Central Kitchen or Storefront

[Alessandro_Pereira]

Hello everyone,

I am writing from Central Asia where I have now run a pizzeria for about a year. Sales are going well and we want to expand. I am debating whether to start a central kitchen and run my deliveries from there or to start another store and simply copy the first one, creating two delivery hubs instead. Right now I already have a small prep kitchen where we make dough and topping prep every day then transport over to storefront. With two stores, I need more space for inventory management and food preparation. We need to make everything from scratch in this country, so a bigger kitchen will be necessary. My current store has a very small area for building the pies and doing the baking.

Options:

1. As a first step, keep only 1st store open and start a central kitchen for prep and all deliveries
2. Keep 1st store, open 2nd store with bigger kitchen for prepping for both stores and deliveries
3. Keep store #1, open store #2 and open central kitchen for prepping for both stores

 

[Daddio]

I am not sure of the difference between option 1 and 2 other than the store front access. Option 3 seems to add extra costs for a third location. I would make a cost/benefit chart for the 3 options to come up with an answer.

I have held off on doing a second location because I know my costs will double but sales are not likely to double. A second location will take away some of the customers that are currently coming to my existing store.