Diving In

[wsonner]

Hi. I've been reading here for a while and finally decided to post.  My wife and I live in a small SMALL town with no pizza delivery service or restaurant and the closest chain is 10 miles down the road.  We have an idea and I thought I'd run it by the experts here and see what you thought.  We're thinking that with a good pizza and a little leg work we might be able to start a delivery service out of our home.  The town is small, but we believe big enough to support a small home-based operation...and again, there is zero competition at the moment...probably because there wouldn't be enough business to support a full time chain operation.  But, if we can make a good pizza that people really like we think we might be able to generate enough business to supplement our income.  We have been considering starting up only on weekends to begin with.  Is it possible to keep start up and operating costs low enough to at least break even?  I'd be really interested in hearing your opinions and ideas.  No sense diving in to something without careful consideration and good advice!

Wes

[Pete-zza]

Wes,

It's possible that state and local laws may apply to what you want to do. You may want to check with your local health department to find out what you will have to do to comply with health regulations and whether there will be a health inspection, and you should also check to see what kind of business license you will need to carry on a business in the town. There may also be insurance aspects involved, so I would ask your insurance agent if any current policies you have in effect will protect you. If you have to hire drivers, then the insurance aspects can get very messy, for you and the drivers. If you have to deal with taxes, you may also need to get a tax ID, etc. If you do any new construction, you may have to get permits and be subject to inspection, submitting plans, etc.

I'd be curious to hear what you learn.

Peter

[wsonner]

Wes,

It's possible that state and local laws may apply to what you want to do. You may want to check with your local health department to find out what you will have to do to comply with health regulations and whether there will be a health inspection, and you should also check to see what kind of business license you will need to carry on a business in the town. There may also be insurance aspects involved, so I would ask your insurance agent if any current policies you have in effect will protect you. If you have to hire drivers, then the insurance aspects can get very messy, for you and the drivers. If you have to deal with taxes, you may also need to get a tax ID, etc. If you do any new construction, you may have to get permits and be subject to inspection, submitting plans, etc.

I'd be curious to hear what you learn.

Peter

And along with all of that is the fact that we'll likely have to go before the board of selectmen to get their approval, ie. make sure we aren't stepping on Aunt Bea's toes or anything :-).

We did talk to the health department and the health inspector considers it a business with "potentially hazardous products" so that is definitely a hurdle which I'm sure would add to the cost.  We want to do the work and make the deliveries ourselves so no employees.  Insurance is definitely something we need to look into. We probably have a clause on our homeowners stating that they walk away from us if we run any kind of business out of the house so we'd incur added cost there.   You make some good suggestions here and I appreciate your input.

Wes

[wsonner]

A little more info...I did manage a delivery pizza shop for a couple of years where I learned a bit about the business and how to toss a dough, but not where my family jewels were on the line ;-).  Our town is pretty affluent and there is seems to be demand by what we hear when talking with people around town.  One nice thing about a small town is that it's fairly easy to keep your thumb on the pulse of what's happening.  There really is nobody around. The closest small pizzeria is a 6 mile drive "down the mountain" and they don't deliver (nobody does).