Pizza Today - July 2021 - 37

arguing over a half piece of a chicken
breast. All I could do was ask myself
repeatedly in my head, " Does my pizzeria
that is doing over $2 million a
year really needed to focus on food cost
to this point? " After that, I told the
crew to stop focusing on food cost and
put more of their focus on making great
food and great pizza. I told them this: if
you make a great pizza, I will do a food
cost analysis on that pizza's ingredients
and weigh them out, and I will charge a
price that reflects its quality.
In July of 2017, we opened a second
store in a small part of Tampa. Since
our opening, four of the five pizzerias
in that area closed. Our pizzeria, in an
underpopulated area, does hundreds of
thousands of dollars above the national
average for an independent pizzeria.
There are many reasons for this store's
success and for essentially putting other
pizzerias out of business, but again I
believe putting an emphasis on quality
and big portions has helped it defeat
the local pizzerias around it.
Unfortunately, a billionaire
bought the building our first store
was in and evicted everyone, so
that store closed in 2018. In its last year,
it was doing nearly $3 million a year.
Yes, it ran a 36 percent food cost, but
I was proud of the product we served.
Even though the food cost was a bit
higher than I liked, the fact that we did
such great sales and spent nothing on
advertising resulted in a very profitable
store. We are constructing our new
store nearby and hope to reopen in late
May. Time will tell if we can recapture
that magic and great sales that the first
store had.
Yes, food cost is important, but
never let it be the reason that you are
not making money! With the current
pandemic, cheese prices have fluctuated
more than ever, so how can you control
the food cost percentage when cheese
prices have fluctuated so wildly? You
cannot keep raising and lowering your
prices with the fluctuations of the price
of cheese to maintain an even food cost.
So, what should you do? You can either
create a pizza that you are proud of and
then figure out the food cost on it and
create a reasonable price for it, or work
backwards and have a price that you
want to charge for your pizza and then
make the pizza cost fit into that price. I
believe the first way is best. n
RICK DRURY is the owner Precinct Pizza
in Tampa, FL
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Pizza Today - July 2021

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