Pizza place in a town of 500.

[IRuleYouHard]

I am thinking of operating a little pizza delivery business in our small town as a way to make a little extra money. I would offer my services on the weekends fri-sun. There is nothing within 10 miles north of us and 15 miles south as far as food at all. There is also another bordering town about 5 miles away with another 500 people in it. They also have nothing as far as food. What do you guys think of just offering a pizza delivery (making them ourselves of course) on the weekends from my house? Dumb or Genioussss?

[Stake Monster]

I don't think you could produce pizzas fast enough without the proper oven.

[Pokeraddict]

Are you just going to bake frozen pizzas? If you are going to do it right I don't see how you could ever do it in your house. Also what do the health codes say there? Can you even run a restaurant out of your house? I doubt it.

[maxtower]

Most states health code requires a commercial kitchen for food prep.

[kjander]

Do you have a take and bake store near you? If so, this sounds like a good idea. Get a couple small frozen pizza ovens and have a stock of frozen papa murphies/nick and willy's pizza's.

When you use coupons at papa murphies I belive you can get larges for around 5 bucks. If you are not into that you could just do frozen too. I grew up in a town of 400 people. There is definitly a market for this (even though it is not huge). When the convenient store closed there are many times we would pile into a car and head 15 miles to the nearest town to get food. If the market is the same as the town I grew up in I would expect to get a dozen orders from the under 21 age group a weekend night and another half dozen by parents that have baby sitters. Throw in a couple from other demographics and it seems like it could be worth your time if you only devote a few hours too it.

[IRuleYouHard]

http://cgi.ebay.com/WISCO-212-2-DOUBLE-P...1QQcmdZViewItem
this is what I was thinking about getting... of course not this exact one and would need a couple of these but you get the idea. As far as from my house and health codes I have no idea... it was just a thought. There is a place that would be perfect for a little pizza joint... but I would have to build there. Would it have to be any more than say a shed with a pizza oven?

[kjander]

yeah, that is the type of oven I was thinking too. I strongly urge you to not build anything. You don't need to put any money into this besides the oven. If you start with a physical location you are going to run into problems with food services and business legality. You and I both know in tiny towns like that stuff just slides by. It is simple in my eyes, you are basically a reseller of frozen/take and bake pizza, you just happen to heat them up before you deliver them.

PS if you do this, I would offer all the same services a regular place so people view it as a pizza place. For example include crushed peppers, parmesan packets, perperochines, for free and ranch/garlic/marinera for like a quarter. Also there is a local place around me that throws a couple herb and garlic packets in the box, little stuff like that might will help people differentiate your service from them throwing a Jack's in the oven themselves. I would also offer soda. There are a couple of ways to do this. Get bottles in bulk or try to find a used fountain pop dispenser. fountain pop costs next to nothing and might also sell people.

[MrNiceGuy2007]

I love the idea, I have thought of opening a pizza place many times. Maybe I still will. I think it could work though.

[iruleyouhard2]

What type of pizza should I be looking for for frozen pizza I can just heat up? I was actually thinking about making them myself and offering texas toast/ garlic bread with them. Of course I would throw in lots of extra "freebies" such as ranch and garlic sause and such. As far as this sliding by its iffy. We have around 11 cops in our small town (which is a whole other story in itself) and they patrol non-stop looking for reasons to do their jobs. Maybe if I offered them free pizza!? I have an extra room in my house I could convert to a "pizza place" if that would be legal.
Any ideas are welcome. I think this could really take off if I did it right.

[heater]

This buying take-n-bake / frozen pizzas and reselling them nonsense is idiotic.

Don't open a pizza shop in a town of 500 no matter how little overhead you have. You won't do enough business to keep yourself from falling asleep.