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A dark cloud descends upon Minneapolis. From the farthest depths of the netherworld, a seemingly unstoppable trinity has arisen to subvert the world’s populace and bring about their ultimate plot of global destruction through the pizza industry! Pollutants in pizza ingredients! Pollutants from delivery vehicles! Pollutants from tons of unnecessary trash! Can no one stand against the overwhelming might of the Pizza Gang?! Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Harmony, our superheroes from Galactic Pizza plug in their electric cars in preparation for war…their weapon: organically grown, healthy pizza in biodegradable packaging. Their mission: to feed the world with healthy foods that are beneficial to the environment and educate consumers that they can, personally, save the world one pizza at a time.
Pete Bonahoom doesn’t just want to run a pizzeria, he wants to change the way business is done, but in the process, his creativity has generated huge publicity and devotion from his customers. His drivers deliver in electric cars and all dress in superhero costumes. His pizzas are healthy and he is successful. The place is called Galactic Pizza and it is in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Concept
“I decided to run around a socially responsible business model,” Pete told me. “Everything we do we try to make the world a better place or do as little harm as possible. For delivery, transportation is a major part of the business. All the other pizza shops have cars running around to and fro all day. To me, that is a major waste of energy. I thought a better way was to use electric vehicles. You can argue that, ‘Hey they are electric and you still use power from a power plant.’ What we did was opt to use wind power and pay a 25 percent premium. In addition, it is a cleaner energy.”
Electric Cars
The cars are owned by the pizzeria and they have three of them. NevCo, a company out of Eugene, Oregon that has since gone out of business, made them. “They cost $8,500 when I was getting my business plan,” Pete says. “By the time I got my money together, they were up to $12,000. I called and got the owner to locate me some used ones and I got two used cars for $8,000 and one new one for $12,000. They go about 40 to 45 miles per hour and are really made for city driving. There are no tax breaks unless they have four wheels and these have three, so I missed out on that.”
Galactic Pizza has been open for about a year and a half. In high school, Pete worked for a pizzeria and then went to Madison, Wisconsin, and studied finance while delivering pizza. He graduated and then worked as an investment banker. “I guess I got scared straight, so I opened my own pizzeria,” he laughs.
Drivers in Superhero Costumes
Other than being environmentally conscious, one of the things that has been the biggest asset as far as marketing has been his delivery drivers. Besides delivering in electric cars, all of the drivers dress in superhero costumes. “The superhero idea came from a costume I used for Halloween one year when I was a delivery driver,” Pete explains. “Kids love the delivery driver, so I thought it would be interesting to have drivers dress like this. All of my drivers wear them. I am up front with people before they are hired so they know what is expected. We are getting well known for the outfits, so potential drivers know what they will have to do before they apply. I also think our drivers get more tips because they are dressed up. It is about double what I used to get when I was a driver.
“We get huge publicity from it. We’ve been on every local TV station, every major radio station, in the Star Tribune and three local papers. I have been in several magazines…I have lost track of exactly how much free publicity it has received. It is just huge.”
Pete says he doesn’t pay for, and doesn’t believe in buying advertising for marketing. “I don’t think that is very creative,” he says. “I would rather do good things for people and spend my money on things that are going to help people out and for more meaningful reasons rather than some B.S. couponing and marketing ploy like most people are doing. I am not just trying to run a shop, but change the way people do business.”
The Food
Galactic Pizza doesn’t stop with energy efficient deliveries; the idea folds right into his food too. “We deal with food, so we try to incorporate organics,” Pete says. “We aren’t 100 percent organic because it would be too expensive to sell the pizza. For the cheese we don’t use 100 percent organic, but all of the cows are grass-fed cows from Wisconsin that aren’t treated with growth hormones. People can select organic stuff like mushrooms, tomatoes, green peppers and onions from the menu, but we have non-organics on there too. Organics are part of the menu and people can select them as they like.
“We buy local to help eliminate transportation from places like California, which uses unnecessary energy. I work with Roots and Fruits, a company that helps businesses locate and use locally grown foods and use as much locally grown foods as I can. I also work with the Minnesota Food Network, which only uses local foods. We also worked with the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), with which we created a specific CSA pizza where we rotated the toppings with the season. It used a specific farm and we put it on the menu for two or three weeks, however long the specific food/toppings were being harvested. We had some problems, but it is still in the works. We also use hemp, which is really good for the earth. It doesn’t take a lot of pesticides and we incorporated it into the food and print our menus on hemp paper. We have the Galactic Pizza made with hemp pesto, which substitutes pine nuts with hemp. The hemp seeds are imported from Canada. The average price for a large plain cheese is $11.50 and the most expensive specialty pizza is $19.75. A large is 14 inches.”
Best Advice
As far as problems, like any other pizzeria owner, Pete has had them, but just one main snag. “About the only thing that has been a real problem was in the beginning with the contractor,” he says. “I ended up having to go to court with him. My best advice for someone going into the business is to get a good lawyer before you do anything. Have them go over everything you are doing. I recommend having a good business plan and being confident in the concept. Make sure you have an idea that is going to stand out over the crowd rather than come up with a standard idea that is like all the rest. If you do that, you will spend all of your money on coupons and crap like that to get customers.”
Pete says he would like to see fewer ploys to get people in the doors and see businesses producing less waste. He believes one of the main problems in business is waste. You don’t have to use Styrofoam or plastic, you can use biodegradable packaging. It cost about 20 percent more, but you put that on the menu and you get devoted customers.
“We have the goofy side of Galactic Pizza and the serious side of Galactic Pizza,” Pete says. “The whole idea of the superhero costumes and stuff is to grab people’s attention right off the bat. You have to turn their heads. After that, we get them in here and then they see what the place is all about and that is what gets them devoted. In my mind, it is a very serious idea with a funny exterior.”