Pizza Magnate
March 7th, 2010Volume Volume Volume
I just made about five million pizzas.
I arrived at church this morning at 7:30, and I quit working at around 3:30. I am not sure how many pizzas I actually made. I couldn’t keep up with demand, but then I’m pretty slow.
Judging by mozzarella usage, I made 22 pies. But that sounds high.
I weigh the mozzarella, and I use 7.5 ounces per pie, and I went through over ten pounds.
Anyway, it was easily the most hideous spectacle that has ever been witnessed. Pies were all over the place. Cheese was airborne during much of the day. Fans peeked in to gawk at me. I brought two pies out, and some kid said, “Now that’s what I’m TALKIN’ ’bout! God BLESS you, sir!”
I need a pizza Renfield, to spread cheese and eat spiders. Mostly the cheese thing. Spiders haven’t been a problem.
Even if his name isn’t Renfield, I need an assistant. It’s out of control. And we need a 30-quart mixer, because making dough 58 times in a 5-quart mixer is killing me.
My methods are getting more streamlined. I measure the flour and water to the gram now, and I put the water and yeast mix in the bowl before the flour. That reduces the dry stuff that ends up in the bottom of the bowl, and it makes things mix better and more predictably.
Here, let me give you a present: 580 grams flour, 340 grams water (with 1 teaspoon yeast per cup added), 2 teaspoons salt, 2 teaspoons pepper. That should be nearly 100% reliable, if you use flour like mine. I’m using Golden Tiger high-gluten flour, so I guess any bread flour will be pretty close.
Do I recommend Golden Tiger flour? No, because it seems like every flour makes good pizza. But Golden Tiger works.
If we sold 19 or 20 pizzas today, which should be about right, the church made at least $200. Net. Okay, net not including electricity and gas, but work with me here. I’m talking food cost. If we could get people to come into that cafe every day the church is open, we could bring in $50,000 per year. That’s certainly more than I intend to donate. It’s worth the effort.
If I keep this up, I should be able to make the church $15,000 per year on our current schedule. They need to get with it.
They were trying to discourage me from making more pizza toward the end, because the people who work in the cafe like to clean up and get home early. But I knew the pies would sell. I told Pastor Marcus I “guaranteed” it, although that was a huge lie, because if they hadn’t sold, I would have just dumped the dough in the trash. I had unbaked crusts for three pies left over at the end, and I said a prayer that someone would take them, and one of my armorbearer buddies called and said they needed three pies. Then a fourth guy showed up and said he wanted one, and he was SOL.
Late in the day, I pointed out that we had made a three-figure sum, and that if I had to throw out two entire pies with pepperoni, it would amount to six or seven bucks. But if we sold them, it would be twenty to twenty-four bucks for the church.
It’s hard to make Christians think in terms of capitalism. I think I’m the only person there who cares at all if the place makes money.
The pizzeria I looked at grossed something like $700 per day. That means they sold maybe two and a half times the pizza I sold today, using a huge mixer and a bona fide oven, without a bunch of people getting in the way and selling other stuff and socializing the way they do at church. That place was probably open twelve hours a day. We ran five and a half hours today, and most of the last hour was dead time, and we only had one person making pizza, using pretty bad equipment. This is not that hard. I was there for two and a half hours getting ready, but that time would be greatly reduced if we had the right equipment.
If I had a real mixer, I could make dough once a day. I could work the yeast amount out so I could make the dough days in advance. If I could do that, I’d kill half of the work. Today I had to make two-pizza batches, what, eleven times? Insane. And every time, I had to wash my hands over and over, because I was doing repetitous jobs involving flour and oil. With a real mixer and a dough sheeter, I could fire out twenty-five pizzas at a shot, dump the doughs in oiled pans, and stack them on racks to rise. I’d only have to touch the dough once, so I wouldn’t spend an hour and a half a day washing my hands. Little things like this add up.
I also had to make sauce, which is a pain. From now on, I’m making one huge batch a week. It keeps forever. It’s stupid to make 75-ounce batches the way I’ve been doing. The sauce cans hold 107 ounces, so from now on, I’ll do 200-ounce batches. Each one will use a whole can.
I bought a huge can of cheap Berio olive oil and I got a 2-liter squeeze bottle, like the ones athletes drink from. Now I have no oil mess to deal with. I used to pour oil out of a jug, dripping all over the kitchen. That’s behind me.
I need a wall clock. The church will never get around to buying one. For three bucks, I can actually know what time it is, instead of guessing when a service is going to end and a giant crowd is going to hammer the cafe. As it is now, I have to remember to fish out my cell phone and check. That’s fun, when I have pepperoni grease on my hands. I could wear a watch, but clocks are better, especially when you’re working with a big mixer that can break bones.
I bought the church a decent kitchen timer. The one we had refused to stick to anything; the magnet was pathetic. I could never read it. And the alarm was horrible, and the controls were counterintuitive. Now I have one I can stick to the stainless steel wall by the convection oven.
This is all tremendous fun. I hope it will make money for the church, or that it will make money for me if I can’t get them to take it seriously.
I better call Mike and make him eat his liver.
I am a good friend.
March 7th, 2010 at 7:31 PM
Now if you could just get them on board with a soda dispenser. Did you that the medium size McDonald’s Coke only costs-11 cents which is basically the cup, lid and straw price. It’s all profit.
What irks me about some church’s (and this would be my husband’s church as an example), they are always preaching they need money for this or that, but when you come to them with real ideas & solutions for making money, they don’t want to be bothered. Instead they want to send out letters talking about “equal sacrifice” for everyone to donate stocks, bonds, jewelry, etc. What’s wrong with making money instead of having to beg for it?
Glad everything is going so well on the pizza front.
March 7th, 2010 at 8:16 PM
Here’s interesting news.
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I priced fountain soda. Here is what I came up with. You pay about $90 for five gallons of syrup. It makes thirty gallons of Coke. Multiply thirty by 128 to get the number of ounces. Divide by 12 to get the number of servings. Divide by $90 and invert. Result: about 28¢ per serving.
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That doesn’t include a cup, which will put you over 30¢.
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Costco 12-ounce can: 30¢. No cup. No fountain. No CO2. No ice. No costly free refills.
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Hard to believe.
March 7th, 2010 at 10:46 PM
McDonald’s must be getting it cheaper somehow.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:58 AM
If you are doing large volume, generic syrup pays off. ~$30 for 5 gallons. I worked in a bar during college when the generic stuff was closer to $20. The owners charged $2 for a “Coke”.
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Now, a lot of the good pizzerias around here (North/Central NJ, so there are GOOD pizzerias here) still stick w. bottled/canned soda. Less hassle. You just need a few big ‘fridges.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:39 AM
Steve, is that going by the price of the syrup sold online, or did you contact the local distributors? Because I believe the latter is cheaper, as they lock you in(IE, if you sign up with Coke, you can’t sell Pepsi Products).
And I think you’re math is off:
Going by the prices on Costco business, They get $65 bucks for 5 gallons of Coke Syrup($.204/12ounces), vs a case of Coke in cans($.36/12 ounce can). Interestingly, there is no price difference at Costco between the 16 ounce Solo cold cup and the 21 ounce. Also interesting is the lids cost as much as the cups. – Not counting C02 and water, a 21 ounce drink with lid costs – both are roughly a nickel – So a 21 ounce drink will cost you 45 cents – You can probably sell them for $1.75, almost double what you can get for a 12 ounce can of Coke.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:43 AM
That sounds high to me. Are you factoring in how much ice is in a cup? Instant money. Cans sure are easy though, and nothing’s worse than mediocre, flat fountain soda, plus cleaning the nozzles every night is a pain.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:41 AM
Back when I was a physics TA, I gave no credit for answers presented without calculations. I don’t want to piece together your reasoning. Can you show me the math? Everything I wrote appears to be correct.
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If the price for 30 gallons of soda is as you say, 12 ounces of soda cost over twenty cents before the straw, cup, ice, and CO2. Still no bargain. According to business owners, free refills multiply the average serving cost by 1.5, so even at 20 cents, the real cost is 30, and that’s before the cost of CO2 and so on.
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I can’t force people to buy 21-ounce drinks. No one would sit still for that. Around here, you either get a pint-size cup or a selection of cups in varying sizes.
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I got my information from forums in which restaurant owners discussed their problems with Coke and Pepsi. People think Coke kisses customers’ rear ends, giving away machinery and cups and selling syrup for almost nothing. That’s completely wrong, especially after the Gore-powered increase in the price of corn. Overwhelmingly, business owners complain that Coke treats them like dirt and makes soda fountains expensive to run.
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Coke doesn’t make an effort to market to business owners. They only care about the end consumer.
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Another fun fact: while you can buy Coke-branded fountains on Craigslist, if Coke’s people see them in your business and think they belong to Coke, they may try to confiscate them. This also goes for coolers. Anyone who buys a branded beverage cooler as part of a restaurant sale faces the possibility of having it hauled away.
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I should also point out that my calculation was based on 3840 ounces of soda. This was just mathematical shorthand, to make things convenient. If you check out the actual dilution ratio, the correct figure is 3680, which means my figure was generous.
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I haven’t seen Coke 5-gallon BIBs for $65; the lowest recent price I’ve seen coming from a person who actually bought it was $83, but perhaps you get a better deal in your area
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Costco business delivery is not available here.
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As for ice being free, well, not quite.
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The pizzeria owner I visited said he bought Coke at the drugstore. I thought he was nuts until he explained the math. He was right. While he bought the bulk of his beverages wholesale, when he needed to fill in gaps, Coke was uncooperative and expensive, and local drugstore specials were actually cheaper.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:13 AM
There’s a new burger chain that’s been opening up in Colorado called “Smashburger”. They have one drink size. Medium.
I think it’s fine.
Costco 12-ounce can: 30¢ (Hey, why are you selling this to me for 1$ when I can get them from Costco for 30 cents?)
Fountain, about 28¢ per serving (I have no idea how much this costs. A dollar doesn’t seem like much at all.)
March 8th, 2010 at 10:20 AM
The 28¢ is an illusion. With the can you pay for the soda, straw, and refrigeration. With the fountain, you have lots of other expenses, as pointed out already.
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I never felt cheated when buying a can of soda. Quite the opposite. Because of the “two cents a serving” myth, which is an urban legend nearly everyone knows, I’m more likely to feel cheated when buying a fountain drink.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:03 PM
Pepsi is way more cooperative, in my experience, in giving up free cups and other stuff, but personally I’d much rather have a super cold can of Coke anytime. Trouble starts when someone wants a cup and ice for it, of course, but if there isn’t a cup in the building it’s a lot easier to stop the whining.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:04 PM
Seems like everyone says that about Pepsi. I think Pepsi is pretty nasty stuff when it’s not ice cold, but one of the strongest pizzerias around here sells it, so it doesn’t seem to hurt business. One of the good things about it is that wherever you see a Pepsi fountain, there’s a pretty good chance you can get Dr. Pepper, the king of all cola-like beverages. Maybe they tend to work through the same bottlers.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:05 AM
Steve, according to Costco’s business website, you can order online and get it shipped. Here’s the page for Syrup
Free refills? I don’t know ANY Pizzeria that does that. Also, I don’t know any pizza place that doesn’t have a fountain if they have seating – most people are going to order from the fountain.
Also, I think you’ll find that the 20 ounce bottles typically outsell the cans. If you really want to make money – SELL BEER.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:16 AM
I know you’re trying to help, but sometimes your comments insult my intelligence.
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I contacted Costco a long time ago about foodservice. I wrote about it here. You should have given me credit for this when I said they don’t provide business delivery in my area, instead of assuming I was making it up.
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Paying for UPS would be pretty stupid, given their reliability issues and the expense of shipping heavy items. We have plenty of foodservice companies here, who will gladly drop BIBs off at the back door. I’m sure Costco doesn’t have a monopoly.
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Why I would want this service is a mystery, given the trouble and dubious profitability of soda fountains. The “two cents a cup” myth has been shattered beyond any doubt. I see no reason to pursue that line of thinking until there is some fundamental change in the economics. Given that our reasoning has taken us this far, there is no point in struggling to find a way to get unwanted BIBs delivered.
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You don’t know of any pizzerias that provide free refills. Okay. That has no relevance to my market. Again, you’re assuming I just fell off the turnip truck.
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Your opinion on the sales potential of the big bottles is fine as far as it goes, but it’s unsupported and counterintuitive. Down here, the standard is 12-ounce cans. It works. It worked when I was a kid. If people start clamoring for 20-ounce bottles, there is no reason why I can’t switch. They will fit in the same cooler. Some places sell both sizes, plus two-liters. In any case, the idea of forcing people to buy 21-ounce cups is never going to work.
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If I wanted to sell beer, I’d open a bar. I don’t want the headaches of drunken customers, and I don’t want the liability issues that arise when they leave and wreck their cars. Tom Monaghan has more money than he knows what to do with, and he didn’t have to sell beer to make it.