Today is our first anniversary! We’d like to thank everyone who has made the first year a success. We’re very excited to have made it this far and look forward to making pizza for Ames for a long time to come. We certainly have learned a whole bunch in the past year. We’ve introduced many new pizzas, opened a store in Nevada, made a few bucks, lost a few bucks, made a few enemies… and many many friends.

Our supplier informed me today that we will have Gluten free crusts as of Tuesday!

Black Market Pizza is proud to announce that it will soon be opening its second location in Nevada, IA. .. In the location of what was formerly C’s deli… Inside the phillips 66 right on Hwy 30… This will be primarily a carry out business.. with a strong emphasis on lunches and breakfasts…  around Dec 1st we will be opening for lunch and dinner… with the goal of opening breakfasts by January 1st…

At first the menu for pizzas will include only the thin crust and double dough.. with the goal of getting the other pizza styles rolled out as soon as possible.. The menu will include new options which are currently unavailable, such as items “from the fryer”…. and a small selection of hot sandwiches..

Breakfasts will be biscuits and gravy… breakfast burritos… sausage sandwiches. possibly homemade cinnamon rolls… and a few other delicious items

We’re very excited to have this opportunity and really look forward to bringing Black Market Pizza to the community of Nevada….

Until next time…. Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

Hi everybody!  We’ve certainly had an interesting last few weeks. … Let’s see… where to begin?

Fridays and Saturdays are still off the hook… Mondays and Tuesdays are slow as heck… We’re constantly trying new ideas and promotions to get people in early in the week. Nothing short of giving away pizzas seems to work. Right now we’re running Pizza and a movie in cooperation with Family Video here in town… Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays if you purchase any 16″ pizza you get a free rental from Family Video… (5 day new release). My partner Jimmy went to Family Video and did some artwork on their windows for the promotion… Small results… measurable.. but small.

Channel Q… A few weeks ago we did a 2 hour live spot from the restaurant on the radio.. as well as a whole bunch of commercials on their station… I believe this was a flop.. in retrospect, maybe we should have included a special offer or some form of tracking so that we could actually tell which of those customers are coming in as a result of hearing our ad on the radio. The bottom line is that we will be paying a premium for the next several months… So we’re over budget on advertising till the end of the year. Mediacom advertising is probably the best advertising we’ve done to date. Advertising is tricky… and expensive.. it somehow needs to be measured for the impact it brings to the store.

Channel 5… We’ve made a deal with TV channel 5 which will get us a new commercial and plenty of air time.. The new commercial will have a fella waking up with a Black Market Pizza in his bed..I’m waiting for the email of the final cut for approval. They should start showing on the air soon. We’ll see how this works.

Taco Pizza and Buffalo Chicken… New pizzas… great reviews.. I resisted these pizzas for a long time… The taco pizza has a salsa con queso as a base with dollops of refried beans and seasoned ground beef with olives.. after baking it is topped with lettuce and tomatos and Doritos… I figured if I’m going to make a Taco pizza I need to make it my own.. and It needs to be excellent.. Check…. The Buffalo Chicken pizza is beautiful in it’s simplicity… Excellent quality buffalo sauce and chicken breast that’s been marinated in buffalo sauce. It’s really delicious… served with a side of Bleu cheese or Ranch… I would like to have included Bleu cheese crumbles, but that sparked the Ranch vs Bleu debate.. this way the customer gets to choose.

Double dough Pizza…. This is a new style of pizza… boy people are responding well to this… This is our 5th style of pizza. Its a thicker chewier pan style of pizza. People are responding so well that we started running these in the warmer over lunch instead of thin crusts. Everyday I hear from someone about how they love the crust on the double dough.

Art contest: so far we have had one entry for the kids contest and its great. Its original and well done. I think it’s the best entry to date. We’re hoping to get more entries soon. but we’re really not getting the results I was hoping for.

Louie around the World: Well… my Mom got almost done with the Louie doll then I think she lost interest… He sat there for quite a while on her sewing table… She’s finally back at it again and it should be done soon… Then we will start sending him out.

All in all, business is good, but could be better, but really we have nothing to complain about. Our staff is down to a minimum as the owners take on more.

Delivery till Midnight: Canceled… only sold a pizza or 2 each night we were open late… It really cost more to keep the oven going than we were bringing in. So the obvious choice was to cancel.

I’m going to do the blog at the middle of every month… So look for it again around Dec. 15

We make great pizza… we love doing it… we have great service…

Until next time….. Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

OK.. so were gonna switch gears… I’ve been introducing new pies at an alarming rate… and the bottom line is this… There is no magic pizza. There is no one pizza that will make people show up in droves. We make great pizza… and I still have a bunch that are yet to be introduced, but there’s no need to get crazy here…. So we decided to put the kabosh on some of the things we were going to do….. First… The Buffalo Chicken and the Taco pizza are not going to be introduced as a permanent part of the menu on this round. We will run them separately on a special for a month each… The Chili Cheese Dog pizza will probably be the same way…. The patty Melt will stay because there’s nothing extra we need to purchase to make it.

Ribs…. Got some samples…. they sucked.. Ribs are going on the back burner for now…Possibly they may run on a summer special at some future time.

The Mobster Sandwich: I swear! This sandwich is gonna make me nuts! I’ve sold only a handful at this point… They are on the menu, but I’m only giving them a couple of weeks before they get discontinued…. permanently.

Delivery Fri/Sat till midnight: This is staying…. we sold 1 extra pizza this weekend. That’s a start… this week I’m going to run a few Double Dough samples out to bars and places that have a late closing time with the new late delivery written on the box… Get some exposure that way.

New Menu: Has been approved and will be getting printed this week…. New wall menus are getting printed also…. The Webmaster from XSIVE1 studios has the new menu so the website will be updated AND the computer guy has some reprogramming of our POS system….. There’s a lot to changing the menu… I don’t want to do it gain for a long time… This time it’s necessary though… The Major changes:

User friendly… Spotlighting the Create your own

Lower Topping prices: Toppings across the board for 10-12-14-16 inch pizzas will be .69-.99-1.29- and 1.69.. That’s a big change… Menu prices will be for cheese only pizzas though

Sweet Potato Crust: Is mentioned throughout the menu.

Chicago Style: The sauce option is given.. as well as the Sweet Potato crust.

Food review: This week we ate at home…. My wife Andi made a 5 star Chicken and Noodles dinner… YUM comfort foods…

The Blog: I’m going to start doing the blog less frequently… Maybe once a month… I’ve had issues with camera on my phone (since my mother in law accidentally dropped it in the toilet) and haven’t been putting pics up lately… It will be fixed this week.. and I plan to put pics on every blog from then forward….

Ok so that’s it for now…

We make great pizza… We love doing it…  we give great service…. Until next blog

Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

New menus are almost done… few little wrinkles to work out. They look good… any more additions and either we will have to go to a second page or use a smaller font. There are 17 specialty pizzas…. The chili cheese dog pizza will be omitted from the new menu and will run on occasional special… We just don’t sell enough to justify the expense of the case of hot dogs…

Ribs… Still working on getting a reliable and cost effective source… we should get samples this week… they won’t be added to the menu till next time around… Depending on how they sell…

The Mobster…. The sweet potato roll is really great.. Sandwiches came out Friday… These will be available at lunch only for a while. This grinder sandwich is really delicious… I hope to sell quite a few this time around.

Delivery till midnight… Friday and Saturday only for now, We’ll see what sort of difference this makes.

We didn’t get too ambitious on the board this week… Its just Cy and Herky facing each other… No words or anything. I try to be a week ahead on a diagram for the board. This week I wasn’t.

In Juice again… This week we were listed as number 7 on their list of 10 cool things to do in Ames… Very exciting.

Food reviews… Every Sunday evening My family and I go out to dinner. something new each week is what we aim for. So…. I think as we do this I’m going to write reviews. This week for 9/9/09 restaurants.com ran a 90% off special… We got a couple coupons for some places we had never heard of… We went to Tic Toc in Boone for an early dinner on Sunday…. Nice place .. Great food … We will go their again. Spaghetti was excellent, Steak was perfect. Service was great… The only thing for me I personally didn’t like was the bar in the middle of the dining room. I just think a bar should have it’s own space. It’s a small matter.. We will return is the bottom line. I recommend Tic Toc… They do serve pizza also… never tried it. But I will when I return.

The week before, We went to dinner at a little place in Ankeny called Bandannas…. This was one of the best BBQ places I’ve ever eaten at. The ribs were great… I didn’t even sauce them up. The kids were all happy. They had some deep fried corn that was exceptional. I highly recommend this place to BBQ enthusiasts.

OK, so I’m done with my blog today…

We make great pizza… We love doing it… We have the best sevice

Until next week… Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

Stephanie quit. She’s getting married in a couple months and is just spreading herself too thin. She will be available in emergencies, but right now needs to dedicate herself to her wedding and life. We wish her the best, and she will always have a home here.

Friday was the best Friday in 3 months….. great sign that things are on the way back up…. Saturday was just dead-slow though as people were grilling and enjoying the nice weather… and then Sunday was awesome. I wish I could predict things and staff accordingly.

Last Wednesday was our 6 months anniversary…. (and they said it wouldn’t last).  At one point we were up to 24 employees… and now we have 12 and things seem to be far more efficient… A couple weeks ago Jake left and went to Buena Vista to wrestle… Damn hardworking kid. We spread his hours out among the other cooks and decided not to replace him. That worked out well, but we miss him nonetheless.

S’more pies are a big hit… We now do Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate…. mmm I actually really like the dark ones…. I’m playing with a peanut butter S’more… I think it will be good… I love peanut butter.

New Menu… We are out of paper menus at the restaurant…. still waiting on the re-designed one… It will be introducing a few new pizzas and overall will be more user-friendly… Sweet Potato crust will be there also…. Which reminds me… we need to get the Taco pizza dialed in. As well as the buffalo chicken….

Double Dough….  OK a new style of pizza will be also introduced… it’s a thicker doughier… pan style pizza (white or sweet potato)….

The Mobster’s re-debut….. I been bringing samples of the Grinder sandwich to the dining room…. getting them out there… they will be available later this week. I’m putting a new spin on them though… They will have a sweet potato roll… We’re dialing those in today I hope… They bring a new dimension to this sandwich.

New hours…. This week we will discuss having later hours.. I’m proposing that we have dining room till 10 and delivery till midnight…. I hope this flies. If we try it and nothing happens then we can always go back.

RIBS: For many years I’ve done these really great ribs that people really like and I’m very proud of. SO… in the next week or so we’re going to do a half slab and full slab rib dinner. I’m looking for a consistent and well priced baby back rib right now… for samples I went to grocery stores… too pricey… I mean I can’t possibly buy ribs in the same volume as hickory park, so it’s difficult to compete with an 18.00 slab, but we are working on it. The dinner will have ribs, slaw and potato salad with 2 of our bread rolls. They are really great and I hope they just take right off… Gives people a nice option.

I have much more to say, but short on time…. so I’m done

We make great pizza…. we love doing it…. we have the best service

until next week

Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

Ya know what tastes great on pizza? Bologna… really, honestly bologna is great on pizza. I don’t intend to sell bologna pizza, but someone needs to know.

Pink Lids: My lovely wife has been chosen by cafemom to lead a team to collect pink Yoplait yogurt lids. This is important stuff. Yoplait donates .10 for each lid collected. There will be a pink box in the store and we encourage everyone to drop their lids off. Also any Moms that join the Cafemom group… Cafemom will donate $1 to the Susan G Komen fund… here’s the link

So, I’m eating a patty melt the other day and a light bulb goes on over my head…. Patty Melt Pizza??  Hmm I mean if anyone can translate a sandwich to pizza it’s me… And I love Patty Melts. So… I got to work right away. Still have a couple wrinkles to work out, but this is gonna be a great pizza.

Menu: After some long hard thought…. I’ve decided to revamp the menu just a little bit. I mean it’s time to evolve… Hopefully in the next 2 weeks we can get it rolled out…. it needs to be coordinated carefully with paper menus and the website and the wall menu and training with the wait staff, but it will be well worth it. The major changes… it will be more user friendly… pick your style… pick your crust… pick your sauce… pick your toppings… tadaa.. Pizza! Topping prices are coming down and prices will reflect cheese only prices.

Other changes: There will be a few more gourmet pizzas… Taco Pizza (Yes dammit, I will do a Taco pizza). Also a Buffalo Chicken Pizza…. and the Patty Melt.. And the Grinder Pizza.

Grinders: I’m not givin up that easy… So last time I introduced the  Mobster Grinder… It was for a week and I didn’t sell any… Not one…. so I got all hurt and threw away the meat. But the fact is: It says a bunch about my pizza.  People didn’t TRY them… It wasn’t that they didn’t like them. So sometime next week we will re-introduce them. They are the shiznit.

Sausage: I sell a few pounds a week… not too much, but I’m not disappointed at this point. I asked my meat guy to put 10 pounds in natural casing this week.. I’m excited to try that out…. I will smoke a few and grill some… and try a couple other things I have in mind. I might sell a few.   We’ll see.

The worst part of managing people is… People. I mean everyone has a story (or an excuse)… Group dynamics change… some people work  better than others… temperaments…. people leaving… new ones…. GEEZ. I can’t wait till I get the point where I can pay people so well that they can’t afford to leave…. I mean I’ve been very very fortunate.. so far, but not many people say to them selves “Gee, one day I’m gonna work at a pizza place” … And lets face it.. Pizza for most people that work in it is really just a means to an end. OK, so were having growing pains or something and the place is in a semi-constant state of flux…. but we adapt and change as we need. I have not done more introductions lately on purpose… I’m kind of waiting till we settle down with the new fall staff. But, we have a few new people and some have left.. (or soon will). But ultimately, I think people feel connected when they know who’s making their food, so I will keep everyone informed of the changes.

That’s it for now

We make great pizza… We love doing it … We have the best service.

Until next time…. Greg and the Black Market Mobters

Saturday I turned 39… It was for the most part nice…. My family came to the restaurant with cake and sang happy birthday… My wife and boys got me a card and some nice balloons… I got a nice card from Christen and the cooks all pitched in and gave me a 6pack of my favorite beer…all the customers in the dining room chimed in and sang too, and some customer offered to sing happy birthday in OPERA… I politely declined. Although I worked open to close it was the best birthday in many years. Thanks everyone… especially my awesome wife who choreographed the whole birthday.

Things are picking up slowly in terms of sales… but they are picking up. We really need to make it through a complete cycle before we know what to expect or how to predict things. We decided to stay out of the magic mailer this time… I think it was a good idea. I mean EVERY other pizza joint in town is in there… We somehow need to separate ourselves from the rest. As far as coupons or specials go, I really don’t like them.. I figure we will just give our best price up front and a free pizza after you get 10.

Stephanie worked on the board this week by herself and did a great job. Its a collage of ISU.. It says welcome back students…. with Louie wearing a backpack and an ISU shirt (sorry no pic again)… Cy also makes an appearance on the board this week. A word of credit on our last board: A nice couple who occasionally comes in…. the Richesons I believe… actually gave me the idea for the state fair board…. They get the credit for that.

The Maui Challenge…. We’ve added a waiver… you must sign it to continue with the challenge…. It add to the dramatic effect I think if nothing else.

Louie around the world…. Ok I’m excited about this… In partnership with sailaweigh travel,  Black Market Pizza is proud to announce that were sending Louie on a world tour!!! Currently we are having a Louie doll made by my mom (a pretty accomplished doll maker)… and we’re sending him on a world tour.. Steve at sailweigh will be offering a discount on exotic vacations and BMP will be handing out pizzas for this. We’d like to get Pics in front of the Leaning Tower… Eiffel Tower… The Pyramids… and anywhere else people are willing to take him. The pics will be hanged in the store and posted online…. we’re still coming up with some ideas for a game or something cool and interactive for people to do.  I think I may have someone lined up to take him to Australia… in front of the opera house? and Germany might be possible (so much great architecture)… SO… If you have any ideas for the “WHERE THE HECK IS LOUIE” game.. email them to us. (perhaps people can guess where he will be next, or …..?) either way… Black Market Louie… will be on tour soon.

Art contest: We received our first entry the other day… A painting by a local artist… of a bag of flour and an egg beater… I’ll get it hung up this week.

T-shirts:  Also were getting pics of Black Market Pizza shirts all over… In the store we have a framed pic of Gary Freel in Iraq holding a Black Market shirt on front of a Blackhawk helicopter. It has a nice caption which begins with “Black Market Pizza delivers”…. So we’re going to make a gallery… if you’re going some place .. take a pic of you in your Black Market shirt… (Vegas… Niagra Falls… Fishing… whatever) and we will get them posted here in a gallery.

Since we opened, I occasionally bring out a few free pizzas to different businesses or large groups walking… I just hand ‘em a pizza and a few menus. Well, I haven’t done that in some time, so late last week I brought out a bunch of pies. On Thursday I brought out about 6.  A couple Greek houses, a few people walking, and a couple random businesses. Its great advertising.  On Friday, I brought a few more… The Greek houses were apparently doing some sort of serenade thing…. there were tons of kids all down “Greek Row”… I handed out a bunch of free pizzas. Who doesn’t love free pizza?

OK I’m done blogging… I will… I promise get some pics posted next week.

We make great pizza… we love doing it… We aim for the best service… Until next week

Greg and the Black Market Mobsters

Sorry I missed blogging last week… My wife and I took the boys to Storm Lake… we stayed at Kings Point resort…. What a great time, and way affordable. For 119.00 we got a family suite and 6 waterpark passes for each day we were there.

This week we went to the state fair on Sunday… my younger sons are 5 and 3 , and there is very little for them to do at the fair… I mean the 4-H displays are pretty awesome, but hold little interest for either boy… the crowds are difficult to navigate with or without a stroller, there are a few things they can do (the petting zoo… the trampoline jump), but we avoided the midway this year… we spent more at the fair without a hotel stay than we did going to Storm Lake and spending 2 awesome days at the water park. Next year my wife and I will try to get a babysitter and go alone.

Business at the restaurant is picking up…. Our numbers are almost what they were before summer… Which is nice, although we have some new mobsters, and they slow things down a little.

This weeks board is a State Fair theme… with a butter cow and Louie eating pizza (on a stick). Sorry no pic… I thought I took it, but it isn’t in my phone..

New pinball… we upped the contest to 1800 points for a free pizza. Its a sweet game… here it is.

Art contest: We hope to be getting some entries soon.

Maui Waui: On my watch we’ve had 2 challengers… neither made it.

All in all there’s not much to report.  I will be taking photos of all the mobsters and introducing them again starting next week. Stephanie will be getting married in October to a really nice soldier who returned from Iraq just recently. We’re all really happy for her… I may dedicate a blog to her and Tim.

That’s all I got for now…. I’m already working on next weeks blog.

We make great pizza… We love doing it… We strive for great service… Until next week….

Greg and the Black Market Mobsters