In the past two years, a slew of restaurant concepts have closed stores in the Hegenberger business corridor of Oakland, located close to the Oakland Coliseum and Oakland Airport. Round Table Pizza, however, sees an opportunity there.
With the departures of the Golden State Warriors, Oakland Athletics and Oakland Raiders—now the Las Vegas Raiders—the Hegenberger corridor has seen less foot traffic and increased crime rates. As first reported by CBS News Bay Area, In-N-Out, Denny’s, Black Bear Diner, Starbucks and Subway have shuttered stores in the neighborhood, citing the area’s spike in crime. Additionally, Raising Cane’s and Taco Bell have shut down their dining rooms.
So why did Round Table Pizza recently open a location in the very neighborhood that all of these other restaurant chains are leaving? Franchisee Anjam Singh said that was a common question he faced when he opened a location in the Hegenberger corridor about a month ago.
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“Family, friends… [asked,] ‘Why would you want to do it?’” Singh told CBS News Bay Area. “But each business you open up, it is a risk, and [the] higher the risk, [the] higher the reward,” Singh said.
Simply put, Singh saw an opportunity to serve a community with increasingly few dining options. “This is the right spot where we can actually serve almost half of Oakland from this site, and also cater to the airport and the hotels and their customers,” Singh told CBS News.
Still, Singh’s new Round Table Pizza location will be taking some common-sense measures. First, while some Round Table Pizza locations are full-service restaurants, this store will be DELCO only. The store will also not accept cash—there won’t even be cash drawers in the store, according to Singh.
The cashless aspect of the business has already proven prescient. In its first month of operations, the restaurant had a hole cut in its roof after hours in an apparent robbery attempt. Whoever the perpetrator was, they left empty handed.
Aside from hiccups like that, Singh said business has been solid in the first month, which served as a soft opening for the restaurant. Singh hopes that the business will continue to thrive, and, in the process, signal to other businesses that the neighborhood is an opportunity rather than a liability.
“We really hope that folks, like other business folks, can use us as an example that ‘Hey, they did it, why [can’t] the other folks do it’?” Singh said.
Round Table Pizza, which has over 400 locations in the U.S., is owned by FAT Brands.
