easier than when I owned one shop and I was working full time doing everything.
Some comments after reading other responses.
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“The ONLY way I would consider a 2nd location is to have an operating partner (less than 50% owner) who has invested a significant portion of the upfront costs. (This can be accomplished without franchising, but will require a lawyer’s help.)”
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It is estimated that 85% of all partnerships in this county fail. this doesn’t mean that a partnership can’t work but it certainly means the odds are definitely not in your favor.
(Quote)"Just really think hard what it is you want to do all this for. Truly what is important to you and your family.
We wanted to do all this for a good retirement, a better life. And if we keep going yes we will have a great retirement. But it dawned on me one day that my whole life is passing by. My daughter is growing faster than I can believe. My husband and I are graying faster than we can color. And dog gone it I had a good life and I still do but I want to live and be a part of that life. I want to socialize with the friends we haven’t seen in 2 years. I want to play one more game of softball before my knees are shot. I want to know for sure when my daughter graduates I will be able to go without some big incident happening."(Quote)
It has been often said that to be in the restaurant business you have to have a little touch of insanity (if not a lot). For many years I have been in this business with many different types of restaurants and even in different states at the same time. Very difficult to do this and maintain a normal family life. In my case I have five children (all adults now) and my wife, more than anything, kept this family together. And she did not have a job or was involved in the restaurants. Friends, acquaintances and people I don’t know occasionally will ask me how they can get in the business (because they have a recipe or something) and what would my advice would be. I think it is very important to love what you do; to wake up on Monday morning and feel good about going to work. I tell those who inquire that they should try very hard to fall in love with anything but the restaurant business.
(quote)It can be done. It can be very profitable. Success depends on systems, consistancy and planning. The process does NOT involve doing more work, it IS all about working smarter.(quote)
Bodegahwy just nails it with his statement above. But again, going from one store to multiple stores is the great separator in the restaurant business. It tests us in so many ways that are not tested with just one location. Some of us are not built to do it for any number of reasons and as Dirty Harry said, “A man has to know his limitations”.
Good managers are hard to find but that is a constant factor in this business. Good partners are even harder to find and if you make a mistake in your choice then it is often even harder to correct the mistake. You can terminate a manager and feel angst for a day or two but resolving a partner choice mistake can keep you tied up for many months and even destroy your business before its finished. You know how they say you never know your spouse, really, until you have been married for a time? Double or triple that with a partner in business.
We are in a business that is labor intensive at the wrong end of the age scale (kids). There are a lot of good kids out there but it takes work to find them. When I first started in this business it used to frustrate me to no end because it was so difficult to find the good ones. Then I realized one day that I thought we had an excellent business with an excellent product and that the operating standards were very high. If, for instance, I thought that our operation was in the top 10% in the area then it stood to reason that that we would be looking to hire only the top 10% of the available work force. For a time we actually tracked the number of applications we received and the number of applicants we actually hired. The numbers came pretty close to that 10%. We thought, well, if we were willing to increase the pool to 50% of the applicants then we would have all the employees we need but of course we were not willing to do that because we knew it would hurt our operation. So our frustration was self imposed but we realized it was necessary if we wished to continue running a good operation.
Another final thought about all of this. In our experience we overwhelmingly prefer to bring people up through our own organization (as small or as large as it may be). This goes back to the culture thing. We have a way of conducting our business that has been developed over many years (no matter what restaurants we owned). It concerns, among other things, the nature of integrity, work ethic, how people should be treated and respected and the many usual ingredients of the various work processes. These types of things cannot be given in the form of a manual with the expectation that the culture of the business will be automatically transferred to the employee. It takes this manual, then the constant verbal reinforcement, the exposure to other employees who are already embedded with the culture and TIME. For some new people the “culture” rejects them or they themselves reject it. Even the very youngest, when exposed to the culture of your business, begin to get a feeling that this is for them, or not. This does not happen every time but enough to be a very beneficial factor in the retention or rejection of employees for your business.
We think that this “culture thing” is critically important when we need another management person. If we have a candidate who has been immersed in our culture for some time then we have eliminated many of the issues that would have to be resolved with someone brought in from outside the company. What remains is for ownership to decide whether the applicant has specific management skills and the temperament to make the move. We can often take a very good employee and ruin them by trying to make them part of management as we then we lose a management candidate and most likely a good employee because it is difficult to go back.
When we hire a management candidate from the outside we increase the variables that must be evaluated significantly. It can be, and is done, all the time; it just increases the downside risk and it requires a higher level of ownership skills in terms of evaluating candidates. Some of us can smell a phony many times and it stops there. Some of us cannot smell a phony and we have to waste time, energy and often money beyond wages to make the discovery.
More than anything I would re-read Bodegahwy’s quote above again and again. Systems, consistency and planning. To ignore these is to increase your downside risk big time. We cannot avoid risk if we wish to progress but we can work to take calculated and educated risk to reduce our downside.
I completely screwed up my first second store as well. I had a guy who I though was a great manager, knew the market, and was gung ho. The place was a dog from day 1. I relied on my own idea of my image, and in retrospect completely blew the training aspects. There is a proper way to expand and the wrong way, and those of us with horror stories did it the wrong way. We all aren’t perfect. Things don’t always go as planned. Some operators just have an easier time of letting things go and expanding. I used all the lessons I learned to open a second location a few years after my first failure, and the place was a completely different experience. I had a trained manager and staff, good operations, and a decent location. A year later I tried my hand at franchising. Note to self, never co-sigh on a franchisee’s lease or loan. I found 2 franchisees, and that little lesson cost me $250,000.
Why did they fail? The list of reasons is long, but I would have to say the top 2 were a lack of training on my part, and a lack of judgment in people, both completely my fault. Some of the habits these guys had are almost bizzare. One wouldn’t let his staff deliver in the rain, so he baked all the pizzas and took them on deliveries while his staff sat around at the shop, and the other fought with his wife all day in the kitchen.
Another thing to consider is that 99% of the time, 2 stores are less profitable and harder to operate than 4 stores. Just ask any franchise consultant. With 2 stores, you pretty much have to staff one of them yourself to maintain profitability, and that cuts into supervision time. 4 stores gives you the opportunity to move around and have managers in place, and concentrate on the bigger things, like PR and marketing for 4 shops.
Just use this as a test:
If you can walk away from your pizza shop for 12 months and come back to stronger sales and higher profitability, then you are ready to expand. If not, then you should stay away.
All of these responses are good.
Reading through them brought back memories of a few years ago when I was riding high and giving advice to others on the importance of having a system in place (and making sure that you’re not the “system”.)
I had recently read Robert Kiyosaki’s (sp?) “Rich Dad’s Investment Strategies” and soaked up the “cash flow quadrant” (which I still believe in) and made up my mind to implement a system which would allow me to move from the category of self-employed to that of business owner.
I had two stores with managers in place, the established one which had a solid, well trained manager(acquainted with our “culture”), and a new location, with a new manager, where I spent more time at, yet never quite turned the corner. My life was pretty good with both stores having managers and me watching over both and working on (not so much in) my business. (I restored two Airstream travel trailers , a ski boat, and took my family on a vacation or two.
After 3 years of breaking even (the established store paying my salary, my top dog, and sometimes helping the new location), I moved the 2nd store to a new location, a physically and financially exhausting move, but it began to pay dividends almost immediately. At this point, I was managing the “new” location , hoping to develop a new manager up through the ranks who would move back to the established location with me, while my “veteran manager of 4 years” took over the new location, which had been up and running for 3.5 months.
Big mistake!
Within 5 months I realized I had problems at the new location (I was back managing my main store, the mgr in development didn’t last) as my loyal, trustworthy, manager and future business partner (so I thought) was no longer motivated and had effectively abandoned his interest in the new location. I’d have never believed it in a million years until it happened! (I know, I know…many others have been there, done that.)
It all hit the fan and I realized that my business model (and in place systems) relied upon at least one other full time manager besides me, and I was up that familiar creek. In times of crisis, we tend to revert back to our native behavior, and for me that means micro management (which is unfortunately usually required with young staff) .
Bottom line…
Systems are extremely important and must be developed, refined, and implemented (training, training, training).
Successful operation of multiple locations depends on a variety of factors: your business model, your market size ($$ sales), hours of operation , staffing, distance between locations, and most importantly…your personality and management style.
“A man’s got to know his limitations” is right. I certainly found mine the hard way!
I’ll always remember the reply of a former employer and mentor who owned multiple Dairy Queen locations when I explained to him that I wasn’t ready to open a 2nd location because the 1st one still wasn’t operating up to my expectations.
“Not one of my 4 stores is operating the way I’d like, but they’re all making me money .”
I do think it’s preferable to become a bit emotionally detached, but I’ve had a hard time doing it. In a small community, I really do enjoy the relationship I’ve developed with my loyal customer base and I do believe that my personal involvement has played no small part in the longevity and modest success of my business.
For me, I’m getting off the manager merry go round as soon as I can, as I’m convinced an owner-operator can out perform a manager any day of the week and cut costs as well. In smaller market models (as I am), this is critical as we can’t afford to spill much of the cow’s milk. (We need to squeeze out every last drop , and not tip the pail.)
Like many topics, there are different answers depending on your situation.
“You just need to ask yourself one question…Do I feel lucky?” :lol:
Quote
I’ll always remember the reply of a former employer and mentor who owned multiple Dairy Queen locations when I explained to him that I wasn’t ready to open a 2nd location because the 1st one still wasn’t operating up to my expectations.
“Not one of my 4 stores is operating the way I’d like, but they’re all making me money .”
They say the perfect state of mind to have in this business (or any business?) is to be slightly discontented. If we are frustrated all the time then there is something wrong with our approach. If we are perfectly contented all the time then we are really not looking very hard at our operation. To be slightly discontented is to be slightly dissatisfied. It is a recognition that we know we can do it better and want to do it better as well. Is it not why many of us pay attention to these boards? I have a habit of driving my wife nuts because every time we go on a trip whether long or short I want to stop at any food operation that I have not seen before. It does not have to be pizza. She does not see any value in this (or she might see some but she is just tired of doing it all the time.) Almost every single time I visit another restaurant other than to just eat I learn something. If I am not learning something something I can use in my business then I might learn something I should NOT do in my business, or be reminded of something to which I should be paying attention.
When I operated some franchises of a full service restaurant concept I would often strongly suggest that our managers go to the other restaurants in the company. I would tell them that they had a marvelous opportunity to observe other restaurant operations from the kitchen to the front. When I first began this exercise the managers would invariably come back to our meetings focused on all the perceived problems and inefficiencies they witnessed. In short order I told them that they could learn just as much from a poor operation as they could from a good one. Even a poor operation has something to use that would benefit us. At the very least they should come away, after viewing a supposedly poor operation, with increased motivation to make sure that they would not allow their own restaurants to deteriorate in a similar fashion. Sometimes we had some managers who still did not see any value in this opportunity. They brought back little that changed or improved their own stores. Those managers usually did not last very long.
Please let me get next to a successful operator so I can learn how his particular type of restaurant operates. Please let me be around when a particularly successful operator is in the mood to talk about how he became a successful restaurant operator. When I first started many years ago in the restaurant business I visited other restaurants in our franchise and company group but not strictly as a visitor. I quickly found out that the very successful operators were busy people. They were busy operating and improving their stores. Why should they stop to talk to me taking time away from their business? So I made myself useful. I became free labor just for the opportunity to learn. It was an honest game. They gave important insights and I gave them free labor (me) for sometimes a full day. It was mostly a one sided deal because I am sure I got a lot more out of it than they did. Busy, successful people will give you more of their time and insights if they perceive you are earnest and the fact that you are willing to do whatever work that might help them without being asked is a strong indicator of earnestness. They know why you are doing it and not only do they not mind but they tend to give you more information and help then they ordinarily might otherwise. These opportunities are absolutely golden for anyone who desires to be successful and to constantly improve their operations. A mind that does not expose itself to outside stimulation and information will die of malnutrition followed by his business which will often suffer the same fate.
Ouch!
Hey guys/gals…I have been out of the loop from a posting standpoint for quite a while. I previously communicated with the name SLICE, but was unable to get back in under that name so I created a new account a couple months ago under Pizzahead. While I have not posted, I read the TT every day.
I too am preparing to open a second location in the next several months. I have a partner who is in it for more of the real estate side and a portion of the profits, while I run the operations. I will have no investment in #2, just sweat, a salary, and % of profits.
I am beginning to get a little concerned about the impact of having 2 locations, especially after reading some posts, including jRokks several months ago (and giving my potential mgr the “heave ho” yesterday). We’ve got a pretty good model, with a fair amount of systems and great food (don’t we all). Mostly dine-in, with some take out and delivery…500k yr.
I thought I was “grinding” before…now I guess the fun really starts.
any advice is appreciated.
thanks
I am beginning to get a little concerned about the impact of having 2 locations, especially after reading some posts, including jRokks several months ago (and giving my potential mgr the “heave ho” yesterday). We’ve got a pretty good model, with a fair amount of systems and great food (don’t we all). Mostly dine-in, with some take out and delivery…500k yr.
I thought I was “grinding” before…now I guess the fun really starts.
Note from pizzachop to pizzahead,
Success requires the right combination of easy to follow systems and the right people (as you surely already know). Systems don’t break down, but people do.
Don’t know what your issues are with the potential mgr you’re giving the boot, but I’m quite sure you’re able to do the right thing because you know that you can do his job until you recruit/train/empower another one. (And that is one of the upsides of having only one location.)
I think that the point of vulnerability is when it is you and one other general manager, one for each location. As has been stated earlier, the original store must be pretty well on autopilot so YOU can focus on the new location (which is where you need to be, IMHO). Once you’ve got it up and running, with a competent general manager in place, you can be more involved in both. (This is the point at which my model broke down, as the guy I’d counted on for over 4 years dropped out, and I hadn’t developed another one yet.)
You’ll be grinding quite a bit more for a while, but if you have the right leadership, it won’t last forever.
I’d be more concerned with your current staffing situation. IMHO, you need to have the original location near bulletproof before you give the bulk of your attention to the new baby. It will require lots of attention in the first few months (not to mention the customer experience of seeing the owner’s consistent presence in the business.)
Best of luck. (Might want to bring your partner in for some training, just in case.)
hey guys, a little late responding but the really great writing about this subject has attracted my attention! My first pizzeria was opened 12 years ago and my second about 4 years ago and my third 2 years ago.
holy cow, what a stressful thing to do. yes systems, delegation, management all have a lot to do with it but i think the most important part is the team you put together.
store 2 was so much work because i couldn’t find the right help and slowly but surely, i became a fat disgruntled owner operator that was praying to God everyday, “please help me sell this biz before i have a heart attack!”
i did and after doing so, got the bug 4 months later to purchase my first restaurant property and i hit a grand slam! but let me tell you, not too long ago i saw the list of all the employees that have come and gone, over 60 people to finally get the right team of about 15 p/t & f/t!
its the team you put together that spells success. let me say this again, its the team you put together that will make you successful. a great team costs a little extra but they make you the extra profit. systems and the right team.
through all this experience i have learned and am still learning that as frustrated as i get at times, i really do love the biz! if you love the biz, you will succeed and you will attract the right people.
ok, before i bore you all, one other piece of information that i have come to realize, any person that talks to much about their abilities & perceptions- DO NOT HIRE!! every single BIG MOUTH i have hired is no longer working for me, they are literally full of %@!&!!! :lol:
god bless!!
[quote="store 2 was so much work because i couldn’t find the right help and slowly but surely, i became a fat disgruntled owner operator that was praying to God everyday, “please help me sell this biz before i have a heart attack!”
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Hey that is where I am right now! Hopefully I will also be able to sell, but I assure you I will not be opening anymore locations!
:lol:
My 2nd store sold this week! Thank GOD
I have been living the 2 store life for over 7 years. I am so happy to just have one now and I have time now to live life. I could be saying I sold my 1st store at 36 or I lost my 1st store at 36. What one will sound better at 50?
I also stoped delivery a few weeks ago and now one store. I have cut back lots and I did not wish too. I am now glad gas or whatever has givin me my life back.
Harold
chubbysinc.net
Chubby,
Congrats! Hope to be celebrating with you soon!
I have three and i want more. Works for me but we all have different ideas. Third was the easiest of them all and I started making a nice profit in the second full month.
Thanks to all who have posted because you have killed my intentions of opening a second store.
We had a location right on our far delivery perimeter. We get people coming to pick up from outside this area plus others who want delivery but it is too far away. So we would have a ready market from start.
After reading problems you guys had/have and how our employment situation is it became a no brainer to hit our expansion on the head.
What we are now looking at is opening a cafe/coffee lounge in the centre we are in once it gets redeveloped in about 18 months time. There is no competition in the centre and it is a business that is badly needed. As a current tennant we have a good backing from centre management. We are planning on a format similar to how Gloria Jeans is set up but with more emphasis on gourmet food and other gourmet fare. Upmarket fit out with a reading retreat where people can relax with a coffee or meal and a book or magazine. We are planning to make it a “destination point” where people will want to go and to be seen. Our area is middle/high income with a high expendible, seeking quality and not afraid to pay for it, and there is no other concept similar to this any where near us, plus there is only minimal competition close by.
Going this way will stop us having all our eggs in the one basket and as trading will be during the day only we will be able to more easily secure staff (mums with kids at school etc). Another plus is that both businesses are in the same centre and I live a couple of hundred metres away (across the road) so keeping an eye on them will be easy. Another plus is that we can cross promote between the 2 buinesses and be able to buy some items in bulk and then negotiate better prices.
At this stage 2 pizzas shops sound like not worth the hassle.
Dave