Beginning to research

[system]

Hello. I am a recent high school graduate who, in the long-term, is interested in opening a pizza business. At this point, I am trying to research how to get into the business and whether the industry is meant for me. I have a few questions:

1. How do I begin to research the pizza business? Are theres any books out there? Besides this magazine’s website, what other industry resources are out there? How did you get the know-how to operate your businesses?
2. How difficult is it to own an independent pizza shop? I’ve heard many successful business owners talk about hard times in the beginning. How hard were your hard times and how long did they last? For long term owners, what difficulties continue to be a major headache?
3. What level of profitability is there for a shop? (I know this can vary widely but I am trying to figure out some possible figures I can expect.) Also, what is the profit margin like?
4. Anything that you wish you knew when you started out that I should know?

Thank you for your time!

 

[NicksPizza]

A regular poster here named Pazzo di Pizza should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for his work on a FAQ listing for new members here. It truly has mountains of information at your fingertips. Clicking “search” above in the webpage title bars (below THINK TANK) will give you the chance to find hours of reading enjoyment on all sorts of topics by all sorts of professionals. More than we could do just the few of us now.

Here’s the link

http://www.pmq.com/tt/viewtopic.php?t=2 … hlight=faq

If you get more specific questions, do ask them, and the good people here will give it a try.

 

[ADpizzaguy]

one thing you should definately do is get into the business. Go to work for one of the big three first, learn the basics from them. They got it going on and it would be a great learning experience for you. Also I would suggest going to college for business or hospitality management so you get the education on how to manage a business and the people employeed under you. and most importantly, you have to have a passion for food to be a restaurant owner/operator. If you don’t like working long days, weekends, holidays, superbowl sunday and the like this isn’t the business for you.