How to Start a Pizza Restaurant
Do you know that a large number of people are constantly looking for pizza restaurant? The food industry is a booming business, especially for those that are involved in making fast foods. Research has shown that people are more eager to buy these fast foods, meals that do not take time to prepare, and that is why restaurants are booming.
People can eat pizza anywhere, in the office, at home or in the cinemas. So it has become common among people seeking a quick meal any time of the day. Another factor you should consider getting in the food industry is take away and home delivery.
However, there are many options associated with the kind of food to sell. One of the profitable food businesses you can consider is the pizza business. The global food business recorded billions of dollars in sales globally. From another perspective, food businesses may not be challenging to start depending on the scale of the company you have in mind. This is a multi million dollar business, and you can increase your earnings as you expand the business. There is still room to make money investing in the pizza business despite many pizza places around.
However, before you start a pizza restaurant, there are certain things you should know. For it takes more than getting the right recipes or hiring people with the best culinary skills to start a pizza restaurant.
Here, we are going to analyze each step you should take to start your pizza restaurant. Following the steps and instructions will make your pizza restaurant success in the long run. It is essential to have a good business strategy and to follow all the requirements to start a pizza business. The food business is one that requires some health and safety approvals, so all these have to be factored in starting the business.
Steps You Should Follow to Start a Pizza Restaurant
We are going to list out and analyze the various actions to be taken in staying a pizza business. They include:
- Get the necessary training
- Attend business classes
- Get expert advice in the food industry
- Draw a business plan
- Choose a location
- Get to know the required health guidelines and other law-related matters.
- Get financial backing
- Prepare your business environment
- Advertise and promote your business.
- Preparing menu for your pizza restaurant
You must take each step as essential to cover all the bases required. We will advise you to start from the beginning and follow accordingly, so you do not miss out on any step.
- Get the necessary training and experience.
As a business person, you may not have the necessary cooking skills or experience to run a pizza business. But it is advisable to have an idea of how things are done in the kitchen. You should at least attend a culinary school to start any food business, and the pizza business is no exception.
It is not necessary to attend a fancy school or get a certificate to show that you attended a culinary school to start a pizza business. It may be working for a small pizza business or any online program to help you learn the necessary skills of making pizza. The skills might come handy when you have to inspect your workers or try to convince investors to invest in your business.
Also, you should seek to have experience in the business before you start. You might decide to work for a pizza plaza for a time. Get an idea about the settings required for a standard pizza business. The experience will give you a real-life expectation, and you can plan towards these expectations. There is so much you can learn aside from how to make pizza. You can get an idea on the business end which you can apply to your pizza restaurant.
- Attend business classes
You must understand the business aspect of the pizza business. With you as the business owner, it is more than pizza, but satisfying your customers while you make money. By attending business classes, you are setting yourself up to establish a business format to make a profit.
Some of the benefits of going for a business class include proper capital management, learning how to carry out and use risk analyses, how to prepare tax returns and others. You can attend some of these business classes online or find one close to you. Look at yourself as an entrepreneur and get the general business knowledge from formal settings to establish your business. The business certificate is not essential here but the skills you will acquire in the business school.
- Get expert advice in the food industry
The food industry is extensive, so you will need to consult experts and experienced people. These people will share their knowledge about the business. One of the most important lessons you will learn in a business class is the importance of consultants. These are people who have in-depth knowledge of the business, and you should incorporate them in the planning of the company.
The consultants may assist you with knowledge of the pizza business for free or for a fee. You may contact pizza business owners to seek their insight into the industry. They will let you know the stuff you will need to get in supply regularly, introduce you to supplies and where to get some of the materials you will need.
The essentials you can get from these experienced people include an understanding of what it entails when you run the business.
- Draw a business plan
The business plan is vital for your business as a road map to your pizza restaurant plan. You can get a professional to draw a suitable plan for your business, providing the experts business planner on your desire for the company.
With the idea of a pizza place in mind, your business plan should include:
- The type of business place you want to open. Is it a canteen, a pizza restaurant, a joint, a sit and eat a take away joint and much more.
- You should also include the estimated cost of opening the pizza business in the plan.
- An estimate of your expected revenue, and the vat8wwys you seek to derive income from the business.
- The business plan should also include interested investors and where you will be sourcing income for your business.
- Since there are different types of pizza, you should state the kind you want to sell. It is only reasonable that you cannot sell all the available types of pizza, and it is better if you get to be known for your particular kind of pizza.
- Determine your business model; do you want to open a franchise or an independent store.
You should include all the requirements about your business, including the business goals and objectives. A detailed business plan can be presented to investors to entice them into the store. It may also be required by institutions when seeking loans. So you must input those technical business areas that business experts will be interested in about the pizza business.
- Choose a location for your business
Now to one of the essential steps in setting up your pizza restaurant, this is the location of your business and will determine the growth of your business. You should get a reliable realtor with years of experience to look for a suitable place for your business. Doing this will reduce the stress amongst other activities in starting your pizza restaurant.
You have to consider the following in choosing a location for your pizza restaurant:
- Visibility
- Your budget
- Consider the people in the location and your business.
- Availability of other pizza places
your location must be visible to people. People should be able to see that there is a pizza store in the locality. You should place a large display sign or board to indicate the presence of a pizza shop in the area. The poster should be noticeable some meters away from the shop to attract people.
Your pizza store should be on the down floor with accessible entry and exit. The store should be located in a busy and commercial area where there is a lot of foot traffic. People who are walking past can quickly stop by for a quick bite of your delicious pizza.
Another factor you have to consider when choosing a location is your budget. It is paramount that you discuss the range of price you can afford with your realtor. Being specific will help you to save time, for the realtor will quickly work with such specifics. Before you have concluded the budget for your store, you should research the best prices you can get for a good location.
With the type of pizza place in mind, you should also consider the people in the locality. You do not want to open a high-class pizza place in a low-income earner’s populated area. This will not be beneficial for your business.
Furthermore, you should consider the presence of other pizza places in the area. If there are other pizza joints, then you should plan on how to make your place unique and more attractive to customers.
Read Also: How to Choose Business Location for Your Business
- Get to know the required health guidelines and other law-related matters
Another aspect you should consider is that you will need a government-approved license to run a pizza business. The pizza business is categorized among the food industry, and they are under strong regulations and will require particular guidelines to operate.
It is vital to you that you adhere to all the necessary guidelines placed by the authorities. You will avoid being shut down and fined heavily when you meet up to the requirements by the required bodies.
In starting your pizza restaurant, you should visit any of the government health institutions. Get to know all that will be required of you to start the business. The will include the necessary guidelines and what is expected in your restaurant or pizza place. They will also provide you with the dues to be paid, the association you should join and the necessary inspections to be carried out on the location before the final approval to operate.
You cannot operate freely if you fail to meet up with some of the health guidelines stated by the authorities. These guidelines are put in place to ensure the safety of the consumers. And in some states, you will have to provide information on the ingredients used in preparing the pizza. These guidelines are to ensure the safety of the public since your business will be public orientated.
Some laws are not related to health inspection, such as tax payments. You should also consider taxes, registration of your company with the company’s name and opening of your business account. You should get a lawyer to ensure that you carry out all the legal requirements in opening a business. These problems should not arise when you have started the company, for they might involve paying enormous penalties.
Another important consideration is to enter an agreement with the property owner on the purpose of leasing the property. Under the law, you must state the purpose you are renting the property. In opening up your pizza restaurant, ensure that you meet up all the legal requirements. It will be advisable to get a legal representative to help you with the legalities involved in starting your pizza restaurant.
- Get financial backing
At this stage, you are about getting to the business end of starting your pizza restaurant. You will have to fund the business after making the necessary plans with the calculated capital. There are different ways you can support your business which might depend on the scale of business you want to operate.
Starting an independent pizza store may not need much capital if you are going to operate a small scale. For this small scale pizza business, you can use your savings to start up and expand as the business grows. Moreover, if your savings are not substantial to start the company, you can get friends and families to invest in your industry.
However, if you are looking at a bigger scale of operation, you should consider substantial funds. For a bigger store to cater for sit down customers, take away and delivery, you will want to consider taking loans for banks or financial institutions. There are many aspects you will need funds to set up for the pizza place such as the large scale production of pizzas, delivery vehicles and other parts of the business.
Operating a franchise will demand more funds, and you will need collateral or an excellent business plan to obtain a loan from financial institutions. Also, you might seek investors to help attain the scope of the pizza business. To open a franchise for your pizza restaurant will require an extensive business plan to consider how you intend to grow the company and the expected revenue.
Read Also: Funding Options for Small Businesses
- Prepare your business environment
The business environment needs to be prepared to look catchy and comfortable for your customers. In preparing your pizza restaurant environment, you have to consider:
- Your kitchen
- Your offices
- Place for workers
- Customer environment, where they will seat and eat
- Point of payment and order
- A place to display pizza and other food items
The design of the environment should be attractive and cosy, where customers can feel relaxed while taking their pizza. You should add some side attractions like selling other food items, snacks and drinks to go along with the pizza. Get an interior designer to help you with your indoor decorator to help you with the interior, for a pizza place should look and feel cosy.
The interior designer will also be responsible for the furniture and all other parts of the store. Of course, you will have an input of what the interior designer has to do in the place. Your preference of how you want the place to look should be considered.
And if you have delivery vehicles, you should have your logo on them so they can easily be recognized on the road. Also, other aspects of business can be introduced into the pizza business, like sorting for contracts to supply pizza to other food businesses, promoting your brand further while you make money. Getting into business with cinemas and other public places to provide pizza for their customers is another angle to consider for your business. Pizza delivery has become popular for people seeking a fast meal, and it has become a lucrative business angle for pizza enterprises. You should consider 24/7 service for pizza delivery, and it involves placing customer service and kitchen staff around the clock.
- Advertise and promote your business.
Now that you have your business all set up, you should then take steps in promoting the business. You can consult an advertising agency to help you with the process of advertising and promoting your pizza restaurant. You may want to expand your business beyond the scope of your locality, and this is where the business of advertising and promotion is needed.
The first people you will want to attract are people in your locality, and to achieve this, you should consider a fancy opening day. You should consider huge discounts and giveaways as your first promotion. Put a significant display on discounts and giveaway during the first week of your opening to attract people. And get them hooked to your store when they taste your delicious pizza. Then word of mouth will get out in promoting your pizza restaurant from one person to the other.
To attract people outside your locality, especially when you offer to take away and deliver services, you may need to carry other forms of promotion. For this, you will need to build your online presence by:
- Creating a website for business and promotions.
- Build your social media presence
- Promote your business online.
The creation of your website should include your business logo, business name and other related business information. It will be best to create an ecommerce platform where customers can order for pizza and other items you have to offer on the platform. Using the platform as a business tool is part of the business plan to get those that are far away to be able to place orders for your pizza.
Build your presence on the popular social media platforms to promote your pizza restaurant. On these platforms, you can improve your business through available discounts; vouchers and other offerings your pizza restaurant has to offer. It is also a suitable avenue to get in touch with your customers, get reviews and feedback about your business and further promote your business through trendy topics.
Furthermore, you can promote your business by getting involved in charity and other social engagement in the community. This is one of the best ways to influence your community and gain trust from the people around.
Read Also: How to Start a Mini Supermarket or Grocery Store
- Get a professional menu
The menu for your pizza restaurant is essential to keep customers coming back. It is best if you serve other food items along with pizzas. For the preparation of the menu, you can get a professional chef to handle the menu. They should prepare different lists along with the kind of pizzas you have known to keep the customer happy.
The pizza business can be profitable if you get it right and follow the proper procedure. You should understand that the company is cost-effective, needing you to spend daily. It involves getting materials to prepare meals regularly for your customers. However, with the steady inflow of customers, you can record profit daily. To get this business running in the long run, you have to be dedicated to the company. You have to monitor the activity to ensure that the staff are putting their best and the customers are satisfied.
You should understand that the customers are the main target of the business and you should keep them satisfied all the time. The pizza business involves direct contact with the customers, and you should train your staff on how to deal with customers to ensure better service delivery. A happy and satisfied customer will return, and that is the objective of the business.