I’ve been in the pizza business for about a year and a half (and, since I don’t make my own dough, I’m sure many people will tell you I’m still not in the pizza business) and I don’t know if I can recommend my path to get here, though it has worked for me. When I decided that this was what I wanted to do, I took a retail job at a small, family owned business where I was probably overqualified, but I learned all about ordering, receiving and tracking inventory, and so many other things that go into running your own small business that I still use today. I also tried to absorb any information I could. I watched shows like Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible and Bar Rescue, through the prism of knowing that they are edited and produced for television, to see where many people go wrong. Then I would take those ideas and research issues in real life situations, concentrating on things like food safety first of all. Even after taking over and, according to customer feedback, improving the place, I have been constantly learning new things any chance I can. Places like right here, the PMQ and Pizza Today magazines, and just talking to other restaurant owners. My supplier sales reps were a big help. Keep in mind that their job is to sell you things, but it’s also in their interest for your business to be successful, because the more you sell, the more you buy. Going to the NAPICS show this week brought a ton of information too. We made mistakes in the beginning. The most expensive being buying equipment in the that we didn’t know wouldn’t fit our needs. We still make mistakes, but we have gotten better at managing them and their effect. About 6 months ago, after a disagreement with my family about the direction of our business, I left and took a job training to manage a Subway. There I learned a ton about streamlining operations and got ideas for how I could adapt those into my own higher quality ingredients. When we both realized we were better off with each other than apart, I came back after a month and a half with a renewed desire to take this place higher and higher. We’re finally moving towards that now, although it’s going slower than I would like.
This is a long winded way of saying that experience can come from any number of different places. There are some things that you just plain can’t learn until you get your hands in some cheese and get your knuckles burnt a few times on the oven. But the more info you can absorb, the better you can lessen the pain of your mistakes. Also keep in mind how the info you gather relates to your specific situation. Good luck!
