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they stay in business because there are people like me who try our best to keep our dollars in the local economy and support the independently owned businesses even if it costs a bit more. In the long run it is cheaper than having empty store fronts, unemployed teens and besides I don't think somebody like Papa John who threatened to cut hours of his emploees to avoid health insurance has the best interests of the local community in mind.
In my hometown among many chains there is a local place and it is really good but we wondered how they would stay in business. What we noticed is the owner works basically all the time and has very limited staff. He also offers a special deal on a certain small pizza but other items are regular price so I think the deal brings some in but then people order extras which helps make profit.
The owner made a point how he likes to work also because he makes sure the food is as consistently good with little mistakes as possible. When you have others do it the product sometimes lacks.
Let's see - you can shape a pizza in juuuust around 2 minutes, on average (a professional hard-core competetive pizzamaker can do it in less than 1 minute but not everyone gets to live in NYC, Jersey, or New Haven). It takes between 7-11 minutes for the average finished pizza to cook properly. Your average pizza prep counter can hold 4 pizzas at a time. There are almost always 2 pizzamakers at the counter - one making the pizzas, one making calzones and other dough-based products. There's always someone in the kitchen in back making the subs, and if it's an actual restaurant, a 4th person cutting the dinner dishes (such as lasagna and gnocchi) and prepping those for takeout/dine-in customers.
Dinner prep takes under 2 minutes too, and those dishes sell for between $8 and $20, including a 10-cent salad that lets them charge around $2 more than the actual meal costs them to make. The included bread and 2 pats of butter also give them another $2 profit over the 8-cent cost to the shop. Heat time for those meals is around 10 minutes each.
On average, during the typical supper hour (5:30-6:30, midweek, not including weekends) my local pizzeria will sell 20 pizzas (three pizza ovens), maybe 15 subs, 5 manicotti dinners, 5 lasagna dinners, and maybe 5 family-sized calzones. That's just one hour, midweek.
Double that on Saturdays. And that's just ONE hour during the day. He's open at 11AM, the kitchen is closed at 9PM (he's open til 10). But this is an area where we have a lot of pizza-lovers. And plenty of pizza joints to choose from. In New Haven, Pepe's line is out the door on Saturdays, even though there are 5 other pizza joints that do a slamming business within ONE city block of them. New Haven really is the pizza mecca of the world
Dinner prep takes under 2 minutes too, and those dishes sell for between $8 and $20, including a 10-cent salad that lets them charge around $2 more than the actual meal costs them to make. The included bread and 2 pats of butter also give them another $2 profit over the 8-cent cost to the shop. Heat time for those meals is around 10 minutes each.
Please provide actual product costs for the actual amounts used in these dishes to substantiate your claims. Feel free to use prices at Restaurant Depot as your basis (there's one nearby in Milford).
I'm specifically interested in that 10 cent salad. What goes in there?
In other words, your numbers aren't supported by reality.
not everyone gets to live in NYC, Jersey, or New Haven).
If you happen to live in or near the Stroudsburgs in the Poconos, and you've moved there from the NYC/NJ area you are probably wondering what the hell is wrong with the pizza out here. The solution is to go to Napoli in Shawnee. The owner is originally from Naples and also has shops in Fort Lee. They make real New Jersey style thin-crust pizza. Until they opened about 6 or 7 years ago I thought I'd never eat good pizza again!
If the pizza place is really good and well known for having great pizza it will stay in business. I have one by me that I go to at least once a week. There are several others in my area but are not as good as Gio's. Plus I believe in supporting local business owners rather than chains. If you know Brooklyn NY then you know L&B Spumoni gardens. They have great pizza and the rest of their food is good too.http://www.spumonigardens.com/home.html
Pizza ingredients are probably not the biggest cost; rent and labor are, these costs and to a certain extent won't increase too much with volume. If a local pizza place can sell enough volume they stay in business, if not, not in business.
If busy, a pizza place can sell a lot of slices very quickly.
The pizza place down the street from me sells everything from garlic bread to pasta to grinders, appatizers, not just pizza and the traditional stuff that goes with it (wings, cheezy bread, etc). They also have different pizza sauces (white, buffalo) and more "specialty" pizza's which is why they have the different sauces. National pizza chains only have as far as I can tell the red sauce, not a lot of "speciality" pizzas and not a whole lot of variety. Out of a 6 week span I'll probably order pizza 4 times a week; 3 times from the locally owned place, 1 time from the national chain.
I live in the Chicago area and have worked in no less than 4 pizza places during college and even after for a while. When I was in college the place I worked for routinely did 80-100 pies per hour during dinner rush and bar rush (late night after bars close) on weekends. It was a madhouse with all five lines ringing at once and so many tickets lined up we had no where to hang them. Typically there were three people on phones, two slapping dough, three to four on the make line, one on ovens, and one routing the deliveries. Friday and Saturday nights brought in thousands of dollars. That place stayed busy outside of the rush hours with averages around 20 pie hours.
These were thin crust pizzas so the cook time wasn't as long as pan or stuffed. We didn't do anything besides pizza and drinks. There was a huge profit margin as long as the people on the make line didn't go crazy with the ingredients, particularly the cheese (the most expensive pizza item). Wasn't the most fantastic pizza around but it was priced right and delivered fast.
The others I worked for had more diverse menus and longer cook/delivery times but still turned out quite a few pies per hour.
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