Thanks guys! I am up against a region that thinks $5 little cesar and $5 pizza cottage pies are great things. The good news is our rent/utilities are paid for by the school district, I have no salaries, insurance, etc. Our program is a training ground. We are self sufficent with buying supplies, repairs, upgrades, new equipment. I am exploring hooking up with a NYC Pizzaria owner whose wife was relocated out here. We are hitting it off great and I look forward to see what becomes of it. It is funny when I think about it all. If I opened this business in a major food center we would have a big customer base but most would have their allegiances set in stone so making it would be tough. Conversely, out here it is like the wild west- a wide open frontier of creativity but there is little in the way of cultured palates to what I know as good food. Most buy cheap. Taste is a second to cost. I continue to give out samples of our imported from Italy cheeses which we cut and sell for a couple bucks a pound above cost. People seem to really taste the difference there and are buying the romano and parmigiano by the pound. Luckily our main $ comes via making lots of hand rolled, boiled bagels, cookies, whole wheat pizza doughs, that we sell to school districts for student meals. These recipes are simple ,forgiving and cheap. This allows me to dabble on the artisan side and slowly build a following and groom the capable students to making the products the old world way. Walter
