Month 1 in a New Pizza Shop: Did He Make a Profit? Tyrell Reed Breaks Down the Numbers

By Tyrell Reed

Editor’s note: Tyrell Reed, host of the Pizza King Podcast, veteran pizzeria operator and a columnist for PMQ Pizza, recently assumed ownership of an existing franchised pizzeria, Westshore Pizza in Valrico, Florida, and embarked on a new turnaround adventure. In February he took us through week 4. Now he’s back with some encouraging news.

I took a short break. Not because I quit. Because I could feel the edge of burnout. If you run a shop, you know that feeling. You can push through for a while, then you start making bad calls, losing patience and missing details. A short break beats a long crash.

When I came back, the store was still moving in the right direction. The numbers told the story.

The last three weeks looked like this:

$8,599 in sales, 7.3% profit: $625.93

$8,830.25 in sales, 3.5% profit: $302

$8,900 in sales, 12.9% profit: $1,147.86

That last week matters because it proves something. You can run steady sales and still find real profit when you tighten the basics.

One of the big changes we made was moving to a six-day schedule and closing Mondays. Monday was our slowest day. But closing a day does not fix anything by itself. You still have to make the weekly math work. The way I looked at it was simple. If we could add about four more orders per day on the six days we are open, we could cover the gap.

Marketing has been a big part of that push. We are sending emails with the daily deals almost every day. We are also using weekend texts for bigger offers. The list is over 1,000 people now, around 1,025, and we are working to keep growing it.

The loyalty program needed work too. Previously it was set up to win back customers after 30, 60 or 90 days of not ordering. That is fine. But we did not have much to offer the people who order all the time. Then I talked to a customer who earned a free pizza reward, and he told me he did not even want pizza. He comes for cheesesteaks. That told me everything. We were rewarding the wrong way.

So we changed it to cash rewards:

$5 at 50 points
$10 at 100 points
Extra $5 at 200 points

That way, the reward works for what they actually buy, not what we wish they bought.

The other big focus has been product compliance. This is where a lot of pizza shops bleed money. People think a small ingredient swap does not matter. Then you look up and your food cost is off, your pizzas taste different depending on who makes them, and customers feel the inconsistency. Here’s a perfect example: Someone made a buffalo chicken pizza and used chicken cutlet instead of the breaded chicken pieces. Same pizza name. Different product. Different seasoning. Different cost.

That is why we are building specs and a recipe book. We want the build to be the build every time. Then we will print it and post it where the team cannot miss it.

We are also looking at waste and menu complexity. If an item is not selling or if it creates too much prep and waste, it is not helping. We’ve talked about cutting salads because they can add cost and waste if the volume is not there. Those decisions are not about being cheap. They are about keeping the menu tight and the execution clean.

One more thing that helped was catering. One of those weeks started soft, then a big catering order came in and balanced the week out. Catering does not fix every problem, but it can take pressure off when your day-to-day is choppy.

That’s where we are right now. We are not chasing tricks. We are stacking consistent weeks. We are staying close to the numbers. We are tightening specs. We are using email and loyalty to drive repeat business. And we are keeping the operation simple enough that the team can run it without heroics.

If your shop feels like it only works when you are there, this is the path. Get the basics right. Then keep them right.