I sold.
No more pizza. No more 33 different toppings right and left. No more chasing lettuce, or boxes or pepperoni. No more " i can’t work i have AIDS" or my 3rd cousins boyfriends ex’s 1 year old is having a birthday party and i cant work today
Good luck to all of you, hope you all pick the correct time to start making robot pizza!
How’s it feel?
We start automated pizzas in June!
Not gonna lie, it has crossed my mind. I have lots of other skills, I just can’t imagine not doing pizza. But I also can’t imagine surviving the next 10 years. Good luck and hope you enjoy it.
I thought long and hard also over last yr about getting out as well, to me a bit scary as this is all i have known for 40+ yrs. I have a lot of questions going into it, what do you do? How do you do it? Who do you call, or do you call anyone? My son who has done all my prep work abruptly quit on me, im down to just now me, my husband, 2 step kids and 1 other girl. My fathers legacy is dying out fast, i hate this…
Congrats! We sold Smiling with Hope Pizza last month and are also done.
Wow I am jealous. How did you find someone to buy it?
We had over 100 people from around the world interested and 30 active bidders. It was a wide array of people from a former bodyguard to the Queen of England, to one of Zuckerberg’s personal chefs. We went through a local broker.
Wow you’re quite the salesman. All these people from around the world, for your shop open 20 hrs a week. You certainly can talk some BS!
I went through a broker, got one insulting offer, then a very nice all cash offer. I have 40 hours of training to do, then I’m done.
I struggle looking at the future here for independent pizzerias, I don’t have access to Zuck or the Queen/King to sell out to, so….
No BS. We were a one-of-a-kind shop that also employed people with Cognitive Disabilities. I made every dough, every pizza, did all the preps by myself, shopped daily for our produce, and my wife did the register, phone, books, salad. We used to be open 5 days a week for lunch/dinner but that was too much on our senior citizens bodies and we cut down to Thur, Fri, Sat, 5-8. We were lucky to be recognized by the top pizza guys and got lots of worldwide press. We were rated #1 and #3 in the USA on Yelp as well as many other respected lists like The Daily Meal - #11 in the top 100 pizzerias in the USA. I worked 80+ hours a week when at 5 days a week and still did 40-50 when open Thur, Fri, Sat. We had less than $10/week in waste and payroll never went over 40 hours a week and was down to 15 with the Thur, Fri, Sat. We sold out of dough every day before we opened via my wife taking phone calls starting at 3pm and was sold out by 3:30-4. We opened at 5.
Most people are lacking in business skills, pizza skills, and marketing skills, and without all three of these, it will be tough to make a decent living. We had people flying in for our pizza in their private jets. We paid a few part time employees $9/hr and they made $29-31/hr average with tips and this was with curbside and patio seating (weather permitting) only. Regulars would often leave $100 tip on a one pie order. A simple menu that is all top notch, with limited toppings, and a vibe that spoke “welcome to our house” instead of you are #3, along with consistency in service and food, made us a success. We knew your name, your life story, where with you when you had ups and downs in your life. No POS, online ordering, door dash stuff.
We used paper and pencil and answered the phone. Customers had a contest going to see how many times they tried to get through for a pie in a night - record was 212. They never got mad either because they appreciated the old school model we created. Few people are willing to do this. We did not take a vacation in our 7 years open. Only days off for service were Christmas/New year’s day. On those 2 days off we got a whole foods heat and serve meal. I cooked a meal for the first time this Christmas.
There is still great money to be made with this model as we proved. It is great to be retired now but I am open to consulting on our method of doing pizza both recipe and vibe wise. Also, we are continuing to sell our 22 gauge cold rolled steel Sicilian/Grandma pans that have been endorsed by Tony Gemignani, John Arena, Chris Bianco, dozens of pizzerias and hundreds of home bakers, via this link. Home | Smiling With Hope Enterprises (swhenterprises.com)
Your business is worth to most buyers what the formula says for buying a business -P&L history. Ours didn’t fall in this category and we convinced the broker to list it higher than the formula. We didn’t have access to Zuck or the King/Queen when we started. We developed this kind of audience.
You’re so full of shit it’s not even remotely funny. No one is buying anything from someone doing paper and pencil, let a lone at a high valuation that would bring in tech moguls and royalty.
Ive never listed my buisness for sale. I purchased the bldg I occupy earlier this year mainly to have the option to sell the buisness whenever I choose to do so.
I often wonder to whom I could sell “the monster” ive created, we do fantastic numbers consistently.
Im wondering whats the new real money formula to value a pizzeria in 2023
I’ve given some consideration to selling also. Would you be willing to share how much you sold it for and how much in sales and or profit you were making to get that sale price?
If I am full of shit, do some research on Smiling with Hope Pizza. We were on lots of TV news with the sale.
We did just as I wrote. We were at 50% profit margin. Less is more when you do this with no food/labor waste. A 16" NY pizza or 12" Sicilian was $25 without toppings, and a white 16" NY or white 12"x12" Sicilian was $27 without toppings. With toppings a pie would run close to $50. You most likely need some help to make a world class pizza that attracts people like we had to eat and purchase it. Wolfgang Pucks exec chef on the strip in Vegas was also a bidder.
Sorry, but we are keeping that private. What I will gladly share is we were able to purchase a new house, own 2 new Toyotas, are debt free, and have enough money in the bank to live the rest of our life comfortably. Before pizza we worked in education and were in debt. Pizza changed all this in 7 years. if you make a pizza that people in the business praise and foodie sites praise as a 10, you can ask a lot more than the numbers show. We were open 9 hours a week. People that knew our pizza and our way of old school mom/pop setup realized the profit to be made on being open 5 or more days a week was big as our numbers showed when we were open 25 hours a week(Tue-Sat). We never spent a dime on advertising, never had any specials/delivery/coupons/discounts for large orders. I grew up with this model in the 50’s - 80’s in the Newark NJ area. The model today is to spend tons of money of making the shop look hip, technology, specials, coupons, lots of toppings/sizes, sides, advertising, and 3rd party delivery. That gets you to chasing your tail and having to make more pies and hours/days and less and less profit.
Owning the building is the way to go. A broker will look at your P/L numbers and give you the selling price at no charge.
Here is a couple of stories the news did and a mention of the guy, who owns a dozen subway shops, showed up at 5am when he saw the story live with a check in hand wanting to buy it.
Smiling with Hope, a beloved Reno pizzeria, selling after 7 years of business | Watch (msn.com)
Smiling with Hope, a beloved Reno pizzeria, selling after 7 years of business | KRNV (mynews4.com)
What are gonna do now? open another some where else?
Dude is so full of shit, that he dosen’t even know he’s full of shit.
If you are asking me, no, and sorry we were so successful and showed what a great pizzeria can do vs. a franchise like set up. Pushing 70 and the way we do it, is too much on the body and soul. We will continue to sell our Sicilian pans, endorsed by John Arena, Tony G, and Chris Bianco, and lots of others, and I will do some private catering gigs in peoples homes around the country with my friend Ellie and Chris Bianco. Ellie was the first to bring lots of wood fire ovens from Italy to the US. She trained, help open over 100 pizzerias and Michelin Star restaurants who wanted to add pizza, around the world.
Tony G’s endorsement which is on our pan site
