Hi everyone. We’ve been trying to figure a few things out for a while now, and I figured it would just be easier to ask some advice.
I run a small pizza franchise shop, Moose Bros. pizza, out of a very popular grocery store. It’s one of those tiny, convenience style shops, about 6.5 square feet to work in, and I’ve managed to turn it into a pretty successful little place, making about 1,000-1,200 dollars per week gross, and spending about $2000 a month on food cost, and my only other cost is paying me, so it makes money (which is a lot better than the previous person who ran it, she worked out her numbers without ever seeming to realize that the cost of her goods was going up, and she ended being 200-300 per week in the hole). Its inexpensive, mediocre-quality Take-N-Bake, and people around here really enjoy it (with an area serving about 24,000 people, with almost every darn pizza franchise that exists in the small town, I’m suprised it does as well as it does).
My biggest customer base is the elderly of the town, who love the convenience and taste of the pizza, and about 70% of my customers fall into that category, which is cool, because 70% of the town is retirees.
Anyway, the place went up inside the grocery store in the 1980’s, and its falling apart. Our deal with HSF doesn’t allow us to get anything new, and their food costs are rising as the months go on, and I don’t want to have to have another price increase. So, because its our only real option, we were thinking about switching to a different small style franchise, but are still a little unsure about everything.
Currently, our company is this one, and has been the same since the 80’s:
http://hotstufffoods.com/OurBrands/HotS … /Index.cfm
However, they have since discontinued building Moose Bros. shops and have switched to Stone Willys’. Then a deal came our way that sounded a lot like the same incentive package that HSF offers, from SYSCO.
http://www.sysco.com/services/brandables/arrezzio.asp
And, from all of this information, I was just wondering what we should think of doing. We definetly need a new pizza stand, something that isn’t held together by old stainless steel and PVC pipe from 83’ (which is crazy, because I wasn’t even born until 86’) and going with another franchise seems to be the best bet for getting this. My rep from HSF never responds with good, direct answers when I ask him about things like this (as far as getting a new shop put in) - so this is why we consider switching, but I’m also really scared of getting stuck with another mediocre-quality place that I’m just going to have to tweak all over again to actually get some good pizza out of it.
Any advice at all? I would love to just make my own dough and get everything and just start that way, but the people in charge of the store love the ease of having the franchise - so that would be the only option. Any advice at all?
Oh, and one more thing. PMQ had an article on HSF:
http://www.pmq.com/mag/200609/article.p … y=hotstuff
And its not a bad company or anything, but their goods keep rising in cost, and I fear for the area’s sake that sales may taper off if I keep raising prices.
Thanks everyone,
Brian G.
I run a small pizza franchise shop, Moose Bros. pizza, out of a very popular grocery store. It’s one of those tiny, convenience style shops, about 6.5 square feet to work in, and I’ve managed to turn it into a pretty successful little place, making about 1,000-1,200 dollars per week gross, and spending about $2000 a month on food cost, and my only other cost is paying me, so it makes money (which is a lot better than the previous person who ran it, she worked out her numbers without ever seeming to realize that the cost of her goods was going up, and she ended being 200-300 per week in the hole). Its inexpensive, mediocre-quality Take-N-Bake, and people around here really enjoy it (with an area serving about 24,000 people, with almost every darn pizza franchise that exists in the small town, I’m suprised it does as well as it does).
My biggest customer base is the elderly of the town, who love the convenience and taste of the pizza, and about 70% of my customers fall into that category, which is cool, because 70% of the town is retirees.
Anyway, the place went up inside the grocery store in the 1980’s, and its falling apart. Our deal with HSF doesn’t allow us to get anything new, and their food costs are rising as the months go on, and I don’t want to have to have another price increase. So, because its our only real option, we were thinking about switching to a different small style franchise, but are still a little unsure about everything.
Currently, our company is this one, and has been the same since the 80’s:
http://hotstufffoods.com/OurBrands/HotS … /Index.cfm
However, they have since discontinued building Moose Bros. shops and have switched to Stone Willys’. Then a deal came our way that sounded a lot like the same incentive package that HSF offers, from SYSCO.
http://www.sysco.com/services/brandables/arrezzio.asp
And, from all of this information, I was just wondering what we should think of doing. We definetly need a new pizza stand, something that isn’t held together by old stainless steel and PVC pipe from 83’ (which is crazy, because I wasn’t even born until 86’) and going with another franchise seems to be the best bet for getting this. My rep from HSF never responds with good, direct answers when I ask him about things like this (as far as getting a new shop put in) - so this is why we consider switching, but I’m also really scared of getting stuck with another mediocre-quality place that I’m just going to have to tweak all over again to actually get some good pizza out of it.
Any advice at all? I would love to just make my own dough and get everything and just start that way, but the people in charge of the store love the ease of having the franchise - so that would be the only option. Any advice at all?
Oh, and one more thing. PMQ had an article on HSF:
http://www.pmq.com/mag/200609/article.p … y=hotstuff
And its not a bad company or anything, but their goods keep rising in cost, and I fear for the area’s sake that sales may taper off if I keep raising prices.
Thanks everyone,
Brian G.
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