2

2/4/2011 2:37:49 PM

Good night, sweet prince

2/4/2011 2:38:16 PM

Quote :

"I dunno about all this. The Papa John's in Ft Bragg is the largest (in sales) in the SE US, maybe the whole thing. Does over $50K a week."

Listen dumbass. Papa Johns is a chain. They are at the other end of every rainbow the military men travel. No pun intended.

2/4/2011 2:38:26 PM

Quote :

"3. Government and Taxes 4. Fees and Licenses 5. Health, Fire, FOG program crap, code enforcement 6. Unnecessary insurance costs 7. Minimum wage 8. Utilities 9. Cost of Advertisements 10. Equipment failure and maintenance"

i'm sorry, but these are costs of ANY business (and i'm going to go ahead and assume that those "unnecessary insurance costs" or only unnecessary to you because you didn't need them...which can be said about all insurance)

you truly do have my sympathy...i would be devastated if i put that much time into something and had nothing to show for it but more debt...but these are all expected and easily researched before starting a business

2/4/2011 2:39:59 PM

Since the last post never gets read:

Quote :

"I think I asked this before but don't remember the answer...but what was your restaurant experience before going into this venture?? I remember you putting a lot of time into figuring out the recipe for the "perfect pizza", but I can't remember what you did before that. I think my previous question pertained to your bar experience. Either way...I forgot the answers to either question. To other posters...location is very important, but it can be overcome if you put out a good product, at a good price, and you run your restaurant well. Just reading from what you posted on t-dub, I don't think you knew what you were getting into. This coming from someone who has helped open three bars/restaurants and consulted on several others. I think 90% of people don't know what they're getting into when they open up a restaurant. I personally think it's one of the riskiest things a business owner can do. I feel for you and I hope it doesn't set you back too much and you can work your way out of it. In addition to the previous questions presented...what is your plan now?"

2/4/2011 2:41:52 PM

Quote :

"I figured military are young, stupid and wouldn't like to cook. They also don't care what they eat thanks to the shitty military food so they just buy cheap shit that fills them up for $5"

yup... definitely the location.. maybe you can move and feed your cheap shit to some other idiots

2/4/2011 2:42:05 PM

Quote :

"but these are costs of ANY business "

The rates are not proportional.


The larger the business, the smaller the rates.
The smaller the business, the larger the rates.

Fair it is not.

Why do you think people in big corporations are so rich and small business owners barely break even. Rich stay rich, poor stay poor.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 2:44 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2011 2:42:06 PM

My parents owned more than one business in a military town for over 10 years.. and they didn't end the businesses for that reason... just sayin, that shouldn't really be an excuse if you have a good business model

2/4/2011 2:42:14 PM

so how much you sellin for?

2/4/2011 2:43:21 PM

Quote :

"My parents owned more than one business in a military town for over 10 years.. and they didn't end the businesses for that reason... just sayin, that shouldn't really be an excuse if you have a good business model"

I'm not two people. I'm just one person. I do everything myself. I can't trust anyone and how much would it cost to buy someone's trust?

Answer: Too much.

2/4/2011 2:45:51 PM

Quote :

"so how much you sellin for?"

$125,000

2/4/2011 2:46:16 PM

http://www.allaroundpizza.com/index.php

2/4/2011 2:49:24 PM

Quote :

"The rates are not proportional. The larger the business, the smaller the rates. The smaller the business, the larger the rates. Fair it is not."

i understand and sympathize to a certain degree...but these issues were still things you could have researched prior to starting a business...for the most part, these are fairly set costs that you should have been able to factor in from the very beginning

in regards to insurance, i think the idea is that the larger a business is, the more resources they have to prevent the very things that will cause insurance claims...insurance companies are taking a much higher risk with a small business and the rates are higher for the same reason that a new driver's rates are higher

2/4/2011 2:50:10 PM

Quote :

"I mean, look at the places shown on Kitchen Nightmares and shows of that vein, many times they don't even realize that their food just isn't that good, or their costs are so out of hand because of the size of the menu, the staff sucks, or <insert reason here>. Sometimes you just get too close to the issues to make the tough calls."

agreed. this is true for other small businesses outside the food industry too. but i think food and retail small businesses are two of the most volatile areas for a small business owner to go into. i don't know any numbers, but it seems like the rate of failure in these two areas is just super high (perhaps higher than rates of success?). there are so many factors that go into it. just being a small business is automatically a huge setback because you are in competition with chains (and then people who have already made a name for themselves). not to mention all the other obstacles that have to be overcome.

as simple as it SEEMS it should be, a small business is a web of complex problems that aren't always apparent at the conception of the idea. like it always seems simple enough...it isn't an international corporation. but when your starting point is almost always the bottom of a hill...it is hard to get and KEEP up enough momentum to succeed. i dunno, i find small business really interesting because there doesn't seem to be a set formula that always yields success. there are those that seem to do everything as right as possible and fail, and others whose business philosophy seems to just be chaos and it works.

bottom line, i think a lot of people just don't realize what they are getting into which kinda makes them destined to fail from the beginning.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 2:52 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2011 2:50:54 PM

iop2

2/4/2011 2:53:43 PM

this guy isn't real right? seems like he's just been trolling us for a while

2/4/2011 2:59:26 PM

This thread doesn't end well

Some people are trying to be helpful (like quag and kadwackle) and others are just being cunts (like Samwise)

Genius is probably frustrated about the failure of his business

It's like a damn powder keg in here

Who will light the match?

^ He's real

2/4/2011 3:05:21 PM

That is a pretty terrible location. But you knew that when you started the place.

2/4/2011 3:07:35 PM

I've known him for quite a few years. Met him when I lived in Norfolk/Va Beach. He is very real...


I actually just got off the phone with him. He's not in a good spot right now. That pizza joint was his first love, yo

2/4/2011 3:07:42 PM

i don't believe it.

i'm convinced he's just a really boring version of Amsterdam

2/4/2011 3:08:04 PM

He's more real than most TWWers

His life is an open book on the Internets

It's very easy to verify that he is who he says he is

Also, he posted his cock on CampusBlender

2/4/2011 3:08:44 PM

I wish he would answer my questions. I'm very intrigued.

2/4/2011 3:26:35 PM

seems like you're blaming everyone but yourself

2/4/2011 3:34:26 PM

Quote :

"7. Minimum wage"

result not unforeseeable.

2/4/2011 3:35:51 PM

Since the obvious question never gets answered:

Quote :

"I think I asked this before but don't remember the answer...but what was your restaurant experience before going into this venture?? I remember you putting a lot of time into figuring out the recipe for the "perfect pizza", but I can't remember what you did before that. I think my previous question pertained to your bar experience. Either way...I forgot the answers to either question. To other posters...location is very important, but it can be overcome if you put out a good product, at a good price, and you run your restaurant well. Just reading from what you posted on t-dub, I don't think you knew what you were getting into. This coming from someone who has helped open three bars/restaurants and consulted on several others. I think 90% of people don't know what they're getting into when they open up a restaurant. I personally think it's one of the riskiest things a business owner can do. I feel for you and I hope it doesn't set you back too much and you can work your way out of it. In addition to the previous questions presented...what is your plan now?"

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 3:50 PM. Reason : ]

2/4/2011 3:50:10 PM

Quote :

" I figured military are young, stupid and wouldn't like to cook. They also don't care what they eat thanks to the shitty military food so they just buy cheap shit that fills them up for $5"

2/4/2011 4:02:49 PM

And to think, if the government just required you and your competition to pay more for labor, you would be swimming in money like scrooge mcduck

2/4/2011 4:07:04 PM

It looks like a decent place from the pictures, sucks man, the problem with trying to live the dream is sometimes it's a nightmare.

2/4/2011 4:26:18 PM

Quote :

"I figured military are young, stupid and wouldn't like to cook. They also don't care what they eat thanks to the shitty military food so they just buy cheap shit that fills them up for $5 "

Wait, did you just call your own pizza "cheap shit"? No wonder you're out of business. Never underestimate the palates of customers.

Quote :

"3. Government and Taxes 4. Fees and Licenses 5. Health, Fire, FOG program crap, code enforcement 6. Unnecessary insurance costs 7. Minimum wage 8. Utilities 9. Cost of Advertisements 10. Equipment failure and maintenance Try paying for all of that while making profit on a $5 pizza."

Instead of blaming everything else but yourself, did it occur to you that maybe $5 was too low of a price? If you're so worried about competition from your giant chain competitors that are much more efficient operations, how did you think you could undercut their price by half or more and still turn a profit? Maybe you should have tried paying for all that while making profit on an $8 pizza (or more).

2/4/2011 4:35:24 PM

Quote :

"I'm not two people. I'm just one person. I do everything myself. I can't trust anyone and how much would it cost to buy someone's trust? Answer: Too much."

My dad was in the hospital with leukemia for over a year during these business' duration. And during the time where the businesses overlapped, my mom worked one place and my dad the other. Stop trying to blame this on a military town, basically.


Oh and sorry you lost your business


and walkmanfades, call me a cunt all you want but blaming a town isn't going to fix this guy's problem.. sucks he has to go through this, but whining about location isn't going to help :\

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 4:54 PM. Reason : C U Next Tuesday!]

2/4/2011 4:52:47 PM

Well isn't your dad a fucking hero

I should disclose that I was a major investor in All Around Pizza

2/4/2011 6:23:52 PM

I will admit that place looks kinda cool

pick everything up, transport it to raleigh and serve beer and you have yourself a customer

2/4/2011 6:32:46 PM

I think that would be more of a hipster dive than for the military crowd

if your shit was really that good try to get something like Lilly's going but walking distance from a smaller college with less food options nearby

and thoroughly research the alternatives and competition

2/4/2011 6:36:04 PM

that clearly doesnt belong in a military town, you have no strippers

2/4/2011 6:38:50 PM

or a tattoo parlor in the back

2/4/2011 6:39:29 PM

really they just need fat, ugly sluts. he should advertise on CL or plentyoffish

2/4/2011 6:40:19 PM

sorry for your loss.

2/4/2011 6:41:46 PM

1st off I am sorry you are going through a tough time man

Business (like war) is hell. If you are on the winning side then life is good. Though if you are on the loosing side
of the battle it can knock you down and rob your sense of pride.
Try to keep your head up.
See if you can't sell your place to some other larger local chain and still be a part of the process. I know it ain't the
same as owning your own joint but maybe it can help you climb out of some of the debt.
My company over the years has acquired other smaller school photography companies and we have kept
the majority of those folks around as part of our company while helping them turn their situation around into a positive experience. Obviously school photography and pizza joints
are light years apart in terms of customer base but hopefully my comparison makes some sense.

2/4/2011 6:41:57 PM

Quote :

"that would be why people don't go into the food industry. owning a restaurant is tough shit."

A former boss said basically this to me many times.

Quote :

"And to think, if the government just required you and your competition to pay more for labor, you would be swimming in money like scrooge mcduck"

I lol'd, but only because there are people that actually believe this.

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 6:47 PM. Reason : ]

2/4/2011 6:45:11 PM

I realize this thread is about running a local pizza joint ....which I am not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

2/4/2011 6:47:46 PM

Next time put your pizza shop near a bunch of drunk single people, or near a dense commercial district (lunch business). Not a strip mall in the middle of nowhere.

2/4/2011 6:50:45 PM

Quote :

"but only because there are people that actually believe this."

in another thread he said the way minimum wage worked gave other restaurants an unfair advantage

i asked him; ignoring the fact that your labor will go up too, how does making other businesses help you?

he never had an answer

and now he is out of business

so i guess i was wrong, those other businesses labor wages put him out of business

2/4/2011 6:56:20 PM

Quote :

"Fair it is not."

Then move to China.

2/4/2011 7:00:27 PM

Your answer to inequality is to move to a country with even more inequality. Greeeaatt

[Edited on February 4, 2011 at 7:10 PM. Reason : .]

2/4/2011 7:09:51 PM

Quote :

"3. Government and Taxes 4. Fees and Licenses 5. Health, Fire, FOG program crap, code enforcement 6. Unnecessary insurance costs 7. Minimum wage 8. Utilities 9. Cost of Advertisements 10. Equipment failure and maintenance Try paying for all of that while making profit on a $5 pizza. "

There's a lot of truth to this. I'm from a small town and have seen several small businesses go down over the last few years that were started in the 40's, 50's, or 60's. Mainly it has to do with rising taxes, cost of labor, and new competition. Think about all the mom and pop stores that have been put out of business by Wal-Mart.

My dad owns an underground storage tank, and hasn't had gas in there for years, but he still had to pay taxes on it until he got frustrated with increasing rates and had it removed about a year ago.

2/4/2011 7:10:29 PM

Quote :

"Next time put your pizza shop near a bunch of drunk single people, or near a dense commercial district (lunch business). Not a strip mall in the middle of nowhere."

It's easier said than done when you aren't in charge of choosing where to set up shop. I was dependent on a person to give me a shot. The person who decided to finance me chose where the shop was going to be. I found him in the classified ads in the news paper. He had a failing shop, I took over it, lasted 4 times as long as he did and he had 30 years of business experience under his belt

2/4/2011 7:21:00 PM

Quote :

"The location just isn't good! They built the shopping center so stupid"

Who chose the location? Nobody forced you to choose it. And "I didn't know it would suck, they didn't tell me this location sucked" is a piss poor excuse. You didn't do any research.

Quote :

"yeh, it's impossible to make it when I'm in a town of military people. All of my regulars leave after 6 months!"

Who chose the town? You did. Again. RESEARCH!

Quote :

"Then you got pizza hut and papa johns hogging up all the advertisement and undercutting the small business owners."

That's why you research your competitors before choosing a location and starting a business.

Quote :

"Then you got the government that makes it illegal to put advertisement on cars, mailboxes, and on people's doors in apartment complexes"

The big chains are hit by those same limitations.

Quote :

"Essentially, I had to pay everyone else to work my ass off. Yay capitalism."

Capitalism allows you to succeed. It also allows you to fail just as much as you could succeed. You could end up making millions, or losing millions. Nobody made you take the gamble.

Quote :

"I figured military are young, stupid and wouldn't like to cook."

"I figured" isn't research. Speculating isn't research. Looking up statistical data, or creating your own statistical data is research.

Quote :

"3. Government and Taxes 4. Fees and Licenses 5. Health, Fire, FOG program crap, code enforcement 6. Unnecessary insurance costs 7. Minimum wage 8. Utilities 9. Cost of Advertisements 10. Equipment failure and maintenance"

Who's fault is it that you didn't budget your money properly? As much as you would like to blame the government or the "system," it's your fault for not doing research.

Quote :

"Listen dumbass. Papa Johns is a chain. They are at the other end of every rainbow the military men travel. No pun intended."

Before you call people "dumbass," you're the one with a failed business, in debt and unemployed. I hate to be mean, but you're blaming everyone but yourself. You didn't do any research. You didn't investigate any past pizza places that were once in the area and investigated why they failed or how long they lasted.

If you wanted to open an ice cream place and you did research on a town and found out that there in the past 10 years, 3 ice cream places had opened and lasted a year or less, are you going to seriously open an ice cream place in that area, much less the same exact store? If you do, I don't feel sorry for you.

Quote :

"The rates are not proportional. The larger the business, the smaller the rates. The smaller the business, the larger the rates. Fair it is not."

Fair has nothing to do with this. Life isn't fair. Get over it and move on. If you knew the rates weren't the same before you started the business, then why didn't you account for them? If you didn't know, why didn't you look them up?

Again. YOUR fault.


I'm sorry your business failed. But stop blaming others for your failure. Own up to your failure and learn from it. If you blame everyone else, you will have gained nothing and you wouldn't have grown from this. Take this negative and try to get as many positive things from it as possible. Learn something.

2/4/2011 7:21:30 PM

Again...what was your restaurant experience going into this?

2/4/2011 7:23:04 PM

Quote :

". Life isn't fair."

Life isn't fair, true, but America strives to be. It's why we live in America.

2/4/2011 7:23:07 PM

Lets dump everything we know about pizza joints in here, TWW; technical, political, financial, everything is welcome. This in my new industry, I am investing all my money and time and I need your help. I've been taking classes in this for a while now and will be doing much more in the near future culminating in a new business venture to begin within a year. I have just broken my arm so I have lots of down time and can't really study that hard because of the meds, so lets just chat it up for the next few days. I especially hope to hear from all of the encouraging, helpful people from whom I've been receiving PM's. Lets get it all out there and discuss it, maybe even get some google docs going. By day, you can grind away at your engineering jobs but your heart can be here with me in Florida. Our mission is to reach critical mass and start a pizza revolution!

2/4/2011 7:23:43 PM