For small operators (and massive ones as nicely) within the pizza enterprise, Andrew Simmons’s posts on Linkedin have turn out to be must-read materials.
That’s as a result of Simmons, who I wrote about final 12 months as he experimented with using pizza automation expertise in his San Diego space restaurant, has open-sourced his learnings as he continues experimenting with numerous types of expertise. And boy, is he experimenting!
And it’s not simply automation (although that’s a giant half). He’s always tinkering with each a part of his restaurant tech stack as he expands past his unique restaurant and appears to create a nationwide chain of tech-powered pizza eating places. Add in the truth that he’s using a crowdfunding mannequin through which he sells subscriptions and a share of future pizza income, and Simmons has created a reside in-process testing lab for the right way to construct a next-gen pizza chain that everybody can study from.
One instance of his extremely detailed learnings that I discovered fascinating is his publish right this moment detailing the cost-per-pizza after allocating the prices of the totally different pizza-making automation he’s deployed in considered one of his eating places. The video, seen beneath, exhibits how a lot every a part of the method — dough making, doughball prep, dough-pressing, toppings allocation — prices and the way he arrives at a 2024 price-per-pie of $1.91.
Simmons particulars how he’s tinkered with totally different automation techniques over the previous 12 months and the way they’ve impacted the value. One change he’s tinkered with is switching out the Picnic pizza robotic for a Middleby Pizza Bot, which is costlier however handles extra of the pizza-making course of and requires much less human intervention.
From Simmons’s publish:
Final 12 months, the monetary mannequin was constructed utilizing the Picnic Pizza Station. It was costlier final 12 months than it’s right this moment. This 12 months, I’ve integrated The Middleby Company Automation software into the equation, however both unit might work. Middleby is a bit more expensive, including about 60¢ to the per pizza estimate, nevertheless it takes the pizza from dough clean to cooked, whereas the Picnic requires some intervention to cook dinner it. Picnic runs about 38¢ per pizza this 12 months.
Simmons factors to current modifications in California’s employment legal guidelines as one motivator for his turning into an early adopter of those options, saying that the modifications will result in extra restaurant chains experimenting with automation.
“Thanks to the pioneers on this house which have tried, adopted, succeeded or failed, tools producers and restaurateurs alike; and to Governor Newsom, for accelerating adoption of automation,” wrote Simmons.
You may (and I counsel you do) comply with Simmons’s posts about his journey to construct a robotic restaurant chain on Linkedin.
