10/12/2007 | Mega-pizzeria owners prove one unit is enough for a fortune

Think you need to own multiple stores to really make any money in the pizza business?  Meet some highly successful owners who have found the key to profitability lies in sticking with one super-charged location.

In 2007, Chris Bianco arguably is America’s most famous pizza maker—a badge that makes the Bronx, N.Y., native roll his eyes in “who cares?” fashion. When producers from the “Oprah” show requested the chance to record a 5-minute spot at his Phoenix restaurant, Bianco Pizzeria, he hoped they were kidding.

They weren’t, but he welcomed them anyway—despite wanting them gone as soon as they arrived.

“I don’t care about the attention, that’s not what I’m in this for,” said Bianco, whose pizzeria has gained international renown in its 15 years. Years of effusive praise doled out by food critics, travel writers and authors of pizza-centered books for his sublime artisan pies has helped create a cult following at his 48-seat restaurant.

Even below the broiling Phoenix summer sun, people wait more than two hours to get in, yet Bianco is unimpressed by the attending fanfare. “I just make pizza, that’s my thing. If people are excited about that, then I’ve done my job and I’ve done what I wanted to do.”

Customers aren’t the only ones excited. Bianco routinely receives offers from investors seeking to franchise Bianco Pizzeria. No wishful thinkers here; these are well-heeled businessmen who recognize a powerful concept.

But their vision isn’t Bianco’s, so he turns them down every time. One pizzeria is all he’s ever wanted and all he’ll ever have.

“Building a big business is not what I do. I can’t do that. I know my own limits,” said Bianco, 45. “I don’t want this to sound egotistical, but without me, there’s no Bianco Pizzeria. If there are 20 of them out there, then somebody else is running it, and that makes it different. I’m happy with this.”

Bianco said he understands the rush by some to leap into the pizza business and grow a chain. Success is a personal thing, he said, but growth often comes at a price: the sacrifice of product quality; of relationships; and, occasionally, of the owner’s passion.

Such fears drove the Todaro family to operate only one La Nova Pizzeria in Buffalo , N.Y. for 43 years. After a humble start in a in a less-than-stellar Buffalo neighborhood in 1957, hard work and steady determination made La Nova an icon in the city. The company’s original unit now generates more than $5 million in annual sales, and only after much consternation did the family open a second unit across town in 2001.

“A lot of our population in the city moved to the suburbs and couldn’t get back to us,” said Ben Lamonte, director of national accounts for La Nova Wings, a chicken wing supplier to the restaurant industry that spun off the pizza company in the 1990s. “That unit grew and developed from many of the same customers we had before. … Today it does more than $3 million in sales a year.”

Given such enormous success, why haven’t the Todaros opened more La Novas? Lamonte said the answer is simple: “They have felt and still feel that to be a successful independent operator, you, the owner, need to be in your building. So with that kind of volume, there’s no real expansion until you have a third or fourth generation of family ownership to sustain it.”

Unlike many operators who’ve sought fame and wealth by building multiple units—only to fall short in the process—Bianco and the Todaros have made small fortunes off one. Tony and Frank Gemignani are well on their way to enjoying similar success with World Famous Pyzano’s Pizzeria in Castro Valley , Calif.

When Pyzano’s opened 16 years ago, the brothers dared only dream about $20,000 sales weeks.

“I can remember thinking, ‘Gosh are we ever going to hit 20?” said Tony Gemignani. “We were stuck on 18 for so long, and then we got to 20. Then came 25, then 30 and now we’re doing 40s—all out of the same restaurant.”

What happened to push Pyzano’s near $2 million in annual sales? Relentless customer focus, hands-on ownership, non-stop creative marketing (Gemignani is a world-renowned competitive dough-thrower) and endless tweaking of the Pyzano’s system.

“It’s not like our kitchen’s any bigger than it was a long time ago, so nothing notable has changed,” he said. “We just hit a plateau every year and then figure out a way to get more sales. We always think of new ways to do what we do better.”

Like adding catering or figuring out what promotions worked best on different nights. In short, the Gemignanis regularly reinvent Pyzano’s. “We always joke that we can do out of one 2,400-square-foot restaurant what others do out of four.”

Gemignani insisted a well-tuned and well-taught system has been essential to such single-unit success. Staffers know their duties well enough that Pyzano’s co-owners can get time away from the restaurant.

Been there, tried that, didn’t like it

In 1985, Mark Gold and Louie Siecinski viewed a multiunit pizza company as the vehicle they’d drive toward financial security. And 19 months after opening Pizza Shuttle in Milwaukee that year, the pair appeared well on their way as they opened their third store.

By year three, however, two units weren’t making money and the other was barely profitable.

“We were doing everything we could, but it just wasn’t happening,” Gold said. A year later they closed two stores to focus on one—a decision they’ve never regretted.

To push Pizza Shuttle’s engines to full throttle, Siecinski believed they needed to broaden the menu to attract more customers. Pizza would remain the core product, but fried chicken and fish, as well as custard and shakes, would join the Shuttle crew.

One year later, in 1995, sales clocked in at $1 million. In 2006 sales topped $5 million, and with recent dining room renovations and a proposed kitchen and storage room update, Gold believes $6 million is doable.

Like Gemignani, Gold and Siecinski believe strong systems are crucial to achieving high sales. But $5 million in annual sales—nearly 10 times that posted by the average U.S. pizzeria—is a by-product of full-time hands-on ownership, Gold insisted.

“One of us is always here, though we’re rarely here at the same time,” Gold said. About five years ago, the two divided their time in the restaurant to every-other-day schedules (each owner’s schedule running opposite the other’s) resulting in 45-hour work weeks for each. “Louie’s my best friend, but I think if we had to work together much, we’d probably kill each other. We’re pretty opposite.”

Like Gemignani, Gold and Siecinski have learned to wring more sales out of their menu and productivity out of their staffs by being creative and innovative. Of all the shakes and frozen custard sold at Pizza Shuttle’s, 90 percent are delivered. Sandwiches and pasta also are offered.

The pizzeria’s location near four universities and in an ethnically diverse neighborhood ensures it captures a broad audience by providing such an array of food. Siecinski said their intent wasn’t to please everyone all the time, but to please a greater number of people without adding another store they couldn’t supervise directly. Instead of coming to the customer, they’ve figured out ways of bringing more customers to them.

Lamonte, who’s given a good chunk of his adult working life to La Nova, said he doesn’t envision a day when a non-Todaro-family member will get a slice of ownership. Not because the family doesn’t care for its non-family employees, but because family and work are so inextricably intertwined.

“Work and family: that’s their life, and the owners work seven days a week,” he said. “It’s that kind of family-centered work ethic that has made La Nova what it is today.”

Will the success of La Nova’s unit No. 2 inspire the family to add another store? Only as more Todaros come into the mix, Lamonte believes.

“We’re not a greedy company, though I’ll admit that we’d like to have a larger stake,” he said. “But at what expense? Everybody’s already running pretty hard and we’re doing pretty good. We’re blessed as a brand.

“The only way I see them adding more units is by adding more family members. That way you come back to my original point: Somebody from the family is in the restaurant 365 days a year. That’s the way they’ve always done it, and look how it’s worked for them.”