July '24: Saint Francis Apizza News and Reflections
Why we make frozen pizzas, and an invitation to come work with us
“Most newsletter suck. This one doesn’t” - an anonymous real reader of this newsletter
I'm the owner of the pizza restaurant Saint Francis Apizza in Cincinnati, OH. I write a newsletter most months to send out updates about the pizzeria, share my love of pizza and the travels I embark on to learn more about my favorite food, and the business behind it.
“If you open up one restaurant and it’s successful, you’re going to have opportunity after opportunity, and you want to say ‘Yes’ to everything, because your entire life has led to this moment. Don’t worry about saying ‘Yes.’ Worry about answering, ‘Why?’ ” - Chef Gavin Kaysen
How We Got into Frozen Pizzas
In the restaurant business, we’re always turning over rocks to find new efficiencies. Sometimes these can protect the business by reducing a cost. Other times what we discover can raise our ceiling significantly.
A $10,000 dollar solution doesn’t always look like landing a $10,000 catering order. Finding a place where we are wasting $5,000 in resources, and figuring out how to turn that $5,000 burn into $5,000 in profit is a $10,000 epiphany. For example, a fellow pizzeria owner I know stopped throwing away perfectly good pizza dough at the end of the night — let’s call it $50 — and added garlic knots to her menu, adding about $50 in profit on a busy night.
In addition to finding something to improve our top line sales and profitability, we are now at a point where our entire full time team has been with us for over a year, and are correspondingly talented and qualified. If we can create another business with a new career opportunity for one of our own, that strengthens our business financially, and that we’re collectively excited about, then we will absolutely start down that path.
Because we are open seven days a week and have so many skilled team members, there are endless opportunities to test new ideas. I started making tavern style pizzas for our staff in 2022, and then we added them as a special menu on what would otherwise likely be a slow sales day for us (Monday). Meanwhile we’ve been able to collect useful feedback and learn about your preferences as we go.
This newsletter has opened the door for me to explore the restaurant consulting space, something I never dreamed of doing until a year ago when a friend of a friend reached out after reading this newsletter.
Frozen pizzas came about because we don’t ‘cut’ — send home early — our staff when business is slow. The typical ‘start cleaning something’ approach is based more on principle than anything practical, although we do have a robust routine cleaning list, so I thought about ways we could meaningfully strengthen the business during those in-between times (4:00-5:00 pm Tuesday-Thursday in particular).
I was already kicking around the idea of a high quality frozen pizza thanks to Yee Mama’s frozen wontons [link] that I’d regularly buy at ETC in Findlay Market, and Mazunte’s [link] retail packaged guacamole and salsas available at Kroger. Both John Johnston, Mazunte CFO, and Chiuyee (Dora) Cheng, founder of Yee Mama, were kind enough to answer my many questions, and encourage me. At the same time, my wife and I had recently become parents and balancing taking care of a newborn with our full-time jobs, often found ourselves scrambling for a delicious secret weapon/short cut on any given night at home. The freezer became a make or break part of our kitchen.
Then I discovered Good Luck Bread out of Seattle [link] on Instagram (social media does help the world now and again). Kenji Lopez-Alt sang their praises in a post, and as a professional pizza maker, it was easy for me to tell that what Corrie and Eric were making was no ordinary frozen pizza. I suddenly realized that there was a way to make a frozen pizza that was…actually great. They were kind enough to hop on the phone and share their experience extensively. The pizza world is generally supportive and not nearly as cutthroat as the old-school stereotypes make it out to be. I sent them a dry-ice-cooled pack of Graeter’s as a thank you, then sat down with our team at St. Francis to share my vision for how frozen pizzas could address some of our business’ biggest pain points. As a business that shares information transparently via our ‘Open Book’ approach, me bringing up a challenge we’re facing and requesting input from everyone is common.
Ultimately, producing frozen pizzas made it possible for us to ride out daily and hourly variability in pizza sales. We were able to guarantee everyone’s work hours, and improve the business’ profitability, and a significant portion of those profits are distributed back to our staff.
The Process
First, we looked into what our food license with the city allowed, and what boxes we would need to check in order to begin selling wholesale (to other businesses for resale). We organized a group of home pizza testers, bought them oven thermometers, gave them free frozen pizzas, and solicited their feedback. We made tweaks to sauce and cheese ratios, and most importantly learned the best position in the oven and corresponding temperature to ensure a super crispy bake (475 F, directly on the rack). My brother happens to be a brilliant freelance graphic designer, so we hired him to design an ODA-approved packaging label. You can read more about his process here [link].
Of course, the rubber meets the road when someone has to take out their wallet and buy the thing, not just give you a thumbs up. With licensing from all the appropriate authorities approved, we started selling ‘frozens’ at our shop and to our longtime friends and partners, ETC at Findlay Market [link].
To date we’ve sold about 1,600 frozen pizzas between our three wholesale partners and directly to customers in our shop, adding nearly $20,000 dollars in top line sales.
I think of where we’ve been, until now, as ‘Level 1’ of our frozen pizza business. Almost no additional overhead, minimal equipment investment (a $350 vacuum sealer!), and just a couple of hours of dedicated work each week, most of which was already in place and on our payroll regardless.
Level 1 Frozen Pizza Business (Produce and Sell 50 Pizzas Weekly)
No additional production space, both rent and refrigeration (minimal fixed cost overhead)
No additional staff (improve labor vs. sales)
Alex does all packaging, deliveries
Three wholesale partners, DTC out of St. Francis Apizza
Minimal specialized equipment ($350 vac sealer, individually self-printed labels)
Pro-grade coolers and cold packs, but no delivery vehicle
As you may have noticed (sorry!) when you’ve tried to buy a frozen pizza from our shop, we can’t keep these things in stock, after we’ve fulfilled orders from our wholesale partners (at lower margins — another key detail to keep in mind). So why haven’t we already expanded production? Well for one, we needed time to determine if the demand was simply based on the fact that we were offering something new, in which case it would likely fade over a few months. Then there’s the fact that the next ‘level’ of the frozen pizza business is a lot less… ‘easy’ (I apologize to myself and our staff reading this for using that term — thanks for all your hard work!!!).
Level 2 Frozen Pizza Business (Produce and Sell 200 Frozen Pizzas Weekly)
No additional production space (continue to produce out of leased space)
Add one full-time staff member to fully run/grow program (continue to leverage existing staff time and expertise for production support)
Specialized equipment ($2000+ vac sealer, $8000+ in additional refrigeration)
Multiple farmers markets, one additional wholesale partner, DTC subscription
Invest in delivery vehicle; continue use of pro-grade coolers and cold packs
This where we are now. Level 2 is where the big lift, and the big risk in the form of getting out past our skis, occurs. Suddenly, we’re doing more than turning around a relatively small inefficiency. We’re hiring someone whose full time job is dependent on making and selling quadruple the amount of ‘frozens’ we’ve been making to date. That person will be working with me to lead this suddenly not so minuscule business within a business, and will need to quadruple it in the process.
Back to the ‘why’ and the vision for all this. To me, the most exciting and plain fun part of grocery shopping, whether at Hyde Park Farmer’s Market, Kroger, or ETC at Findlay Market, is finding a gem of an ingredient, something seasonal like heirloom tomatoes, but also those secret weapons I mentioned earlier, the Yee Mama wontons that make you sigh with relief when you thought you had nothing good for dinner after a very long day.
The frozen pizza selection has gotten pretty good the past few years, largely as a result of Covid showing chefs and restaurateurs everywhere that it’s almost essential to have another iron in the fire to survive something like changing consumer behavior or, god forbid, another pandemic.
The entrepreneur in me marvels at the incredible success and absolutely beautiful business model of The Bonbonerie [link], an iconic bakery just a few miles down the street from St. Francis Apizza. I’ve written about this before, so I’ll just say that I think it’s very wise to a) maximize your square footage and b) leverage your brand. Why do you think The Bonbonerie hasn’t opened five locations? I love the way that block is rich with character because they’ve been there expanding in their unique, funky way, for decades. Think of what that section of O’Bryonville would be had that space turned over dozens of times like so many less fortunate businesses in the area. The Bonbonerie appears to have grown their business incredibly wisely. It’s almost like they’ve built addition after addition to their house as their needs and goals grew. It looks a little different than most everyone’s ‘house’, but I doubt there are many food businesses with a healthier sales/square foot ratio.
Level 3 (Where The Frozen Pizza Business Becomes a Grown Up and Moves Out of the House — 500 pizzas+ Weekly)
Dedicated production space (*gasp* another rent payment)
Additional dedicated production staff
Refrigerated delivery vehicle
Shipping
Does anyone from Jungle Jim’s read this?
Exciting! *Gulp*
More of ‘The Why’
We are fortunate to have opportunities to grow. Right now, frozen pizzas check all the boxes. The final and biggest gut check of all is asking ‘why?’ Why do we want to do this?’ . First, our desire to add in-person dining remains at the top of our list of goals. Financially though, we are not yet in a position to take on the risk that may require. Frozen pizzas support this end goal without compromising it (they may even get us there sooner).
So much of ‘Why’ comes down to feelings, as much as financials. Because we’re only 3.5 years into our brick and mortar, the pains of starting something new are still vivid for me: endless time, boundless energy, pernicious stress.
But we’re on a journey. Beginning with a one-off pop-up, then a long term pop-up, then signing a lease on a brick and mortar space, changing our name a few weeks after opening, going from five days a week, to six, to seven. Employing a staff of four, then six, now ten. Annual revenue in the hundreds of thousands, to nearly one million. I love the movement, the progress. I’m not addicted to growth, but I’m acutely aware of the energy I feel — and much of our team feels — when working on something new.
It’s important for us to make time to relax and enjoy how far we’ve come, and it’s critical to never compromise the engine of this whole project: our work is only as good as the last pizza we baked. So, I have no illusions that we’ve arrived in a permanent way. I’ll admit I don’t read philosophy books much any more, but William James’ concept of “flights and perchings” comes to mind. There are resting places where we perch, for a short or long period, knowing full well that we’ll again take flight, short or long, to our next ‘perching.’ I’m not sure exactly how long we’ve been at this perch, but I feel a strong desire to take off again.
Are You Interested in Working With Us?
First, we are hiring a full time Pizza Maker. The application for that position is linked here [link]. I would so appreciate you forwarding this to anyone you think might have interest in joining our team!
As I alluded to above, we are also hiring a full time position to lead our frozen pizza production! This is a position that members of our current team will also have the opportunity to apply for (hi!). If this feels like a ‘hell yeah!’ opportunity for you, please email me at saintfrancisapizza@gmail.com with your resume and I’ll personally send you the job description and set up a time to chat with you.
Where to Find Our Frozen Pizzas Right Now
Saint Francis Apizza 3392 Erie Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45208
Taste on Elm 227 Elm St, Ludlow, KY 41016
The Farmer’s Collective 302 Main St, Hamilton, OH 45013
ETC Produce and Provision 1801 Race St Unit 149, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Please consider calling ahead to check the stock on these!
For now, thank you for reading, and thank you for trusting us with your pizza needs!
- Alex Plattner, Saint Francis Apizza
saintfrancisapizza@gmail.com