Pizza places battle for a bigger slice of the pie

Nov 07, 2009 (The Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- DPZ | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Roam the city with an appetite for pizza and you'll find Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa Murphy's, Papa John's, Louie's and many more.

They satisfy different tastes and fill different niches, from sit-down to delivery to take-and-bake -- but they're all vying for a slice of your dining dollars at a time when consumers are hunkering down.

Some pizza places have come and gone. Remember Mardano's? Or Delish? Here are two operations that, tough times or not, continue to grow locally:

BORRIELLO BROTHERS:

Borriello Brothers, a homegrown business that prides itself on bringing "real New York pizza" to Colorado Springs, began in 1999 with one location. There now are five -- six if you count Borriello Brothers' joint venture with Li'l Biggs at Powers and Stetson Hills boulevards. And two more are coming soon as Borriello Brothers moves into former Rotelli Pizza and Pasta restaurants in the Springs and Monument.

Two brothers named, yes, Borriello, launched the business. They're now gone and Rob Raia, who was involved at the start as a food vendor, is now co-owner along with Mike Clemente and Bill Stein -- all former New Yorkers.

Expanding the business was on Raia's mind when he became an owner in 2001, he said.

"I knew we had a good product, a good formula for what we were doing," he said. "And we had a lot of people asking for additional locations."

Despite a persistent national credit crunch, funding the expansion hasn't been an issue, Raia said.

"We have some good relationships with some banks," he said. "I think if you're doing your business right regardless of what business you're doing, there are funds available."

Borriello Brothers had nine employees in 2001; with the opening of the latest locations, it will have more than 200, Raia said. Growing the business, he said, has given it the heft to better control costs from its vendors. In the early days, Borriello Brothers went through about 400 pounds of cheese a week; now the operation uses more than 5,000 pounds per week.

"With one location, no one wanted to talk to us about price. Now it's a different world because we're so much bigger."

The down economy isn't preventing people from going out and eating pizza, Raia said. Customers are seeking value, though, and one deal Raia said has done well is two 18-inch pizzas for $20.

"We're trying to save people from bad pizza at a reasonable price," he said.

Where Borriello Brothers goes next, he said, "just depends on the opportunities." He and his partners are looking, for example, at entering the Denver market.

"Everything has to make sense at the time," he said. "We're looking at doing franchising and stuff like that, but we have to make sure our overall stores are solid before we move any further."

LITTLE CAESARS:

After 30-plus years with Little Caesars, one has to wonder if Mike Scruggs Sr. has pizza sauce running though his veins instead of blood.

Scruggs began working for Little Caesars in 1978 as a manager trainee in Michigan. He was 19. From there, he rose through the corporate ranks, becoming senior vice president of global operations for the Detroit-based pizza chain.

Now he's a Little Caesars franchisee, with Colorado Springs as his territory. Little Caesars closed its seven stores in the Springs in July 1999, part of a series of mass closures. But Scruggs saw the Springs as a good market for the brand -- and a good home for his family. So he moved here and launched a family venture to return Little Caesars to Colorado Springs.

His first store opened in October 2004 at Austin Bluffs Parkway and Barnes Road. Scruggs now owns six Little Caesars in the Springs and is planning to open a seventh at Chelton Road and Academy Boulevard probably in December, with an eighth opening eyed for next spring on the east side of town. As outlying communities continue to grow, "the market will hold maybe up to 15 stores," he believes.

It remains a family business. Scruggs' wife, Deb, handles the books, son Mike II is operations manager and son Adam is a manager.

Scruggs' plans haven't always gone smoothly. He closed a location on Centennial Boulevard after 18 months.

"That was my fault," he said. "I just picked a bad location for us."

The Little Caesars chain, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, appears to have rebounded from its problems in the late '90s; the privately held company says on its Web site that it has experienced "significant sales increases" over the last six years. Locally, despite the down economy, "we're doing OK," Scruggs said.

The key ingredients for Little Caesars' success, he said, are quality -- including fresh dough and never-frozen cheese -- and value. Little Caesars offers a large pepperoni or cheese "Hot-N-Ready" carryout pizza for $5.

Maintaining that price has become more difficult in the wake of minimum wage increases, Scruggs said. And last year he faced skyrocketing prices of commodities such as cheese and flour, though those prices have come back down.

To keep its prices down, Little Caesars keeps things simple, Scruggs said. The business is strictly takeout -- no delivery, no dining area, no wait staff.

"We only focus on what we do best," he said. "We don't try to be everything to everybody."

ONE CASUALTY OF THE ECONOMY

Garlic Jim's Famous Gourmet Pizza opened in the Springs Ranch Shopping Center at the end of September 2008 -- and closed eight months later.

The franchise was a takeout- and delivery-only operation with the motto "Gourmet, right away!" The pizza got great reviews, owner Terry Holmes said. And with gluten-free pizza crusts, "we were endeared into the gluten-free community."

So what went wrong? "We just couldn't attract enough business to keep it going," Holmes said -- a fact that he blames on the recession.

"It was the wrong timing for a gourmet pizza, that's about what it boiled down to. The whole economy was collapsing and there was nothing but gloom and doom in the news."

PIZZA BY THE NUMBERS

--Pizza is a $30 billion-plus industry. There are about 69,000 pizzerias in the U.S.

--Pizzerias represent 17 percent of all restaurants.

--Americans eat an average 46 slices of pizza per year.

--Pepperoni is America's favorite topping, with approximately 251,770,000 pounds of pepperoni consumed on pizzas annually.

SOURCE: Pizzaware.com

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