I am a Businessman

It’s turning out to be an interesting day.

I was distressed to learn that GFS charges tons of money to slice their cheese. Their provolone sells for under $3.00 per pound in a block, but it’s way higher in packaged slices. The figure escapes me, but I think it was something like six bucks. I started looking for a Craigslist slicer, figuring we might get a donation in exchange for a tax receipt, but then I decided to check out food service prices.

Costco mozzarella is swell, but you have to go get it. They don’t deliver in Miami. Grande makes wonderful cheese, but it’s wholesale-only. I decided to call Grande and see who the local distributors were. They gave me a rep’s number, and he referred me back to GFS, so I got a quote out of them. GFS referred me to a salesman who does their route business (as contrasted with walk-in), and the salesman said he might be able to do better on the price. That puts me below the Costco/GFS price and at least close to the price of Costco mozzarella by itself.

Oddly, Grande’s shredded cheese costs about what their blocks cost.

Anyway, the cheese problem is fixed. Either we get a slicer and keep doing what we’re doing, or we go with Grande. Week after next, they’ll give me some samples to play with!

I still need a small peel to pull little Sicilians out of the pan. I went to the local Ace Hardware, hoping they’d have steel dustpans, and sure enough, they did. For eight bucks. I bought one and kept the receipt. Then I hit Home Depot to look at their sheet metal. It’s flimsy and very expensive, so I didn’t buy.

While I was at Home Depot, I realized I had $3.99 aluminum pizza pans with thick rims. This is like 10% of the Home Depot cost for the same square footage of really thin, useless metal. So I’m going to put a pan in a clamp and hit it with the plasma cutter or use the table saw. In about two minutes, I’ll have a suitable piece of aluminum, and then I can bend it to suit my needs. I’ll keep the rim on one end to serve as a handle. You can’t beat that. I’m only out the cost of a pan, and I can grab a new one at GFS at my convenience.

Honestly, I do not understand metal prices. You would think the people who sell metal would realize they should charge less for raw materials than manufacturers charge for things made from them. I don’t know where I could get an 18″ circle of thick aluminum, but I’ll bet I’d have to pay thirty bucks.

This is tremendous fun. The people at my church feel like I’m doing them a favor, and that’s true, but I get to polish up my pizza technique and find out about the business. And the pizza is going to be fantastic. It will be a success in terms of sales, although I don’t know if the church will break even. Surely they will, though. No tax and no labor costs. If God continues to be as kind as he has been so far, we’ll do great.

The Bible criticizes people who make sanguine predictions about their businesses without mentioning the importance of God’s favor, so I try to throw it in when I talk about my expectations.