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NY to FL: Logging My Journey to Open a Pizzeria

Posting from Vegas via iPhone.

We’re married! Wedding was incredible. I couldn’t have imagined things turning out any better. The chapel did a wonderful job and took some amazing pictures. I’ll be sure to post some when I got home this weekend.

We arrived to the Expo today around noonish. Quite overwhelming. Emeril lagasse was there today! I should have made some sort of plan for things to focus on. There’s so much to take in in just 3 days. I’m meeting up with a friend of mine tomorrow who has been here before. Hopefully his experience will be helpful.

Anyone know where to get throw dough? I looked up and down every aisle and couldn’t find it.

Hope everyone who is Vegas this week is having a great time. So much to see!
 
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Congratulations.

And now welcome to the world of when you’re right you’re wrong, and when you are wrong you’re wrong to hell. 😛

Enjoy the show and hope that you find what you are looking for.

Hopefully I will get there from good ol’ Oz next year

Dave
 
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Way to go!..Enjoy your new life together and the hard work ahead…Both being married and being in business take tons of effort…Good luck…
 
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3/9/10 Home Sweet Home - Vegas Recap

We’re finally back in Florida. Took a little longer than expected with a plane delay on one of our connecting flights, but we finally made it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the wedding was absolutely incredible. We had just the right amount of people there, the pictures came out amazing (i’ll post something tonight) and we had a great time. We had gone to the buffet at the Bellagio the day before and everyone thought it’d be fun to head back there for our wedding lunch. The food was great and there were plenty of options to satisfy everyone.

Unfortunately, this was basically the beginning of the end of our trip, even though it was Monday afternoon and our return flight left Saturday. I started to feel a little off at the end of the lunch, and I immediately knew that sickness was upon me. By that night I had a high fever, dripping nose, sore throat and coughing fits. One of the worst nights sleeps ever!

I decided I was going to try and march on, so even being severely under the weather, we went to the Expo the following day anyway. About 30 minutes after being there, things being going south for the wife. This was truly the end of the vacation. Can’t have fun when the wife’s sick. haha.

The rest of the vacation was mostly spent in the room. I did head to the Expo without the wife the next few days as I began to feel better. I met with Madhu, the CEO of FSW. We had a great conversation about the industry and how we both got to where we were today. He was very insightful and opened my eyes to many aspects of the business that I need to be aware of in the future. I completely intend to use FSW for all my future purchases in the pizza industry.

We’ve decided that this honeymoon needs to be redone. Maybe next year in Vegas? Who knows, but this certainly can’t count.

I’m heading to work in a little bit. Time to get back to reality. Big stuff is going down these next few weeks. If all goes according to plan, this new married couple will own a pizzeria by April 1st!
 
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4/20/10 Over a Month Later…

I’ll go against the norm and make this post short.

We own the pizzeria now, I regularly work 12 hour days, but I still love it. It’s hard work as expected, but I’m very lucky to have had this opportunity. Now that I’m’ finally settling into a groove, my wife and I can begin to try and grow the business instead of just simply running it as is.

Posts may be sporadic since I’m so busy (doing payroll now at 1 AM) but I’ll be checking with more frequency.
 
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Congratulations on taking the 2nd biggest step in your life. Hope all your dreams and expectations happen as you wish.

Dave
 
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NYFLPizza:
4/20/10 Over a Month Later…

I’ll go against the norm and make this post short.

We own the pizzeria now, I regularly work 12 hour days, but I still love it. It’s hard work as expected, but I’m very lucky to have had this opportunity. Now that I’m’ finally settling into a groove, my wife and I can begin to try and grow the business instead of just simply running it as is.

Posts may be sporadic since I’m so busy (doing payroll now at 1 AM) but I’ll be checking with more frequency.
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How bout a little more information on the new pizza shop, some pics, some stories?
 
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No crazy stories to speak of yet. I had to handle a Friday night a bit shorthanded a couple weeks back because one of my employees couldn’t make it in. That left me telling the phone girls pickups would be 35-40 minutes. I wasn’t too happy about that, but at least it was busy enough for me to have to say it.

My goal right now is to find a way to increase our lunch sales. Our lunches are pretty sad right now. They typically represent only 10-20% of our entire day which doesn’t seem right to me. I have a delivery guy on now for all operating hours (used to be 4 PM - close), so I’ve had him hit up 20+ local businesses the other day to let them know that we’re delivering during all operating hours and also had him offer some big coupons for their first purchase. Any marketing ideas to help increase lunch sales? We have so many developments around the pizzeria that it’s just crazy that we’re not busier than we are. Anyone have opinions on something cheap and simple like door hangers? I can print out over a 1000 and easily have the delivery guy spend the next couple weeks getting those out.

My wife has finally quit her job (for numerous reasons) and has joined me at the pizzeria. I’ve been able to cut back on payroll with having her there, and she’s been a major asset in contributing to organized and efficient bookkeeping. Everyone loves our food, so I just need to get more people in the door. I can’t complain as we’re certainly turning a profit on the store, but with the huge loan I have to pay off, it’s not where I want it to be. Even if our #'s don’t improve, we’re going to get by, but this place has so much potential that I’ll feel like I’ve failed if these numbers don’t increase.
 
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If you product is “Good” and you “really believe” in it then give out some free ones. Our best promo ever done was to hit a new housing estate with a printed letter saying FREE PIZZA. This was also on the DL size envelope. It had “welcome to …(suburb)… Enjoy a FREE PIZZA” We letterboxed 95 and had 70 redemptions and have turned 50+ new customers.
We did because we know, and our customers tell us (some come from 20km away, passing 30 or so stores) that our pizzas are the best. We backed our belief and our customers comments and gave out the free ones and we turned these to new customers because our product really is good. The proof is evident
Word of caution … KNOW you product is unsurpassed, don’t blindly believe that it is. Then go give the freebies.
Giving out inferior product will do you more harm so make sure you do it better than anyone else.
We are doing 150 freebies to combat a National chain store opening night against who has pricing 1/3 of ours and then following up with unaddressed mailings to 200 houses across 5 neighbouring suburbs each 2 weeks apart with free pizza offer.
We will bring new customers in and retain existing customers with this strategy because we know our product is better
than anything around us. We know by experience once they taste our product they come back for more.
Cheap and effective marketing backed by confidence and proven quality in the product.

Dave
 
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Paradox_Pizza:
I have to ask, how did you go from looking at places in February to being open in April?
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To keep a long story short, my search for a pizzeria stopped when I was offered to buy the pizzeria where I had been working. The owner was the same guy I worked for in NY and have known for many years. It was far too good of an opportunity to pass up. I knew the numbers the store was doing and I knew the potential it had to grow. It was a no brainer offer for me. The price was right and the risk was minimal which is something I was tremendously worried about as any person would be who was planning on opening up a new business.

So that’s that. I now own D. Americo’s Pizzeria in Bradenton, FL. It’s been about a month and I finally have my wife here full time. My goal now is to focus on reaching out to new customers. I think our product is above and beyond any of our competitors, so once we get them in here their loyalty will remain with us.

We’re working on some door-hangers now, so any tips would be appreciated.
 
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I guess this thread was more interesting when it was the search for a pizzeria.

Now that the search is over, the buzz is gone…or maybe it’s just my fault with the lack of posts.

Either way, business has been okay since we’ve taken over. Things are out of season in the area, so #'s have decreased a bit, but nothing I’m overly concerned about.

I dont’ really know what to post about at t his point. If anyone has any questions I’ll do my best to check back and answer.
 
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Im in North Port, and will check your place out sometime this next week hopefully. It will be a nice to have good pizza besides my own. I cant find any down here. Looking for any help from an amateur pizza maker looking to learn?

Good luck.
 
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Freddy_Krugerrand:
How about some pics of the inside of the shop?
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Here are some pictures from facebook. They’re from a few months ago. There’s a few more pictures on the wall now, but not too much has changed.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...2074587340_171970417340_3448800_7269786_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...2074592340_171970417340_3448801_7013556_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...2074597340_171970417340_3448802_2063156_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...2074612340_171970417340_3448804_6383179_n.jpg

Looking at those floors and the way they were, it reminds me that we sure need to give them a good cleaning, more than the nightly sweep/mop.
 
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alasdair:
Im in North Port, and will check your place out sometime this next week hopefully. It will be a nice to have good pizza besides my own. I cant find any down here. Looking for any help from an amateur pizza maker looking to learn?

Good luck.
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Sounds like a plan. I actually have a my pizza guy back from his trip to NY that he’s been on the past month so I’m going to be in and out Monday and Tuesday. After that I’ll be there open to close for the rest of the week. As for pizza help, isn’t North Port a good 45 minutes from Bradenton? I’m still learning the area but I thought that was a bit south of here. My buddy is going to be heading back to USF in August so at that point I’m gonna need to start looking for a pizza guy. Sounds like a long commute for a pizza guy though…

Things have been crazy this past month. I’ve been in the pizzeria open to close every day since the first week of June. I finally got a day off today since we decided to close for July 4th. I took a look at last year’s numbers, and even being on a Saturday, the numbers were pathetic so I promised the wife we could close shop. In general, business has slowed a bit over the past couple months, about 15% or so. I’m so used to pizza life in NY, hiring extra guys during the summer because business picked up. It’s opposite of that here. It’s taken a while, but I finally have a good staff in here. We’re no longer over staffed which was something that drove me crazy. With less people everyone seems to be more cognizant of what’s going on. There are less people to rely on so everyone takes more responsibility. Saves me on payroll and also helps eliminate and prevent mistakes.

I just decided to do a few ads with Clipper Magazine; 3 full pages and a front cover. We’ve gotten a great response from a “Clipper Cash” promotion they were running so I’m looking forward to seeing the results on our own dedicated full page ad. I’ll scan the ad when it’s finalized and post it here. If anyone has any good coupons or other full page ad ideas let me know.
 
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Wow, place looks spotless. How long has it been around? Looks like the dining room could use some visual points of interest. Thought about tv’s?

Would love to see your ads. Three pages??? Did you print the full menu?
 
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pizzapirate:
Wow, place looks spotless. How long has it been around? Looks like the dining room could use some visual points of interest. Thought about tv’s?

Would love to see your ads. Three pages??? Did you print the full menu?
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Poor explanation on my part. 3 full page ads and a front cover. These 4 ads will be spread out over the course of 4 issues of the magazine. I’ll have a full page this month, a front cover in September, a full page in October and a full page ad in December.

The place has been open since October of 08’. These pictures were taken sometime in 2009. The place is still very clean, but there have been pictures added to the wall. We still only have the one TV now as shown in the 3rd picture. I need to get another one at some point. I’m trying not to splurge too much now on things like that. I’m dropping a few thousand on some new menus, direct mailers of the menus, and the Clipper Magazine ads so I’m going to hold off on the non-essentials for a few months.
 
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I’d suggest replacing that 26"-30" TV (I’m guessing) with a bigger 40"-46" TV. And center the TV in the middle of that wall so it is symmetrical. And maybe you can find a smaller wall for your current TV.

Place looks nice. I like the tile floors.
 
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