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Your Pie aims
for 100 locations by 2015
November 8, 2013
- Alicia Kelso
The growth of
the fast casual pizza category is staggering and many young concepts have
aspirations to quickly surpass the 100-unit mark.
One of those
brands is Atlanta-based Your Pie. First opened in 2008 by founder Drew French,
Your Pie has grown to 18 locations and recently announced a partnership with
Georgia Oak Partners to spur further expansion.
The company's
plan is to reach 100 units by 2015. As part of that strategy, Ken Caldwell was
recently named VP of Development. Previously, Caldwell led start-up concept
Heavenly Ham from 10 units to 230. He then helped HoneyBaked Ham dive head
first into franchising, and led that company's growth from 35 units to 180.
PizzaMarketplace.com had the chance to talk to Caldwell recently about the fast
casual pizza trend and Your Pie's differentiators in an increasingly crowded
space.
PizzaMarketplace.com:
Why did you take a risk and join a young company in a young subsegment of
pizza?
Ken Caldwell: There is always
a risk with everything. I've been in franchising for 20 years. Part of my
personal thrill is to take emerging brands and grow them. As a customer, I saw
what Your Pie was doing and I loved the quality of the product and the emerging
category and Your Pie's place in it.
PizzaMarketplace.com:
What has the learning curve been like for you getting into the pizza space?
KC: I am new to
pizza and there is some difference in the day-to-day operation. But we believe
pizza is about as simple as restaurant operations can be. Yes, there is
training involved, but we feel that we can teach anybody how to operate a pizza
store. The key, though, is to find people who can run a business profitably. We
can teach operations, but we need to make sure we teach unit level economics.
PizzaMarketplace.com:
As the top-your-own category grows, what is Your Pie's differentiator?
KC: Our primary
focus is offering the ability for customers to create their own pizzas. But we
also do salads, Panini, craft beer, gelato. We encourage our franchisees to
develop relationships with local beer distributors in their markets, and craft
beer lovers appreciate that. And, a differentiator is the brick oven, which
brings a fantastic flavor to the pizza — a crispy, light flavor. We also use
the oven to bake bread for our Panini, so our advantage is in the quality of
the product. The brick oven is our focal point.
PizzaMarketplace.com:
Does a brick oven slow down speed of service, compared to a concept that uses a
high-tech conveyor oven?
KC: From an
operations perspective, we believe a brick oven can cook pizza as fast as a
conveyor oven and has other advantages. We hand-toss our dough, whereas a lot
of competitors hand-press their dough ahead of time. It creates an operational
efficiency for them, but we don't take the 'time perspective.' We take the
freshness and flavor perspective. We can hand toss our dough, let our customers
choose their toppings, bake the pizza and still have it to them in 7 to 10
minutes.
To continue reading Q&A, click here.
