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I need some help with my pizzeria, any insight?

elevatedpizzaco

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Hey guys, my name is Johnny, i own Elevated Pizza Co in the Valley of BC close to Vancouver. elevatedpizzaco.ca

We do Italiana/New York pies and are about 6 months in and things are picking up but could be better. I really need my business to become more consistent and would appreciate any advice/help you guys may have to offer. We only have 12 specialty pies with a create your own option with one size only 14", 1 salad and a foccacia bread. We also have a Keto/Gluten Free option which is quite popular. We dont do delivery or slices or online ordering as these things i feel like just complicate the process and arent necessary. Our hours are Mon-Sat 3-8pm and Sundays closed.

We have a loyal following that love our pizza as there’s nobody else in the city doing this style of pizza. My goal is to reach an average of $1000 in sales a day miinimum, to me then we would have an established successful pizzeria. Right now we are doing an average of about $400/day. Its only me working right now by myself with 2 employees helping me friday and saturday at $13.85/hr which is minimum wage here.

Ive done all the marketing under the sun, a digital billboard, facebook/Instagram/google posts and ads, menu mailers to 5000 houses local to the pizzeria, 2 pizza parties for locals giving away free pizza to get people in the door, gave out samples at a big local bank, street signage, I even got my landlord to cut a big tree down as we may have been alittle hidden coming into the plaza.

The shop is slightly up a hill/mountain in a very busy neighbourhood with cars lining up to get up the hill after work to get home. There must be at least 10,000 homes within 1-1.5 km’s surrounding the pizzeria. Theres only 4 places to eat up here, a sushi restaurant which is busy, a convenience store and a existing local chain pizzeria beside us in the other plaza that is doing the traditional conveyer belt, mediocre ingredients, thick with no crisp pizza, pasta, wings etc that I heard from previous employees that have worked their makes over $500k a year gross and they have 7-8 people running around in the back and 3 delivery drivers at peak times with no owner in sight and a grumpy manager who talks back to customers…I know gross numbers dont say much and they could be netting $50k with all that overhead but im essentially saying the business is there.

People come to us and are ecstatic there’s finally a pizza place like us open and swear they spread the word to everyone, we have amazing Facebook/google reviews, my service is above and beyond and I know people by name I don’t know if I could be friendlier, I treat everyone like friends and family. What do I do?

I really need this place to work I love what I do and am driven beyond belief, obsessed you could say. I just need to make a damn living with it and start paying myself, my wife is pregnant and we don’t want her to go back to work as we want her to be a stay at home mom that can bring in passive income in other ways as she’s extremely talented.

Sorry for the rambling. Thank you.
 
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Hey guys, my name is Johnny, i own Elevated Pizza Co in the Valley of BC close to Vancouver. elevatedpizzaco.ca

We do Italiana/New York pies and are about 6 months in and things are picking up but could be better. I really need my business to become more consistent and would appreciate any advice/help you guys may have to offer. We only have 12 specialty pies with a create your own option with one size only 14", 1 salad and a foccacia bread. We also have a Keto/Gluten Free option which is quite popular. We dont do delivery or slices or online ordering as these things i feel like just complicate the process and arent necessary. Our hours are Mon-Sat 3-8pm and Sundays closed.

We have a loyal following that love our pizza as there’s nobody else in the city doing this style of pizza. My goal is to reach an average of $1000 in sales a day miinimum, to me then we would have an established successful pizzeria. Right now we are doing an average of about $400/day. Its only me working right now by myself with 2 employees helping me friday and saturday at $13.85/hr which is minimum wage here.

Ive done all the marketing under the sun, a digital billboard, facebook/Instagram/google posts and ads, menu mailers to 5000 houses local to the pizzeria, 2 pizza parties for locals giving away free pizza to get people in the door, gave out samples at a big local bank, street signage, I even got my landlord to cut a big tree down as we may have been alittle hidden coming into the plaza.

The shop is slightly up a hill/mountain in a very busy neighbourhood with cars lining up to get up the hill after work to get home. There must be at least 10,000 homes within 1-1.5 km’s surrounding the pizzeria. Theres only 4 places to eat up here, a sushi restaurant which is busy, a convenient store and a existing local chain pizzeria beside us in the other plaza that is doing the traditional conveyer belt, mediocre ingredients, thick with no crisp pizza, pasta, wings etc that I heard from previous employees that have worked their makes over $500k a year gross and they have 7-8 people running around in the back and 3 delivery drivers at peak times with no owner in sight and a grumpy manager who talks back to customers…I know gross numbers dont say much and they could be netting $50k with all that overhead but im essentially saying the business is there.

People come to us and are ecstatic there’s finally a pizza place like us open and swear they spread the word to everyone, we have amazing Facebook/google reviews, my service is above and beyond and I know people by name I don’t know if I could be friendlier, I treat everyone like friends and family. What do I do?

I really need this place to work I love what I do and am driven beyond belief, obsessed you could say. I just need to make a damn living with it and start paying myself, my wife is pregnant and we don’t want her to go back to work as we want her to be a stay at home mom that can bring in passive income in other ways as she’s extremely talented.

Sorry for the rambling. Thank you.
Not what you want to hear but continue doing what you’re doing, be patient and it will come

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
 
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Not what you want to hear but continue doing what you’re doing, be patient and it will come

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk
I truely believe it will, just have to hang in there, im happy bills are being paid on time now and that real stress part is over. Just need to get into solid profitability territory.
 
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We’ve been open for a little over three months, and while our sales are higher (we have seating for 100 plus beer/wine) I have the same feeling of “we should be doing better than this”. I guess it just takes some time for a new restaurant to really catch on. In the mean time, fine tune all your processes, chase waste, and think of exciting new menu items. For us we are active on social media and host live music and trivia on a weekly basis. Would be interested to hear other people’s struggles out of the gates to let us newbies feel better that it’s not always lightning in a bottle from day 1.

David Sabino
Owner, Sabino’s Pizza Pub
Leander, TX
 
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In my pizza shop days on slow nights we delivered menus close to houses where deliveries were going…Usually 3 to 6 doors…With a hand written note saying we made a delivery in the neighbourhood wanted to drop our menu off…
 
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We’ve been open for a little over three months, and while our sales are higher (we have seating for 100 plus beer/wine) I have the same feeling of “we should be doing better than this”. I guess it just takes some time for a new restaurant to really catch on. In the mean time, fine tune all your processes, chase waste, and think of exciting new menu items. For us we are active on social media and host live music and trivia on a weekly basis. Would be interested to hear other people’s struggles out of the gates to let us newbies feel better that it’s not always lightning in a bottle from day 1.

David Sabino
Owner, Sabino’s Pizza Pub
Leander, TX
Your place looks amazing bro. I whole heartedly hope you do well!
 
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Took me 3 years to build up . Be patient. Continue what your doing .

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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