This town is probably 25% Italian. There is a store that has an area for a food concession. The rent is 25% of what you ring on the rigister, no less than $2,000 per month, meaning almost $8,000 in sales is the monthly minimum. This includes electric but not gas, which is natural (not bottles).
It's not an upscale store. It's not an upscale town. The landlord wants me to pay $5,000 for the "business" plus 1st, last and security, $6,000 more up front. The current occupant is not getting a new lease, as the landlord suspects he's not ringing everything and not paying the landlord the full amount.
There is a unit that's a 16x20 griddle, 2 burner range and under the griddle is a broiler/cheese melter. It's made by Comstock Castle. It's something like this...(http://www.servu-online.com/itemimages/COMC6020.gif) Then there's a 15 lb countertop frier, also by Comstock Castle that looks like this.(http://www.servu-online.com/itemimages/COMY1001.gif) Both were purchased last year and look nice. I'd say they must have paid $2,000 for them. The pizza oven is also Comstock Castle countertop, looks something like this, only bigger (two 20x31" decks) (http://www.servu-online.com/itemimages/COMX1000.jpg). The oven is two years old and still looks good. They also use the oven for pretzels. There is a pretzel display, a pizza display and a hot dog concession machine.
He tells me the current tennant's sales are $12,000 a month, but he only reports about $10,000, that's why the landlord is booting him. The place is open 9-9 Monday-Saturday, 10-6 Sundayand the concession is expected to be open in that time.
Right now, a slice is $1.25. A hot dog is $1.00. Fries are $1.00. Chicken Nuggets are $1.50 for 6. A pretzel is $.75. A 4 oz hamburger is $1.50. A 4 oz cheeseburger is $1.75. An 8 slice pie, 14" is $8.00 a 18" 10 slice pie is $12.00. This oven can do 1 large or two smalls per deck at the same time.
For me, the numbers don't add up. These little countertop griddles, ovens and friers just don't have a lot of capacity. If I sell 200 pies a month (and that seems like a lot) maybe that's $2,000. If I sell 1,000 burgers, that's only $1,500. That hardly seems possible. If I sell 1,000 sodas for $1.00 that's only $1,000 that seems realistic.
Is the landlord nuts? How could this husband/wife/in-law team of three be clearing $10,000 a month sales, let alone $12,000? Maybe I'm just a slow worker.
In NY we have "pizza" that you call "NY Style" and many aspire towards. It's very simple. We are near the reservoirs for NYC and get our water from the same area. The water here is neutral pH of 7.0, maybe a little soft, around 6.5 if you have a well instead of municipal water... Many other places have hard water, pH 7.5 and higher. The simple trick to NY pizza is conditioned water, make the pH close to 7.0. This place has what we in NY call "ghetto pie" which means the cheese and sauce stop about 3" from the edge of the crust and are put on very lightly. When I go to places like PA, I notice you put a LOT more cheese on than we do. Our pies probably cook differently because we don't put much on them. Really nice NY pizza in NYC is a huge slice, tastes great, costs $4-5 a slice! They put a bit more stuff on than we see on our ghetto pies.
