I think this pizza place has reasonable employees. It’ small town. Plus the guy pays them benefits worth 30k. He wouldn’ have dine it if they weren’t good.
I owned it for 3.5 years and tax returns showed increased income each of the three tax years, the final of which was $200K. I sold the store to another franchisee for $625K completely owner financed, front loaded on the loan. So far, it’s been paid down below 50% way ahead of schedule.
I’m not really sure what is the norm but this was certainly an odd situation. This location of our franchise is one of three in this town, and serves the the bulk of the students from the rather large university here. It is the flagship store of our small franchise and the owner of it always seemed to drive the marketing and pricing of the three locations in this town. Because I had another store across town that I had owned for many years, selling to someone that would be successful and wouldn’t rock the boat was more important than a big down payment. I sold it to the person who owned the third store in town and who I know quite well. I was confident that little would change in the way our company ran in this town and structured the payments so that if I had to take the store back over a year down the road, I would be well compensated for my trouble.
Reading Pirates story reminded me of when I bought my store in '93.
Lots of similarities but not in the bad ways, really. Store was doing $3000/week and was, according to Dominos, the worst in the system. Though many stores… back then… weren’t do much more. Regardless, we broke $10,000/week AWUS but not before I nearly worked myself into the hospital. Never been that sick before or since and that was many years ago. We averaged $11K/week the next year and 12k the next. Good numbers back then.
Sold the store that year. Bought it for $20k which was the cost of the ovens.
Marketing- lots of it.
Great ops… much of it sounds basic and a given but… fanatical ops.
Anybody who rec’d a pizza over 30 minutes got an apology postcard and/or a phone call.
We would door hang all day- meet every business.
I was there every day and every night… you gotta be there.
I was young… remember that.
That was a different time- no cells… no computers, no internet… but much is the same.
Fanatical attention to every detail is what got the results… PSI. Product, service, image.
I will also mention that for the first 6 months I gave away lots of food. Not free pizzas but 35-40% food cost which was high then.
And like Pirates… we started doing some of the basics that just got stopped. I remember saying “Hey, how about we start plugging those car tops in now?”
Ha! 10 years with the damn things and I still can’t get that to happen. Went with the battery powered ones that area rechargeable but… they have to get plugged in to be re-charged! Duh!
I’ve always been a big proponent of signs; Certainly in small to mid-size areas where they can havee an impact.
That was a small city of 35,000 and I would have 10-15 lit signs on the road each night… less Mon-Wed. That’s a lot of signs, impact, etc. Especially back then when we were really the only people using them.
Signs have to be a priority… you didn’t want me to catch you w an unlit sign… enough said.
After 6 months or so when we really had some strong sales and momentum, I was coming back from a delivery at night. As I passed over a cloverleaf I looked and saw 6 lit signs in one view (mostly). On ramps, off ramps, on the road heading north and south. That creates an impact.
Still… even now… with leds, signs that are cordless… still see places with none, unlit, etc. All it takes is the manager saying “the signs must be plugged in end of shift to recharge” or grabbing a driver pulling in or out and saying “what’s with the unlit sign?” All this rambling aside… signs don’t make sense for all and they simply may not be a priority for some.