By Tracy Morin
Between permits, equipment purchases, in-store layout and design, the pizzeria buildout process is rife with potential pitfalls, red tape and unexpected holdups. Still, no one can deny the excitement of crafting and unveiling a spot made in your own vision—especially when you haven’t blown light-years past your budget.
Whether you’re renovating, considering a second location or opening your first, don’t move forward without reading this collection of must-have advice from experienced experts.
Opening On a Shoestring
Dan Uccello has a wealth of experience in buildouts: He not only owns Flo’s Collection, with four pizzeria brands, but serves as office and marketing manager for Uccello Properties, his wife Cassie’s real estate company in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Still, Uccello’s first store opening, at only 24 years old, was anything but glam. “I was very young and very, very broke,” he recalls. “A couple years before I even had a location picked out, I started hitting up the local repo options for restaurant equipment and stashing it all in my garage.” Here are Uccello’s top tips on creating a successful pizzeria buildout—even on a tight budget:
1. Find the space and handle negotiations yourself. Look for spaces online or just drive around until you see a “for lease” sign. Negotiate a lease that is 3% to 6%, max, of your estimated total sales. That fits very well in a P&L and prevents you from having a huge overhead. Then, when you sign a lease, arrange six to 12 months of free or very low rent, because those are the months that you’re going to need to build out your establishment.
2. Look for shuttered pizza shops. For a takeout and delivery pizzeria, especially right now, there are a ton of opportunities out there with pizza shops that have shut down due to the still-rippling effects of COVID. I would 100% recommend searching for and leasing places with very minimal expenses to get up and running. A lot of these places will have all of their equipment still inside: walk-in coolers, prep coolers, steel tables, etc. I did that three years ago, for our fifth location—leased a space that was an old Papa Johns—and we were able to get in, put our brand in place, and get up and running in less than 30 days with less than $10,000.
3. Lease signed? Now you start going to work. If you’re handy, I recommend doing a lot of the work yourself—whatever it is that you can do. I did a ton of work myself to save money, because it was all personal money. We only hired people whose work I could not do, like for drywall and plumbing.
Related: Dan Uccello: How to Incorporate Wine Offerings into Your Pizzeria’s Menu
3. Put your money where it belongs. I opened my first place with the very bare minimum of decoration in the dining rooms, because I put all my money into the equipment and buildout—just to open the doors. Then, as we started making money, I could buy a little bit more: decoration, a television or whatever I needed to spruce up the dining space.
4. Look for free assistance. We use Grand Valley State University—they can put an actual business plan together for your restaurant. They have the students do it, so they get hands-on practice, and you get a free service. I would not recommend opening up any sort of business without a business plan behind it. Reach out to your local universities. Most offer that type of service. They’ll basically give you all the numbers you need.
5. Your kitchen and operation is crucial. If you team up with a good company to buy equipment from, they can help you with the design of the building. They’ll be able to tell you the codes for the health department and much more, plus they can draw a layout for you. But you need to be able to set yourself up, knowing how to arrange the kitchen to be the most effective and most efficient.
7. Look for the pivot point. I have a rule of thumb when I design my kitchen: Every station has to have what I call a pivot point. Imagine that you’re standing on one leg, and you can do a full 360 on that one leg. At the length of your arms are where all of your supplies should be. You want to be able to make a dish inside that circle. In an inefficient kitchen, your ticket times are going to suffer, and your staff is going to be very frustrated, which ultimately will affect customer service. We look at our menu and say, “Every ingredient on this menu must be within arm’s reach.” If it’s not within arm’s reach, we figure out how to get it there. Your staff will appreciate you for it.
Handling a Total Overhaul
George Taylor, co-owner (with wife Patti) of Taylors’ Pizza House in Endwell, New York, learned his buildout lessons the old-fashioned way: by taking on a major project and nailing it. After opening in 2017 in a gutted former ice cream store, the couple decided to move their business a few doors down—to a house.
At the end of 2021, the Taylors bought the residential property and embarked on a complete overhaul to create a cozy, one-of-a-kind restaurant. Here are George’s top lessons learned:
1. First things first. We went to planning board meetings and told them what we were planning on doing to get permitted. Then we sent in plans to the health department to get their approvals, detailing the kitchen layout. If you’ve never been in the restaurant industry, you also have to go to a food safety course through the health department. We used LegalZoom to form a corporation and file for a New York State sales tax permit. Then you build a website, Facebook page—all the digital things that you also need.
2. Go with the flow of customers. The first location we had was a rectangle, with the entrance on the long end. So we started our layout at the back with the dough rolling station, then sauce and cheese, toppings, then into the oven, and then it’s cut right there at the counter to hand to the customer. Everything flowed from the back to the front toward the customer. Make the kitchen efficient. Try to minimize steps.
Related: Why Restaurants Fail: George Taylor Shares Some Hard-Earned Lessons in the Pizza Business
3. Choose used equipment wisely. I try to not buy refrigeration used—it’s such an important part of the business that I want it to be new and also have a warranty on it, in case of issues. Ovens are a lot more stable, so I feel comfortable buying a used oven. But my oven is gas. I would prefer to buy new if I’m going to buy electric, for the same reasons—there are just a lot more breakable parts. We bought a used oven for $2,500. Definitely check scratch-and-dent stores, because you can get a substantial amount off—I got $1,000 off each piece I bought there.
4. Plan for the unexpected. When my wife and I wanted to get some contractors in, we found that none of the construction people had enough help. Everybody was either booked for months or didn’t have enough people to take on new jobs. We got lucky to find someone. Still, it took them about a week longer than they thought. We had a few changes, and the budget was probably $30,000 more than what we had originally planned for. When you’re planning your budget, assume at least 50% more than what you’re budgeting. One good piece of advice is just to be flexible with the whole process.
Boosting the Bottom Line
Before he entered the pizza biz, Billy Marino, owner and CEO of the four-location Leona’s Pizzeria in Chicago, spent 25 years in construction. He recommends an eagle eye, tight purse strings and a DIY mentality. “Know how much things cost, or people will take advantage of you,” he warns. “When you open, you’re going to watch the price of a paper plate, so why wouldn’t you do the same before you open?”
Here are Marino’s top suggestions when building out your business:
1. Do your homework on equipment costs. Buying used equipment is fine if you have a technician run through it. Some of the stuff you’ll need—like ovens, rollers and mixers—can last forever. Your biggest purchases are your oven and ventilation system, so shop those to death.
2. Consider your contracting needs. For an average pizzeria (1,000 to 2,000 square feet), you don’t need a general contractor. Choose your key subcontractors and manage them yourself. Learn how the place is built. Learn how the place functions, so when it fails, you know how to fix it. Know your equipment.
3. Simple is best when it comes to design. Don’t try to build an art project. Build for functionality and sprinkle some style into it, not the other way around. Don’t put unnecessary emotion into it. Emotions do not equal dollars.
4. Stay small, nimble and flexible. Many people build these gigantic places, and they write a business plan assuming those tables will all be filled, all the time. Spoiler alert: They won’t be!
Related: Pizza Hall of Fame: Founder of Leona’s Pizzeria Was ‘a Fireball in a Fur Coat and Lipstick’
5. Learn from the leaders. Follow the data and take lessons from the biggest operators in the game. My mentor in the food business, Gene Fontanini [from Chicago’s Fontanini meat company], told me years ago to go look at Domino’s during dinner rush. His lesson was simple: They know what they’re doing, and they have it down to a science. Follow their layout and lessons, regardless of what you think of their pizza.
6. Don’t get too fancy. In certain situations, you get more bang for your buck if you spend more money on fancy stuff (like in condos and houses). In other areas, you don’t—like in warehouses, factories and stores. I built two Walmarts in my construction days. Walmart sells more product than all the other retailers combined, and they don’t waste money on fancy stuff in their stores. It doesn’t equate to sales, and they pass those savings on to their customers—that’s why they’re the largest retailer on the planet.
7. Focus on location, marketing and product quality. I have been at many auctions of giant places that were absolutely beautifully built, but they never made enough money to profit.
8. The bottom line. My bottom-line advice is: Stay small, focus on multiple points of sale, know your equipment, know your building, and push out product like a machine. You could spend millions of dollars on a little pizza shop, but you don’t have to. Before you buy anything, ask yourself: Do I need that, and does it translate into sales?
Tracy Morin is PMQ’s associate editor.
