Starting a food business - any advice?

[Takeanotherlittlepizzamyheart]

Hi all!

I’m thinking of starting a side business offering homemade pizza a couple of times a week, using a commercial kitchen I know in a big city. Still early days but thinking of collating with a local drinks business that doesn’t offer food to encourage customers to stay longer.

Planning a small menu of tasty, high-quality pizzas with a twist (like nduja and hot honey, truffled mushrooms, some kind of savoury cheesy lemony creation) plus some simple sides.

I know the market’s busy, but I want to keep it affordable and focus on good food. I’ll try delivery too but want to test it out first.

Does this sound like a good idea? Would love to hear any tips or thoughts!

Thanks!

How do you plan to finance this?

Dark kitchen??

There's a Korean delivery place near me that operates out of a pub. Fantastic food but you can't collect, it's all Deliveroo and Uber Eats. I was in the pub recently and asked about it (it pops up on Google maps) and the bar guy was really shifty. Then he just laughed and said said they have a dark kitchen used by a third party but they don't advertise it. I said how gorgeous the food is and it really is amazing food.

Only if you are thin crust. I'd accept a more Chicago town style crust in the context of a trifle pudding pizza, but other than that I'm thin crust all the way.

There’s a business like this near us in south London and they had a lot of teething problems getting overwhelmed with orders and taking forever. It worked if it was just a family ordering pizzas but as soon as they got a party order everyone got held up and hangry. Just mentioning so you get your workflow right and make sure the offer is manageable. I also wouldn’t go too hard in with the weird flavours. For all the vogueish truffles and lemons, most people will buy the classics. Fresh ingredients and homemade is more appealing than odd flavours.

Ive run 2 start up food businesses. And, for various reasons have had contact with hundreds of food businesses.

Booze makes money. Food gets drinkers in the door. Food needs to be decent enough to get those people prepared to spend on their drinks bill through the door.

If food is the answer, consider dark kitchens, pop ups and food trucks.

Staff will be the hardest thing to get right.

Get a social media buzz going.

Don't expect much down time!

Wasn't one of last year's apprentice candidates, possibly the winners running a pizza business from a dark kitchen? I did look it up at the time as it was relatively close to me in darkest South London, and she was doing about 6 basics and a couple of more interesting ones. I did mean to order then forgot.

I feel the same. Always offer a trad one too and maybe a few simple add ons . I like pizza to taste of tomato, cheese, garlic, herbs and olives. Happy to add chillies or anchovies but the idea of fish nuggets and chipsticks on pizza dough puts me off.

Thanks everyone.

So if I do, say, three experimental, I’ll also offer three classics.

For crust, I’m thinking a really good classic Neapolitan pizza.

Re financing, it would be bootstrapped. Buy ingredients as I go, work weekends / couple of eves, doing say max 100 pizzas a week initially. I’ll keep my full time job and obviously conscious there will be initial outlays such as food certs and equipment / professional pizza oven. But I’ve costed it out on a very high level basis and if I start slowly and methodically, I should be able to keep costs fairly low and see if the idea has legs.

i intend to start with a pop up and my kitchen at home! Dark kitchen a great idea but uber eats and Deliveroo are prohibitive in terms of cost - they’d wreck me before I was even up and running.

@pinkdelight very interesting thanks - did you hear about them word of mouth or via the big delivery websites? I’d be looking at doing something similar but good idea re forward planning. I might parbake the pizza bases to give a head start and obviously will try to get preorders where possible. How many orders did it take for them to become overwhelmed?

Par baking bases is definitely a good shout. You’ve also got to think about how many pizzas you can cook using one pizza oven as they do lose heat with a lot of use. We have really decent ooni and I can turn out 10-15 in an hour at home quite easily, but that’s with one person throwing and topping and one cooking. Getting the production right to throw, top, cook, finish and serve a fresh hot pizza at a rate of one every few minutes is going to be key.

allergies is the other issue as I imagine it is just something you won’t be able to cater for.

if you are in a city are there any alternative delivery networks? I live in the Home Counties and we have a local alternative which does well and doesn’t rip off producers.

if you can have a mobile set up then street food markets will allow you to test your menu and build some buzz, but might need a bigger initial outlay.

youll need to register and ensure your home kitchen meets all food hygiene standards so a commercial kitchen that you let might be easier in some ways for testing the idea. Your local trading standards and environmental health will be able to give you some information.

a local to me pizza van setup did pre orders only using social media. They sold so many slots per hour for collection and then turned off ordering once they’d gone. Built all the hype on social media and it meant they could control the flow.

it isn't that hard to ensure your home kitchen passes in terms of food safety (assuming you don't have pet cats walking up and down the counters, and have hygienic systems for washing up (and rinsing!) dishes.
you might want to consider finding a (2nd hand) commercial mixer for the dough, then storing it in pre-measured balls, ready to roll out. not sure par-baking is necessary or desirable - a thin-crust pizza only takes a few minutes to cook anyway

Par baking isn’t really to speed up the cooking, the pizza cook in 1-2 minutes. Throwing the bases can take time to get an even, round base and to ensure they dont stick etc.. By throwing and baking then for 30 seconds you have bases that you can freeze / stack / store and also that you can move around easily. Being able to top the base and know you can definitely get it on and off the peel when dealing with a volume of orders is much easier. And you absolutely cannot tell the difference, if no one is watching the process it really does not matter. If you have several people working the process you wouldn’t need to par bake them, but on your own managing orders and cooking them would be very challenging.

How many orders did it take for them to become overwhelmed?

Not a lot! So if an order came in for a dozen pizzas for a kids' party, they'd be tied up with those and the subsequent backlog and we'd be waiting well over an hour (a couple of hours when they started out and were really not up to speed) to get ours. It was even an issue with pre-orders, because if they got a big order in advance, they'd be busy making those so we had to go elsewhere that night and hence it became an unreliable option to get excited about. I think they were particularly bad at managing planning/expectations, and you'll do better, but it's a skill to get the balance right between busy and over-committing.

We heard about them via the local facebook group and they put one of those printed banners on some railings (presumably paid for) in the area. I think there's a fair amount of interest/will to support and try these things when they start up, but that's when they have to be good and not disappoint or people will move on to the many other options. No pressure!

Is there a way you can get pubs to exclusively use you? I mean if they are allowing you to deliver then why not Dominoes?

Is anyone old enough to remember the 'Cockle men'? They would go around pubs selling seafood.

@sashh to be fair I haven’t asked if I can use them yet! Very early days haha. But yes that’s an excellent idea

I do think you need a plain option in there. Although I think it sounds fab, lots of people are less adventurous.

A point to consider is whether all the kitchen stuff works. Does it need any servicing/ maintenance/ testing? A friend was taking in a restaurant and insisted on testing all the equipment, half of it just didn’t work. Also does their insurance cover kitchen use?

I do think it’s a good idea, I’d wander along to the pub for a fancy pizza.

Is there an episode of the Apprentice where they did snack food and chose pizza?

Probably worth watching that.

if a pub wanted to do food surely they would. I really don’t understand why they would let you take their profit. Especially if you don’t plan on doing it full time. If a pub sells food I expect them to have food all the time.
Sounds like a pipe dream that won’t make
money.

It’s really not uncommon to have bars that have food pop ups rather than staffing and running a kitchen. Alcohol has a higher margin, but food can make higher profits overall but comes with additional staffing and costs.

Your model works well for people ordering pizza as snacks for the table. But with a small portable oven you'd struggle as soon as a table ordered 4 pizzas. They lose heat so quickly the first would be cold by time the last one is done.

Have you checked the area for other pizza offerings? Sometimes people want something different. My local area has so many pizza places (across the quality/price range) and several pubs which offer pizza and there is a bit of oversaturation in the market.

If you bring your own pizza oven to an established place (e.g. pub) you may need to check if both your and their insurance will allow for that (in term of checking electrics, fire safety, escape routes, etc).

In my experience, the issue is when your food offering is only pizza, unless you have a big commercial oven. If you have a table/ order for six say, or eight, you will really struggle to get them all out at the same time (in fact it’s bloody nearly impossible). That’s why it would actually work better to have pizza as ONE of your offerings, so you can manage orders better (ie alongside other main dishes, which can be cooked in another oven).

i think it’s the work flow you need to focus on initially, not the flavours (although that it a lot more fun). Good luck to you.

“Your model works well for people ordering pizza as snacks for the table. But with a small portable oven you'd struggle as soon as a table ordered 4 pizzas. They lose heat so quickly the first would be cold by time the last one is done.”

This!! More eloquent than me!

London is rather saturated in the artisanal pizza market. Even making niche pizzas probably isn’t enough of an USP unless you are already an established chef and can use your prior reputation.

you might do better with Filipino inspired elevated sandwiches and small plates or something else really trend forward.

or thinking about how you could incorporate pizza into a wellness or small plates vibe, fermented ingredients, sour dough crusts, nitrate free meats, protein improved bases.

There’s a pizza van that comes to one of our local pubs on Friday nights - 4 different toppings and that’s it. It’s fantastic - it’s saved the life of the pub as it couldn’t survive as a drinking only pub, and they couldn’t get anyone to run the kitchen full time. It’s a win win - Fridays are always rammed now.
good luck! Sounds great

Not at all. There’s a few pubs round here that don’t do food even though they have a kitchen and they often have weekend pop ups