The best offer I did was called Beat-the- Clock. The pizza costs the same as the time (between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.). Most of my customers try to get in as close to 4:00 as possible.
- Wayne Rempel

Why did you go into the pizza business?

Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been in the food business since I was about 10 years old. I would buy bulk candy, repackage it and sell it to the neighborhood kids. I had a concession business on the side where I made extra money. When I sold it, I really missed the food business, so I immediately started looking for something else. I couldn’t really find anything that supplemented my income like the concession business did so I decided to quit my other job and buy a restaurant. I looked around and at that time, JP’s was available and very profitable. I thought, “I like pizza. I like working with food. This is a good business that’s up and running—why not?”

Does your family help you out?

My wife of 16 years is Carmell. She’s our bookkeeper and she’s the one I call in if we’re busy and/or behind. She’s also 50 percent owner of the business. My daughter, Tiffany (17 years old), works for us—she’s a “Pizza Head,” which is what we call our supervisors. She works three or four nights a week as the Pizza Head, so those nights she’s in charge unless she’s delivering. I have five people that take turns supervising for the evening shift. My youngest daughter, Rebecca (10 years old), has worked here a little bit, but is getting more involved. She cleans my office and cleans tables and that kind of thing.

What form of advertising gives you the best response?

I would have to say box topping—putting my specials on the top of the box. Every time I do that, it doesn’t seem to matter what I put on there. I box top on and off throughout the year. The best offer I did was called Beat-the-Clock. The pizza costs the same as the time (between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.). For example, if they order at 4:31, the price is $4.31. Most of my customers try to get in as close to 4:00 as possible. I usually do this promotion about once a year. I don’t send out box toppers every single day of the week; only on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with offers for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week. This way I attract all those people that usually buy pizza on the weekend to buy pizza earlier in the week next time.

What other forms of advertising have you found effective?

Fundraising coupons create a huge amount of business for me just because I’m helping out a group and people appreciate that. Also, because I have 40 to 50 kids going out selling coupons, it increases my business. People that normally wouldn’t buy pizza from me will buy from one of the kids because they know that at least part of the money they spend goes to the kids.

You said that you had recently moved locations. Why did you decide to move from your original location to your new one?

We moved from one location to a bigger one. The biggest reason for moving was because we were getting busier and wanted to expand. I had the opportunity of getting very affordable rent (below market value) at new building. This one is 2,600 square feet and we can seat 42 people. The new rent was within $200 of our original rent for a place that more than doubled the space. We jumped at the chance and now here we are!

What did you learn from moving locations?

I would get someone to help us move the really heavy equipment. The move from there to here was really tough. I had a lot of friends and people from the business community that helped me out. Now I’d say pay the money and have someone come in and move things for you—the big stuff at least. That’s one thing that I say, “Wow—I won’t ever do that again.” I would probably get a little more information on the kinds of permits you need. I didn’t have everything that I needed or thought I did, so I ran into a couple of problems with that. It was the contractor that I hired more than anything, but I should have been more on top of that. So just making sure all the permits are in place. Other that that, it was a pretty smooth transition.

– PMQ –