Ready to build (Got Burned :()

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

If you are using quality ingredients, including Grande cheese or something similiar and making your own dough,your food cost on a 14" 1 topping should be about $2.50. The question you have to ask yourself is does the remaining $3.50 cover my labor, rent, taxes, and other expenses.
You are being foolish if you haven’t planned all that out already.

1 word of advice…if you are not going to be in this restaurant daily and often, keep the concept VERY VERY simple!!!

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

Thanks Napoli,
I guess it is too late for me to go back & try to figure my cost per pizza, including everything you mentioned(Guess I started foolish way :oops: ). I have come too faar and bought most of my equipment. I looked at best case scenario from what I knew.
I would rather ask an expert befor try to learn things on my own & thanks to a lot of generous people including yoursef, I have got a lot of useful information from this post. location and demographics wise i know i am good. For everything else I got expert friends like you.
If things do not work out for me, you will know how wrong I was. Again, too late to go back and ask you how to calculate those things.
Thank you and wish me good luck!

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

If you’re not sure on your overall costings but you want to go low cost why not go at $6.99 for your 1 topping pizza with a 3 for $19.99 special.

At least this way you have that extra 99 cents per pizza as a buffer with $6.99 still a great price point.

If you sell 3 for $19.99 you start to get your voulumes up and get another $1.99 on the deal.

If I remember rightly you are in a low soci-economic demographic area with the competition on the other side of town?

As you want to go low price why not creep that extra buck and still meet your market objective?

Dave

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

Punjabi,

In your position of opening a new store with little experience you should be focusing on WORST-CASE scenarios.
Good Luck!

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

knowing where your location is, Dominoes and Pizza Hut are right in your neighborhood, not really located 5 miles across town. Selling pizzas at $6 a pie is going to be in direct competition with them. they prominantly serve this low income area already and delivery in that area is a huge part of the business. Obviously they can make it selling cheap pizzas because they have all their other costs so tightly under control with the franchise cost controls and policies in place. I think it may be foolish to believe that you can basically beat them at their own game, unless you have experience from within those type of systems. There is also one other reason they can sell those pizzas at that price and that is because the pizzas are crap. Now how is it that you can build a better pizza with better ingredients and sell it cheaper ?

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

Thanks Guys,
I intend to start with 14" 12.99 regular and 9.99 on sale. definately much better product than Domins’. If only it doesn’t work, I will try to go other way. What I learn from my good friends here is, $6 is not a very good idea. At least 6.99 and 3 for 19.99 if absolutely have to.
Thanks you fellas for your your great support.

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

Not a good idea. It’s premium product at premium price or cheap product at a cheap price.

Once you have branded yourself, it’s very difficult (and costly) to change people’s perception of you. IE: You will almost always be the place that’s too expensive or that has crappy food.

You should decide before you go any further which kind of operation you want, and have a plan for how you’re going to make that happen.

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

I agree with Heather 100%…you are either the new “good” place or the new “cheap” place decide which one and DO NOT change your path or you are screwed
PS I know Cali is a bit pricey but $13 for a 14" seems like a gourmet price no? (we get $8)

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

GOOD LUCK BROTHER! We are sincerely all pulling for your success. Focus on what you know… and you’ll figure the rest out.

Re: Ready to build(Does $6 pizza make any profit? sence??)

[quote]
It’s premium product at premium price or cheap product at a cheap price.
Once you have branded yourself, it’s very difficult (and costly) to change people’s perception of you. IE: You will almost always be the place that’s too expensive or that has crappy food.

Thats It! Right there!!
Decision made. I am going for good food. premium price. No more second thoughts on this issue. One less thing to think & worry about :wink: Please bear with me friends, I am gonna have few more silly questions.
Thank you Heather for sharing your wisdom.

Re: Ready to build(Voip based phone svc. for pizza?)Possible

Thanks Guys for sharing tour expertise.
You guys made a lot of hard decision easy for me :smiley:
I am gettig little techie here.
Question of the day is, Voip based phone service. Would it work for a pizza shop? I would not dare try it unless someone else already has and found it successful.
Thanks again for your help.

Re: Ready to build

As a new owner of a pizzaria with 3 bases within 5 miles, absolutely definately go for the military. They may not be big spenders but they are very big pizza eaters and many $10-$12 orders mean a lot more to me than a couple $30 orders. Also, you’ll grow to get the big $70-$100 lunch orders.

You need to go on base as the owner and get qualified to deliver - not a big deal, just dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s” and you’ll be fine. If it’s like here, each driver will need a delivery ID card with your store’s name. Even our active-duty employees need this. Depending on how busy the ID center is, it may take less than an hour. Military is big business just because of the sheer volume of customers there. Don’t overlook it.

Re: Ready to build

PizzaCity,
Thanks for your advise. I am talking with the base people. Would you please elaborate the “i’s” and the “t’s”
Thanks.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

I plan to open in 2 months. I see most of my experienced friends here recommend starting with POS. That, I will. I need help on deciding on what kind. I was recomended Revention. I was told it has better advertising/database tools. Too expencive! 12k after discount for 2station. I was checking out SimpleSolutionsDirect at ebay. Same equipment is $4800. Revention got their own sftware, Latter has adelo.
Is software alone worth 7k? Is it realy that better?
One thing is sure though. One of thease charges lot more for on some of the similar items. such as printers,cables,shipping etc.
Please guide.
Thanks.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

punjabi guy

The best advice you can get on a POS is this: Download a demo of everything you can find. Look at how each one will do what YOU want for YOUR operation and then look at the cost of the complete setup.

I did this and decided Point of Success was the best setup for my operation and budget.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

Thanks Daddio,
From demos, they all look pretty similar to me(You know,iam a newbie.i get imressed or overwhelmed with gzillion features). In other words I am not mature enoughin this field to explore and compare advanced pos software features. I am tryin to ask the experts who have tried and compared some and happen to know what works better in the real world. I will look at point of success but I am not a computer geek. I believe for point of success I still have to put the hardware togher and then install & run the pos.
Thanks for advise Daddio. It might end up being Point of success for me.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

If you contact Jeff Ward at Point of Success he can put you in touch with someone in your area that can “build” your system or find a local computer geek (they love pizza) and trade his services for your food.

I am running it on 3 Dell Demension computers that I got new off Dell’s website and the install is a 5 minute job. Get the training disk and you are good to go.
You will have a hard time beating the price for a system that will do what you need.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

Very bad situation friends :cry: The architect who was doing my plans turned out to be a crook, is not a certified professional but promised me to get the tenant improvement permit. He drew the plans, drawings and submitted to the building dept. They wanted them to be stamped by a design professional. This guy promised he will get’em stamped by one of his friends (I know he does some side work for some other engineers).
After fooling me for 3 months he wants to quit & walk away and I was stupid enough to pay him 6k before finishing the job(when his little daughter was suppose to be very sick and in hospital) from the get go he always told me about his daughter being very sick and I believed. What do I do?
I informed him today that he’s got one week to comply or bring my money back(which I doubt) or get ready to be sued. I spoke with an attorny today. I plan to wait for a week, then hire a certified professional to work on my project. then work on trying to get my money back from this guy. building deptppl told me that thease are good plans. some professional may like them & stamp’em. Who knows. Suggestions please!!
thanks.

Re: Ready to build(Got burned :()

Hired an attorny. Sent out email. guy’s back on project. It may work. But I will advise to all my friends here. Do not pay anyone before the job is finished. Or you will be felling sorry & helpless like I do.

Re: Ready to build(Need POS???)***

GET THE SOFT COPY FILES FROM HIM.
Tell him that you will think about not suing him if he will give you the CAD files that he made. These should be files that end in .dwg and maybe in .plt.
With these, a real architect can take over the job and finish or change the plans as necessary with nearly no effort. Without them, a new architect will have to start all over.
And line up your certified guy to check that they are the files he needs before letting the first guy “off the hook”.