Free Pizza

Last night, I believe I moved 6 pizzas, not including two I had to bake and give away. The cafe didn’t get much business.

The pastor who does the Tuesday services has a policy of locking the cafe doors while he’s preaching, to keep people in the sanctuary. That means you sell maybe two pizzas before the service, and then you get another chance at around 9:30 p.m., while people are leaving. So there is a limit to what you can do.

A couple of weeks ago I sold around 20 pizzas on a Tuesday. I’m not sure how that happened. I think they promoted it during the service.

Anyway, I’m thinking I should drop Tuesdays. It’s not worth it to drive up there and spend six hours just to make the church $60. And that figure is reduced when I have to throw out ingredients due to bad business. I can show someone else how to do it. I’m planning to write a manual.

Trinity is a church, not a restaurant. That means they want people in the sanctuary, not the cafe. I believe I overestimated their interest in making the cafe run at a profit. The church has a huge mortgage to pay, and the impression I got from what I was told was that they would like the cafe to do well, but now I think I may have misunderstood. I think they just want a credible cafe that runs briefly for short periods on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and if it runs at a loss, it’s okay, as long as it’s not a big loss.

I have to get serious about finding people to do what I do. I’m supposed to be an armorbearer, and the head armorbearer needs me on Sundays, so I need to free myself up. Knowing the way the church runs, I know the cafe might not exist in three months, but the armorbearers will always be needed. I want to be where I’ll do some long-term good.

We could net the church $50,000 or so per year if we made an effort. More, if we really tried. But maybe that would require putting too much energy into business.

It can be frustrating, trying to help a church. People get very excited about projects when they start, but after a short time, the energy tends to disappear, and things just peter out. I had a warehouse full of construction materials I wanted to give the church, and they were interested at first, but over a year later, nothing had happened. I couldn’t get anyone to come check it out. In the end, all this stuff was given away to the person who cleaned out the warehouse. I could have sold it myself and given the church the money.

Maybe the best way to help a church is not to give them your ideas. Maybe the smart move is to keep your ideas, make the money yourself, and give out of the proceeds. The cafe is never going to make money running twelve hours a week, but a pizzeria could make me money, and I could support the church out of the profits.

I’ll say this. I’ve learned a great deal working at the cafe. I’m much more efficient than I used to be. Last night I arrived at 5:30, and by 6:30, I had a whole bunch of crusts rising in pans, and there was pizza ready to eat.

Our new mixer will be here next week. Once we get that, I should be able to come in early, make 20 crusts, and then leave the rest of the work to other people. That should get me out of the kitchen so I can do my other job.

I don’t know where we’re headed, but so far, it’s been tremendous fun.