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NicksPizza

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We had on Saturday our Comeback Party to open the dining Room and celebrate our return to Grantville Marketplace on June 1 . . . which included a Ribbon Cutting photo op sponsored by the County Chamber of Commerce of which we are now members. We had a very well written news article in the paper this morning, we sent flyers out on boxes for 2 1/2 weeks, sent out regular e-news announcements about the coming festivities, and we had very colorful posters in prominent places in town for a week+.

I personally had a lot of construction work to do to get the place finalized for dine-in service. Flooring, trim/baseboards, framing and finishing a 9x20 alcove/waiting area, paint, caulk, drop ceiling, building and installing 12 pendant lamps, AC upgrade (contractor), and equipment for server alley. It took every bit of 35 days to get it all done, but we opened the festivities on schedule at 1pm today, and had a pretty darned good turn out.

As would be expected, “no plan survives contact with customers”. We had activities starting at 1pm in the parking lot outside our place. Some of what went on includes live music from local volunteers (they were really good), door prize raffle, free face painting by really good artists, free pizza samples, free beverages, dunking booth featuring Nick’s staff as targets . . . Kim and I both spent a half hour in the booth. Final festivities were the Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting and unveiling of 20 foot wall of mural and another full sized portrait of me . . . 6 foot tall of not real pretty pizza guy. It is amazingly life-like.

Our server alley and dine-in process had been finalized that morning, so you can imagine there were some hitches to find and work through. We have 10 tables in the dining room and all were full for about 2.5 hours. Food was actually pretty quick getting out to customers, and the musicians had moved inside; customers loved the atmosphere and were understanding of a small delays on our maiden voyage.

No one knew that one of our cooks had no-showed for the second time in three days (left a voice mail on the other day saying he’d be late, and we didn’t check our home phone all day since we were working on the celebration). We made it work out, but it almost torpedoed the night since it pulled me more into the kitchen instead of trouble shooting the front of the house with my wife. He will not have a job on Tuesday when he comes to pick up his last paycheck. Sales were probably bigger than they would have been otherwise, but not a blockbuster. We picked up at least 5 new customers, and we all made a great showing for the papers and the attendees. The word of mouth we generate will be great going into August sales recovery. IF nothing else, everyone walking and driving by saw our 20x40 tent in front of the shop and bunches of people sitting around tables have fun with music.

I’ll get that video footage of the place hopefully this week so everyone can see the results of the shop. We didn’t put together too lousy a place to eat 🙂
 
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congratulations Nick, I know it required lots of work,
look forward to seeing the video,
Otis
 
way to go nick i will be following you closely im going to be adding dine in seating soon i have a 27 x 32 patio area i will box in a turn into dine in area this fall businees has picked up the last week or so i have one competor just barley hanging on by putting in dine in i will be able to snatch his sunday lunch crowd its the only thing keeping him a float love what you are doing and i will be coming down very soon to see you and see your really cool painting of one ugly pizza guy :lol:
 
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Good job Nick !

I should have sold ‘I dunked Nick’ T-shirts.

Hey maybe you can make a highlight video, put music to it and give it away(or sell it for a small price) to your customers. I bet they’d enjoy that.
 
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Great to hear. I am sure you have made the place look wonderful. Hope to see some pictures soon!
 
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Final festivities were the Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting and unveiling of 20 foot wall of mural and another full sized portrait of me . . . 6 foot tall of not real pretty pizza guy. It is amazingly life-like.
Oh lawd. I’m sure that mural had 'em running for the hills. Congrats on the comeback party.

-J_r0kk
 
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Great work “hillbilly” :lol: Community involvement is great fun and gets them talking about you for a long while.

You said the life size mural was 6 foot high … but how wide ??? 😃

I guess it will be used for amusement by people while they are waiting… Pin the ponytail on Nick, or endless other sadistic games.

“Dingo” Dave 😉
 
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Awesome Nick…so is it safe to say construction is done?

What is nice about having stuff like that is the buzz it creates. Keep the momentum going…
 
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Congrats.Nick,may you be blessed w/ a ton of $$ and the health to enjoy it all.Now comes the hardest part…keeping the new area as clean and new as it is now. Good luck bro I’m sure you darn well deserve it.
Niccademo [keep your dough off da cieling]
 
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Kris:
Awesome Nick…so is it safe to say construction is done?

What is nice about having stuff like that is the buzz it creates. Keep the momentum going…
DANGER! DANGER!! Not safe at all to say it is done :cry: I can say that Phase I is very nearly completed, and will be when we paint and trim out about 25 feet of wall.

Phase II will start slowly when my battered 41 year old body heals a little, and some money comes in next month. We have another dining room, a 4 seat bathroom and a private dining room to build next. I’ll just poke along for a month or so framing out walls and hanging drywall. I’m getting better and batter at doing it by myself.

Big bucks will be in the electrical, plumbing and HVAC for the next stages. Looking into 3-phase HVAC for the next section, though. I got the panel, and the running cost is much smaller.
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goomba:
Congrats.Nick,may you be blessed w/ a ton of $$ and the health to enjoy it all.Now comes the hardest part…keeping the new area as clean and new as it is now. Good luck bro I’m sure you darn well deserve it. Niccademo
HArd truth you just spoke, brother. Hard truth.
 
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