BFTP Mike Pitera For Read AImp4.mp4
Mon. May 20, 2024

0:00 – Jim Serpico
My name’s Jim Serpico and this… Should I start with my name? Or should I start with this is Bread for the People? Do you like it like this? Welcome to Bread. Or do you like it like this? Welcome. Ready? Welcome to Bread for the People. My… Is there a script?

0:28 – Jim Serpico
Welcome to Bread for the People. I’m Jim Serpico. You are listening to the podcast about sourdough, pizza, hospitality, and anything else we end up talking about. Today we have a special guest beaming in from Charleston, South Carolina. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s a restaurant and cafe owner.

0:54 – Jim Serpico
And I’m looking forward to talking to my friend, Mike, But before we get to Mike, I want to talk to you about what’s going on here. We’re recording this on a Monday. Mondays are some of my favorite days of the week, because I kind of get to regroup and set up for the week. Friends of mine, they see me doing events on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Farmers Market, and they’re like, man, you got it made. You do nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’m like, if you guys only knew. It’s about two o’clock here and the amount of crap that I had to do already. Uh, I usually start by recapping how my week went the week before and kind of recalibrate. So for instance, I started a new farmer’s market this Saturday in Syosset, Long Island. It was a pretty good day. It was one of the first days we had without rain in a long time. And we brought a gross potential of $1,400 in bread. And we did not sell it all. So now I take that number and I kind of readjust. Why didn’t we sell it? Was there enough bodies? Was it the product? What sold? What didn’t sell? So now I readjust my bake sheet. I come up with some new products. I take some away. I then come up with the plan. How am I going to bake all this stuff? How am I going to execute it? What do I need to make it? I have to take inventory. I have to figure out when I’m going to go get this stuff. I’m going to figure out, am I going to go buy this stuff? Is someone else going to go buy this stuff? And then I have to speak to a partner I have who has a winery, and I do a pizza and wine dinner there every Thursday, so I gotta get the headcount, I gotta plan that menu. I like to do something fun, I like to challenge myself, so I come up with a couple new recipes, test some things out there. And as some of you know, I’m on the hunt to open up my first brick and mortar. It might be new to some of you, but it is my goal. It is my passion to take what I’ve been doing and get out there and do this. Not that I’m not doing it full time, but I don’t have full time brick and mortar. So I’m working real hard on that. And I’m on the phone with business brokers and, you know, learning a lot about that, learning a lot about that. It’s not everything you might think it is. It’s very different than buying a house. Buying a house. They may represent you as the buyer buying a business They’re trying to screw you because they’re representing the other guy. So that’s what’s going on. It’s been a busy morning and without further ado my friend Mike Patera, welcome to the program.

3:42 – Mike Pitera
Hey, thanks for having me today Happy to be here.

3:45 – Jim Serpico
Awesome Mike and I met at pizza school in Hollywood, Florida That’s right.

3:53 – Mike Pitera
That’s right.

3:54 – Jim Serpico
That was a good time. It was a great time. I went down there to, you know, the pizza school we went to had some amazing instructors, but it really specialized and advertised itself to professional pizzaiolos who were interested in opening a pizza school.

4:14 – Mike Pitera
Right.

4:15 – Jim Serpico
I didn’t necessarily want to open a pizza school, but I did want to study with the people teaching at the school. And I made it clear to them, I don’t think I want to open a pizza school. Is it still okay for me to come? And they went, yeah, it’d be great. But now you were amongst a group of about people, 24 like pretty heavy hitters that were in this class with a lot of experience.

4:34 – Mike Pitera
Yes, yes. It was nice to see them and learn from them too, which we’ll get into. And I had no intentions to open up a school either. I was the same with you. I wanted to go meet and greet the people. I wanted to be learning from the best and see what it was really all about.

4:50 – Jim Serpico
Okay. Yeah. Now, when I talk about the heavy hitters, it’s not just the instructors. It was the students in the class. You know, as we went on, I started to realize who these people were.

5:05 – Mike Pitera
Well, I remember when I first met you. And you would tell, yeah, I make bread in Long Island. And we started talking. And then all of a sudden, I was like, yeah, well, this guy owns like seven locations. This guy over here goes to Italy and he competes, you know, in the world championships. And we were surrounded by, like, we were just Joes, a couple of Joes hanging out there, learning about pizza, wanted to better ourselves. And we’re surrounding ourselves with world champions.

5:29 – Jim Serpico
Well, listen, man, I put you up on that pedestal with those guys. You’re way more advanced than me, and you just came in sixth in the world cheese slice competition, my man.

5:41 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, it’s crazy, I know, I know. Yeah, it was something that was wild, man. I never would have thought I’d be top 10 in the world for best cheese pizza, that’s for sure.

5:53 – Jim Serpico
All right, so for the listeners, we were… I wouldn’t say it’s coincidentally, a lot of people in the business go to the Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, and I happened to go with some friends and my wife from here in Long Island, and it turns out that our entire class of 25 students, as well as the instructors, all went to Pizza Expo in Vegas. So we got to see everyone, but they have competitions there. And you signed up for Cheese Slice.

6:27 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, I signed up for Best Cheese Pizza, World Best Cheese Pizza, Fastest Box Making, the Fastest Stretch, and the Largest Stretch. So, there are pizza world games, and then there’s the culinary aspect of it where, depending on what division you’re in, which I was in Best Cheese, you can just do a culinary part, or more like the acrobatics and fastest box making and things like that. So, I did a few from that, and I did the Best Cheese.

6:55 – Jim Serpico
So what gave you the confidence to go for best cheese?

7:01 – Mike Pitera
Um, you know, I don’t know if it’s much about confidence. It was more of like, you know, I wanted to be in a competition that I can use in my own shop. I want to be able to say that, hey, I have placed, whatever it was, in a world competition for best cheese. Because no matter where you go, you’re going to get a regular cheese pizza. No matter what pizza you go to, they’ll have cheese pizza, right? I didn’t want to be put into another category where it was going to be Detroit style, or if it was going to be Neapolitan style, or something that I’m not going to offer in my shop. So, you know, I said to myself, I said, if I want to do something, I’m going to go down to the basics. I’m going to do what I sell in my shop. I’m going to do the best that I can at it. And that’s by using certain ingredients that I use. And, you know, all the experience that I’ve gained over the years from making pizza, I’m just going to make it my own. I’m going to take stuff that I learned from the old man in Long Island that I was working for and See what I could do and I use the same exact recipe I tweak the little things here and there and a little bit more basil a little bit or more oregano for the competition and You know what I was doing was selling this pizza to my customers and asking their honest opinion and say hey, I’m in a competition It’s a world competition people. There’s 502 contestants from around the world and I’m in best cheese. What do you like, What do you like, What don’t you like and then I would get their feedback and I tweak it and I said, you know what, I’m going to go for it. So I wanted to be part of that best cheese because that’s what I do every day. And if I can really improve my cheese slice and make it the best that it can be, that’s what’s going to make us different here and around other pizzerias of when you’re going and grabbing a cheese pizza. Because in my mind, if you go to Brooklyn, if you go to Texas, if you go to Louisiana, you go wherever you are, I’m always a believer on, let me taste your cheese pizza. Because if your cheese pizza is good, I’m sure everything else tastes really good.

9:06 – Jim Serpico
Right. That’s really smart. Really smart way to go, man. Now, you touched upon starting your journey, you said, from the old man. You started working in a pizzeria in Long Island at 15 years old, right?

9:19 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, it was my first real job. It was my job that, you know, not cutting lawns or shoveling snow. And it was my first real job. So it was my best friend’s father’s pizzeria in West Iceland. It was called Our Little Italy. Our Little Italy. It actually, they were in Long Island Pizza Strong also. They’re in West Islip and I started washing dishes and just, you know, he got all his friends together. The father was like, yeah, this is great. I got cheap work. My friends, all my son’s friends, they’re gonna come here and work for me and it’ll be great. So, you know, it was me and a couple of guys and from there is where I got hooked. That’s where I learned. From, I’m telling you, learned how to clean pots and pans the right way to how to mix the dough the right way. So everything that I took to work into a pizzeria, I had my hands involved so much somehow. And then I just grew from there.

10:13 – Jim Serpico
You didn’t resent as a 15-year-old, man, I gotta wash the dishes?

10:18 – Mike Pitera
You know, yeah, I mean, at first, yeah, of course, it was like, God, you know, I’m washing all these pots and pans. I remember, I remember it was a hot summer day. I have the three bin sink in front of me, and the waitresses and the cooks just throwing their pots in the water. They throw it in the water, it gets sprayed on me because it’s splashing all over the place, and I’m like, this isn’t what I signed up for, I don’t wanna do that. I mean, of course, there were nights for that, but, I like to spend money. I like to do things at that age. I wanted to be that kid that had that new BMX bike and things like that. And I was able to earn it by working. So that’s what really drove me to not really care, hey, I’m washing dishes. It was the end result. It was like, yeah, you know what? If I wash dishes for a couple of weeks, maybe I can get a new set of pegs, which were the things that go on the back of the wheels for my bike. And I can be that cool kid in school that got the new pegs because I earned it. So that’s my mentality at the time of, Yeah, I want money. I want to do it. And at that point, just cleaning the dishes and stuff brought it to the next step, which was prepping the food, cutting up the onions, cutting up the chicken, cutting up, you know, the cheese and the shredder. And as soon as I saw that, then I knew, hey, if I do this right, then I’ll go to the next one. Maybe I’ll get a chance to work up front, be in the front of the house and cut slices and put in the oven and talk to people. Oh, maybe I could be a pizza guy one day. Oh, maybe I can, you know, when I get a car and I save up for money for a car, I could be a delivery guy. So it just, I knew where it would grow from just from that early stage of just, believe it or not, washing dishes.

11:56 – Jim Serpico
Did you have any other thoughts of what you wanted to do for a living at that point or when you were 15 or 16? Or were you just living in the present and kind of going with what was in front of you?

12:06 – Mike Pitera
You know, that’s a good question. I grew up in a household that my father and my mother cooked a lot. I was surrounded by it. We ate together all the time. Not like these days, you know, every night I was home for dinner. I made sure I had to be home for dinner. We ate together as a family, right?

12:23 – Mike Pitera
I’ve always enjoyed cooking and I enjoyed cooking with my family. So I, even at a young age, my mom still says this today, you know, Mike wanted to be a chef. He wanted to be, he owns a restaurant. He wanted to own an Italian deli or something like that because with me and my family growing up in Brooklyn, that’s what we surrounded ourselves with. We would go to the corner store. We would go to the pork store. They would know my father. They would know my whole family. I was always, I always looked up to those guys. Like when I walked into a pork store, And you know, the superstar and everything’s hanging from the ceiling. They go, big Mike, little Mike, how’s it going? That whole vibe, I’ve always wanted to be that guy. And that’s just how I was raised. And at that age, yeah, I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be that pizzeria owner or that restaurant owner. Be the community guy walking around when everyone’s eating. Hey, how’s your meal? How you doing? I’m so-and-so. And I always enjoyed that. I always liked seeing that and being that important guy in the restaurant. So I did. And believe it or not, I didn’t do any of this until three years ago. I had a corporate job, a full-time job. No way. Yeah. Oh, no. So I went to school. I went to culinary school. I went to high school. Went to culinary school. Said to myself, you know what?

13:37 – Jim Serpico
In Long Island or somewhere else?

13:39 – Mike Pitera
In Long Island. And so I went to Islip High School. Then I went to BOCES, where they had a culinary program, a two-year culinary program with the high school. Then I took classes at CIA. Which is outside. So then I said to myself, I said, you know what? I said, I’m not going to want to cook my entire life for people when everyone’s enjoying the New Year’s and everyone’s enjoying 4th of July and everybody’s going away on these holidays. Who are they going to have to cook for that? Me. If I work at a restaurant, I’m going to be in the back kitchen cooking and all these holidays and not spend time with family. So I said, you know what? I’m not going to pursue this. I got a business degree and I got a job working at Xerox. Up until, up until three years ago, I was working for Xerox. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

14:30 – Mike Pitera
So you weren’t making pizza on the side or anything?

14:32 – Mike Pitera
Yes, I was. Well, I shouldn’t say that. I was, you know, in high school, I was working all through the pizzeria, working through school at the pizzeria. In college, I would work at the pizzeria.

14:45 – Mike Pitera
I’m telling you, man, I got an interesting life, man. I owned a DJ company for almost 15 years in Long Island. So yeah, I did a lot. I did a lot.

14:55 – Jim Serpico
I know a lot about that world. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

14:58 – Mike Pitera
I mean, we had a very, it’s still in business right now, actually. I just, I sold my portion of the business in July when I opened up my restaurant. But you know, when I was in high school, I had three jobs. I had two jobs. I had the DJ company. I worked for a local DJ company in East Islip and I worked at the pizzeria. I did that my entire high school career. And then I went away to college. I went to Cortland, SUNY Cortland. Then I was DJing up there.

15:22 – Jim Serpico
Oh, I didn’t know that. I went to Ithaca.

15:24 – Mike Pitera
Did you really?

15:25 – Jim Serpico
Ha! Yeah. No way. We’re 20 minutes apart. Yeah, man.

15:29 – Mike Pitera
I used to go to Ithaca all the time. So I was DJing at the Dark Horse, and I was DJing at all the bars in Cortland. And then, uh, yep. And then got my degree and, uh, I was still cooking and messing around up there because that’s what I love to do. And then I, uh, I graduated and then I got a job at Xerox in Melville, right on Spagnoli called Car Business Systems.

15:53 – Jim Serpico
That’s right where I live, man. I live right down the block from Spagnoli. No way. Gate safe. Yeah.

16:00 – Mike Pitera
So I was, right out of high school, they look for young guys out of college, I’m sorry, right out of college, they look for guys out of school that just graduated, and I was a sales rep. And I did that in 2009, was when I got the job, because I graduated college and I got the job in 2009. And I would sub in and out of the pizzeria whenever they needed help. They would call me, hey Mike, can you come in? You want to take a couple hours? I always had some type of side job on top of my DJ, my DJ company. Right. And I did copier sales up until three years ago. I worked all the way up to become the VP of Xerox sales in Queens.

16:41 – Jim Serpico
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know that was still a thing. Oh, huge. Like Xerox? Yeah. I guess all these big companies are still using these machines.

16:49 – Mike Pitera
You have to, you know, with scanning and printing and copying and bringing people back into the office after COVID. I mean, there’s a very big market for it still.

16:59 – Jim Serpico
But I remember having to deal with that when I ran my office in the city and it was like, to me, it was such a scam. Like we would lease these copy machines and they’d stop working six years later and they’re like, listen, you gotta buy, you gotta get a new one. I’m like, what do you mean? Can’t you fix it? It’s not worth fixing, you know, but I was leasing it. Yeah, but now you need a new one.

17:20 – Mike Pitera
That’s right.

17:21 – Jim Serpico
I could rent a car for the amount of money we were paying for these machines.

17:26 – Mike Pitera
It’s true. We used to go in – I mean you’re on a 36, 48 or 60-month lease. Once your lease comes up, oh no, the computer is not going to be able to talk to it anymore. You got to get a new copier and you got to do color now. Now, the color scanning, you got to do that. What happens if you need color? It’s such a – It got to me where I was in my life and it paid very well, but it’s just a car salesman. It’s the same thing, man. It’s something that I didn’t really have a passion and enjoy doing. It was a career that I got at a high school, I keep saying high school, at a college, and I was very good at it. I was very good in sales. I was personable. I talked to people. I grew up in an environment that You had to talk your way out through things and stuff, so I was finagler. I was always good at doing that. I enjoyed it. It paid well and it got me to where I needed to be.

18:27 – Jim Serpico
Now, you’re saying up to three years ago, where were you at in your personal life? I know you’re married, you have kids, right?

18:36 – Mike Pitera
No, no, no. So, I lived in Iceland and then I got married and moved to Bethpage. And then I ended up having a divorce. I got a divorce, my first wife. And that’s actually, you know, it’s weird how how life changes so fast, because that’s what got to where I am today. COVID happened. I was going through a divorce. I have no kids. My family actually moved out of New York, they moved down to South Carolina. And you know during that time was uh I’m a very open person about all this it’s a very very dark time for me it was you know I was uh getting a divorce and you know copier sales were plummeted because everyone was in covid and no one was going to their office to to work so they had no need to print or copy or scan things or show up to their office and use the copiers so sales were down so You know, I was going through a very dark time where, you know, it was hard to get, you know, commission, get paid. I didn’t have a relationship with my wife anymore. I’m going through divorce and my parents moved down to South Carolina. So, you know, at that moment, I was, you know, saying to myself, like, what am I going to do? What makes me happy? What, where am I going to go? I leaned on a lot of close friends and I met my fiancée, who I’m getting married a year from two days ago, so May 18th I’m getting married. Oh, okay. Yeah, ma’am. And I met my fiancée and she went to school at Coastal Carolina, which is down here in South Carolina. One of my very good friends, you know, introduced us and COVID happened and that kind of sparked everything up because everyone was locked down with each other. So when COVID happened we were together and then we ended up moving down here two years after we were seeing each other and I was like I need to be close to the family. She wanted to get out of New York and that’s what really brought me to Charleston was all that All that darkness that was going on in New York, I had to get away from it. I had to start new. I had to start fresh. I was this type of person.

20:48 – Jim Serpico
The chance to start over.

20:49 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, man. I needed that. I needed to get that flame going again. I wanted to be closer to my family and then I moved to Charleston and she came along with me for the ride. And I got a property management job. Still no pizza yet. I got a property management job coming here because I need to make sure I secure a job before I got up and left. And mind you, I left a position at Xerox as the VP of sales, making well over $100,000 that I left because I just, my health and my mind was more important to me than what was in my bank account at the time. I needed to start over. And yeah, man, and I moved down to Charleston and I got a property management job and that was three years ago. That’s how I ended up in Charleston.

21:37 – Jim Serpico
So your first pizzeria, and I know your second one is a little different concept, but very much related. When did you open Pizza a Moto Meal?

21:51 – Mike Pitera
So I opened February of last year. So 2023, February 5th, I believe it was. But prior to that, I had a food truck. That’s how I started.

22:01 – Jim Serpico
Oh, okay. So I did that too. You know, in going through the bread thing and doing the farmer’s markets and getting interested in focaccia and seeing what was going on in Florence and then like the trend in all the big cities are kind of copying those sandwiches. Right. That kind of made me get my truck. And I thought it would be like a step into the restaurant business to see if I like it. Right. But what I’m discovering after talking to a lot of people and maybe even including you and some others, it’s not necessarily any easier than having a restaurant.

22:39 – Mike Pitera
It’s not. It’s actually, you know, harder.

22:43 – Jim Serpico
Right. It is. You know, so like, it’s so crazy because The problem that I’m experiencing with it is the dates are somewhat sporadic, right? You have two a week, maybe three at best, and you never could really count on what you’re going to sell. Unless you have a private party and they’ve contracted for X amount of pizzas and sandwiches and pasta, whatever. But if you’re doing street stuff, you’re doing fairs and farmers markets, you’re taking a guess. You’re taking a guess on the weather. There’s so many variables and there’s so much food waste.

23:17 – Mike Pitera
Right, there is. There is. I experienced all that. There is, man. I mean, it’s like you prepare yourself all week in your kitchen getting ready to go and all of a sudden you’re driving down the road and you see this dark cloud and you’re like, wow, is it going to rain? And then are people going to show up? And then you set up your generator, you set everything up, you open up your window, you’re sitting there for four hours and it’s like, wow, I got three customers. I got all those dough that’s going to blow up and what am I going to do now?

23:42 – Jim Serpico
Right. There’s nothing you can do. And these people who arrange these markets, they could care less, you know, like as long as they get the fee from you. And that’s the other funny thing is like the food truck fees are so much money compared to being a regular vendor. It doesn’t even make sense. Like sometimes it’s $400 to go to these things.

24:00 – Mike Pitera
I was going to ask, are they charging that much to sit there for how long?

24:06 – Jim Serpico
uh… If it’s a bike at all day thing it’s deftly four hundred uh… I’d just got invited to this car show thing it’s a hundred seventy five but then you also got to say all right I’m working with one guys need dome uh… I’m relatively quick but how many pieces could I possibly turn out at an average of fifteen to twenty dollars and how many they gonna buy it’s getting hard and that’s why I started Well, I originally was going to do the sandwiches and did do the sandwiches and they weren’t moving as well. So then I started doing the pizza on the truck with the dome and that was moving better. And now I kind of do both. And that seems to be working out.

24:48 – Mike Pitera
So is your oven inside the truck or it’s outside where people can see it?

24:51 – Jim Serpico
It’s inside. That’s the problem. It’s inside. See, I’ve learned so much by going through the process and I don’t necessarily want to call it a mistake, but if I had to do it all again, I would want the open concept where people could see everything that’s going on.

25:09 – Mike Pitera
Right, right. Because their eyes is what is going to make them hungry and they want to come and see a show, see everything that’s happening and want the pizza. You know, you got to sell the whole aspect of it.

25:23 – Jim Serpico
And by the way, I prefer that. One of my fears and I shouldn’t say fear, but if and when I pull off getting my first retail location, I do want somewhat of an open kitchen concept so I could be out with the people.

25:39 – Mike Pitera
Let’s talk about that. Because I have an open kitchen concept in my first location. Oh, you do? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I want the same exact thing.

25:53 – Mike Pitera
Until everyone is staring at you and watching every single move that you’re doing. And God forbid you’re on the phone and say, okay, sir, the pizza will be ready in And they come there the 26th minute and their pizza’s not ready. And they’re standing on that wall, giving you these laser eyes, watching every pizza go in, wondering if it’s their pizza and wondering if it’s their next one out. They’re giving you a hard time. Then you’re going to wish you had an open kitchen or not. Not only that, this work, the workers in this industry, this generation is just so different than when I was in the kitchen or when you were around in the kitchen, if you ever worked in the kitchen.

26:45 – Mike Pitera
sometimes they just don’t think. Like something as simple as make sure you put on gloves before you touch something. Make sure you just show everyone that you wash your hands on the employee sink, you know, after picking something up off the floor. These are all things you gotta worry about when having an open kitchen. Now, I’m not saying people are dirty, they’re hiding stuff behind walls and things like that, but you gotta understand that the littlest thing At all. The littlest thing. People are always constantly looking at you. And they’re constantly judging you. And they’re constantly telling you that you’re doing something right or wrong. That’s the only problem with having an open kitchen like that.

27:23 – Jim Serpico
Other than that… Have you had customers call you on anything?

27:28 – Mike Pitera
Oh yeah, all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I had a customer call. And listen. They’re right. You know, it’s a lot of times they’re right. And, you know, for instance, we had a, we had a customer that said, Oh, well, um, she’s touching the screen of the, the register. And then she went to go pick up a slice and put it in my oven. Uh, I don’t, I don’t want my pizza anymore. So I would have to explain to her, well, listen, sir, you know, that pizza is going in a 550 degree oven. It’s not food ready. We’re taking it out with a spatula. We’re not touching your slice, putting it on a plate and giving it to you. You know, stuff like that, you gotta educate a lot of people, like they don’t realize that. And nobody’s there picking their nose and making a salad or something. But it’s just the little things like that, you will have people that’ll just wanna put a target on your back and for some reason, they’re just miserable. And they want to write you a bad review or they want to say, like for instance, oh, this is the best one. Somebody orders a pepperoni pizza and they see a pepperoni pizza go in the oven, automatically it’s theirs. Nobody called them before. Nobody walked in there before them. That pepperoni pizza that’s going in the oven is theirs. And when it comes out, if it’s well done, they walk right in. I didn’t want my pepperoni pizza well done. Sir, ma’am, who said that this is your pizza? It’s not your pizza, it could be somebody else’s pizza. So you run into stuff like that all the time. Now I have a closed kitchen in my Hollywood location where I am now. And the anxiety level goes from here to here. Because I’m back there just making pizza, reading the tickets, doing what we do best, and not worrying about anything that’s happening on the outside. I’m in the zone concentrating. When you have an open kitchen, your head is always on a swivel, looking around, wondering what this guy’s doing, wondering what that customer’s doing, wondering if they gave the person the right change. When I’m back here, I’m zoned in, and I let my employees handle everything up front.

29:23 – Jim Serpico
So, if you were designing a third one, what choice would you make?

29:29 – Mike Pitera
I wouldn’t have a third one.

29:31 – Jim Serpico
That’s the first thing. Let’s say you were designing my restaurant. Let’s say you were designing my cafe. What would you tell me to do?

29:40 – Mike Pitera
So, a couple of things. I mean, from experiences. I like the open kitchen concept because you get to talk to the people and see the guests and work the pie while doing that. I don’t like the open kitchen because of what we discussed. I would do like a hybrid. I would do something where, what I would do honestly is doing an open kitchen on just pizza. Just have your pizza maker. And the oven and that’s it.

30:08 – Jim Serpico
And if they’re doing anything else or have it in my case, it could be just bread because bread isn’t made to order per se.

30:16 – Mike Pitera
Right. Right.

30:18 – Jim Serpico
You know, put the deck oven in front and see some of the bread work being done.

30:22 – Mike Pitera
That’s it. And then have it in and out. And then anything that’s going out or, you know, if you’re doing salad and sandwiches, have it made in the back, you know. And again, you know, I’m not saying that it’s better to have it behind closed walls or doors because people are sloppy and they’re messy. It’s just the perception that, you know, people that walk into your restaurant, some of them may think that they know everything, and they don’t, and they couldn’t assume, and then that can be trouble for you. So it’s nice to have each person have their own station and just concentrate on what they’re doing, not worry about somebody breathing on their neck and looking at them with laser eyes thinking that they’re doing something wrong, you know? But, I mean, I miss, here in Hollywood, I miss seeing the customers while I’m making pizza. I always enjoy doing that. Like, you ever see that guy on Instagram? He’s making fun with a towel. He’s moving the towel, talking to people about the pizza guy.

31:15 – Jim Serpico
Oh, Nicky Cass. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Nicky Cass.

31:18 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, I love that guy.

31:19 – Mike Pitera
Yeah. It’s hilarious.

31:21 – Mike Pitera
He is. He is. But that’s it. He’s right about it. I mean, what’s better than making pizza and talking to people? Hey, how you doing? I mean, that’s what I like to do.

31:30 – Jim Serpico
And unfortunately, I can’t do that here in Hollywood. That’s what I like to do.

31:33 – Jim Serpico
That’s a big part of what I like to do. It is.

31:35 – Jim Serpico
And I hope to be able to do that.

31:37 – Jim Serpico
I’m sure you will.

31:41 – Jim Serpico
So how did you get the first place? Did you buy someone’s existing business?

31:47 – Mike Pitera
Yeah. So, well, I bought a an existing restaurant that wasn’t a pizzeria. So I had the pizza truck. I started, my father and I built a pizza truck the first year I moved down here. And I did that as like a side hustle. And I was working with my property management company and I built a pizza trailer and I drove around Charleston just making brick oven pizza in neighborhoods and different corporate events. And then a year later I saved up all my money I moved into a house where I live now, and down the block was a soup and sandwich shop. And, you know, they weren’t doing very well. You know, who wants hot soup in South Carolina when it’s 95 100% humidity? And it just really didn’t work. And I just knocked on their door and said, hey, you know, I’ve been really looking to open up a brick and mortar. It’s been a pain in the ass, you know, when I’m pulling a trailer all over the place. I have to prep everything the night before. I don’t have a walk-in or a tall refrigerator. I have to go to a commissary for all of that.

32:54 – Jim Serpico
So, it was a pain.

32:56 – Mike Pitera
Oh my God, it was a pain. I mean, I would get out of my job at 4 o’clock. Right from there, I would take my suit and tie off. Go put on a t-shirt and make make dough and and sauce and everything prepping for my wednesday showing on the truck you know so um I said you know what I gotta just give it a shot something I always want to do so I just knocked on their door and said hey if you guys ever think about you know moving on please let me know I left them my phone number and I swear on my mother that night they called And they said, hey, you know what? They said, hey, you know what, Mike? My wife and I have actually been thinking about this for a while now. And we were actually just talking to a broker. We do want to sell. I said, wow, that’s great. And it’s two minutes, literally two minutes from my house. And when I was looking at properties, it had to have an exhaust. It had to have a hood that could accommodate a pizza oven. Because the hood is one of the most expensive parts of these shops. You’re going through that now. Yeah, $25,000, $30,000 a hood. You have to have six inches hanging on each side and all this. So they had a hood because- And you knew all that.

34:09 – Jim Serpico
already. Yeah. From your experience.

34:12 – Mike Pitera
Yeah.

34:12 – Jim Serpico
You know, a few people have told me the same thing about just banging on doors and knocking on doors yourself and not relying on these brokers.

34:21 – Mike Pitera
No, you don’t want to mess with the broker. Brokers are just out for themselves. The, the, the amount of money that they, that they tack on that represent the seller, um, is, is crazy. I mean, you know, That’s why the sellers feel like they can’t sell, because they don’t want to let the public know that they’re selling their business, right? They’re not going to put a forced sales sign in front of their window. And they’re not going to say, hey, Joe, how are you? By the way, I’m thinking about selling. That right there, are they going to think something’s wrong with your business? Or are they going to say, hey, what’s going on? Why is he selling? So they hire a broker. They do it discreetly. And they bring people in and out, and they tack on 25% or whatever it is on a commission. So now if the business is worth $400,000, you know, they’re going to try to sell it for $425,000, it’s not worth it, so they can make the money. You know, so knock on doors. That’s what you gotta do. If there’s something that I saw that they were struggling, I would keep my eye on the place where I would come home and say, hey, still nobody’s buying soup. Still nobody’s buying a sandwich. There’s no line to get in. They have weird hours. That’s how I found this place too in Hollywood. Same exact thing. The guy got into a car accident. He would randomly close. People were getting upset that he was closing. He had some health issues. He had a lot going on. And I reached out to him on Facebook. I said, hey, my name is Mike. I own a pizzeria. I’m really thinking about doing a second location. Would you ever think about selling? He said, yeah, let’s talk.

35:51 – Jim Serpico
Unbelievable. I mean, out here, I find You’ve got so many pizzerias and there are a lot listed with brokers already. They seem to like have a lock on a lot of these. I think it’s hard. Even the other day, yesterday, I saw a freestanding building with a sign on it, but it’s repped by a broker. So I have to have this. And usually the terms are long too. I’m interested in the location. What’s that?

36:17 – Mike Pitera
And usually the terms of their agreement are long. It’s not like a two month term. It’s like an over a year term.

36:23 – Jim Serpico
Oh no.

36:24 – Jim Serpico
Yes. Right. Yes.

36:26 – Jim Serpico
Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s tough, but you know who I met at Pizza Expo? A guy named Mike Bausch.

36:35 – Mike Pitera
Oh yeah.

36:36 – Jim Serpico
Uh, he, he wrote a book called Unsliced and he has an unsliced restaurant system and he’s on the, I think the, uh, the USA team. You’re not on the USA pizza team, are you? You’re on the other one.

36:50 – Mike Pitera
I’m on, no, there’s the world team and there’s the US pizza team. So I’m working towards getting on the US pizza team.

37:01 – Jim Serpico
Okay, that’s Mike. Mike’s in that.

37:03 – Mike Pitera
No, Mike’s in the world.

37:05 – Jim Serpico
Oh, he’s in the world.

37:06 – Mike Pitera
He’s with Tony, Jim and Johnny and all those guys.

37:09 – Jim Serpico
Gotcha.

37:09 – Mike Pitera
All right. Yes.

37:10 – Jim Serpico
So yeah, we do a Zoom every Monday at 11 with like 25 of us. Okay. And I’m taking his masterclass. Okay. And he’s, he’s teaching us about numbers and spreadsheets and performers and brand building and it’s pretty wild. But this morning we’re talking about… He’s a great guy. He’s awesome, isn’t he?

37:31 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, he really is.

37:34 – Jim Serpico
I’m glad I’m getting that kind of foundation. It’s like going to restaurant management school. And he was telling us this morning, knock on doors, find a struggling business. You’re saying the same exact thing. That’s a lesson to all you listeners that want to get into this business. You know, be scrappy, hit the ground and do some of it yourself. Don’t rely on these brokers.

37:57 – Mike Pitera
You gotta do, you know what? Not for nothing, man. You gotta do all of it yourself. You gotta just go out there and get it. I mean, that’s where my sales side comes from I mean, think about it, Jim. Like, if you want something, what are you gonna do? You’re not gonna sit down and wait for something to come to you, right? You’re gonna dig out of the box. Just like, just like what you, what you do with, you know, with the, you know, Long Island Pizza Strong. What you do with Side Hustle Bread. And, and, and, you know, you’re a go-getter. Despite the amount of time that I’ve met you, just seeing what you’ve accomplished. I mean, um, You know, it’s something that you need to, you can’t wait because if you wait, someone else is going to get it and you’re going to kick yourself in the ass because you didn’t do it before they

38:35 – Unidentified Speaker
did.

38:37 – Jim Serpico
And, and not for nothing else. Um, um, this is like the next chapter, right? I’m choosing not to, I’m choosing not to retire to be perfectly honest with you. I was in another business for a long time. Uh, I was towards the end of it and I got completely out this january and uh… I am a go-getter and I like to use my mind I’m fifty six uh… But I have to do it now because if I don’t do it now that’s it and and I want to work I don’t mind doing this to the day I die uh… You know I don’t want to be someone sitting in apartment watching cnbc looking out the window at these people who play golf. I don’t play golf. I can’t just sit there, man. I can’t. I want to do some stuff. I want to talk to people. I want to come up with creative ideas on menus and restaurants and the feel and the vibe and create a community.

39:41 – Mike Pitera
Well, that’s, that’s, you just, you have the passion for it. It’s there. You just explained it.

39:46 – Unidentified Speaker
Yeah.

39:47 – Mike Pitera
Everything that you just said, it means you have the passion of going in this direction. This is something that you truly love. You don’t mind working.

39:54 – Jim Serpico
I do.

39:54 – Mike Pitera
You don’t want to stop working. This is what you want to do. No.

39:57 – Jim Serpico
And I remember when I first told you, you’re like, Are you sure? This is a big commitment.

40:03 – Mike Pitera
That’s what you said to me It is it is it I mean it is because You can’t see and that’s the I’m glad you brought that up because that memory you asked me about the pizza truck about you know Having a brick-and-mortar That’s one thing I miss about the pizza truck is if I wake up one morning and didn’t feel like working I ain’t have to hook up that truck No matter what, you gotta put that key in that door. You got four, five, $6,000 a week payroll. You got $6,000 food orders coming in every week and $4,000 rent and electricity and plumbing and all those things you don’t have when working at a food truck. So that’s where it’s like, you can be a very, very successful food truck, but have longer working hours of preparation and whatnot, or have a very successful brick and mortar business where people come to you, It’s going to take a couple of years, but once you have it running and you have good trusted employees, you can step back a little bit and then you can enjoy your life.

41:06 – Jim Serpico
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, it is some, I hear a lot of horror shows, but I also think after going through the process I’m going through with Bausch that, because I would say 80 to 90% of the people enrolled in this class, already have a business, a pizzeria specifically, and it’s not working out the way they want it to. Or they have one that was doing well, so they opened a second in a different area and it’s not doing as well and they’re trying to figure out why. And it does seem like if you don’t have someone to learn from, best practices are not innate. You have to get it from somewhere. You have to learn it. You have to study it. You have to put the time into figuring out what best practices really are. You can’t just buy a five-year commitment at $100,000 rent plus payroll, like you’re saying, and wing it.

42:10 – Jim Serpico
And I think a lot of people do.

42:12 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, they do. I know a lot of people that have done it. I know a lot of people that have no idea how to make pizza or was in the industry and they want to do it because they think that it’s just so, it’s like printing money. You can be so successful. And then all of a sudden they’re like, oh, my pizza maker called out sick. What am I going to do? I don’t know how to make pizza. It happens a lot. I see it all the time. I see it all the time.

42:34 – Jim Serpico
Now, what about, so did you put the pizza oven in?

42:40 – Mike Pitera
Yes, so I knocked down walls, I repainted, I redid the countertops, and where the hood was, I put a pizza oven. I use a Marcel pizza oven, two deck, holds 12 pies at a time.

42:55 – Mike Pitera
And I just molded it to what I needed. I had a vision saying, okay, the front counter here is where the slices are, that’s where the make table’s gonna be. The pizza oven’s gonna be right behind it, and in the back will be our prep fixation, you know, our sink area and things like that. So the guts were there. The foundation was there and the plumbing and everything was there. It’s just me moving and tweaking some things around so I can get up and go because that’s one thing that a lot of people make mistakes on. They think sometimes too big and when they think too big, it’s months upon months upon months of renovations, which means months and months, months of not getting money in your return of moving into that new spot. Right? So sometimes you’ll have a really nice landlord. I would say, okay, you know what? I see you’re improving my property. I’ll give you two months rent free. Or I’ll put the two or three months in the back end of the LE, so you don’t have to worry about paying me, so you can put that towards the business. And then you’ll have landlords who’ll be like, no, February 1st, I want my rent. So there’s a lot of things you gotta think about when going into a space on, what’s the fastest way I can get up and running, and the most efficient way to get up and running, but also make it my own so people can see what I’ve done here and wanna be here.

44:13 – Jim Serpico
Now, what do you think about this idea? Because I’ve been looking at places or telling the people I’ve been talking to, it has to have a type one hood, which is the hood you’re talking about. But then I’m starting to find like some delis that don’t have the hoods. And I’m thinking it might be a better way for me to go. You go with an electric Pizza Master deck oven that doesn’t require the same hood system. Because that you could basically get what they call a type two, very cheap exhaust fan that goes on top of that oven and then pipe it straight through the ceiling.

44:49 – Mike Pitera
Yes.

44:50 – Jim Serpico
But you’re going to pay a lot more for the oven.

44:52 – Mike Pitera
Yeah. I’m looking at right before I spoke to actually called the guy selling a Pizza Master. Um, you’re gonna pay a lot more. Yes, 100%. I mean, you can get a, like a deck oven that I have. I got my deck oven, I stole it. I got my deck oven for like they’re $5,500 normally around eight. Yeah, they’re normally around like eight to 10 grand. That’s your gas, thick stone, pizza oven. Yeah, brand new pizza master, you’re $40,000 and up.

45:19 – Jim Serpico
But- Easy.

45:20 – Jim Serpico
Easy.

45:21 – Jim Serpico
That’s for like a two deck, right?

45:22 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, it is. Well, it’s different. It’s how wide, how deep, how many decks. You’re building your own oven. But now, think about this. Now, It all depends on everyone’s personal position at the time, how much money you have to put into this business. I didn’t have anything. I was saving up my money from a pizza truck, selling pizza to have a truck that I had to put equipment in. So I put everything that I got into this place to try to get it back, right? Some people might go in retirement or have some side money that they save where they can drop 40 grand, no problem, and they’ll be off to the races, it’s great. But it depends on your position. But yes, I mean, you got to put a type one in it’s going to cost you it’s not $30,000 there already, even more between the ventilation system between the electrical between the fire suppression system, big bucks. And then, then you gotta get an oven to go under it. So yeah, because it’s more cost effective to get an electric oven, and that you don’t have to put a $30,000 in, and it’s gonna pay off the time and last longer and have better temperature control, and have more use for that oven than just a regular deck oven. Now that I think about it, and now that I’ve been to a couple of these shows to see how great these ovens are, yeah, that’s probably an avenue I would have went down, 100%.

46:41 – Jim Serpico
Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping to do. But then again, Mike, I’ve been thinking about making another call to you and say, do you need a bread baker? I’m thinking about moving to South Carolina. I have a spot for you if you’re ready. The hell with my own place.

46:56 – Mike Pitera
I’m ready for you, Ben. I’m ready for you.

46:58 – Jim Serpico
I got a place where you can look at that. I’m only half kidding. I’m not.

47:05 – Jim Serpico
I got down the road pretty far. Last time I saw you, I thought I had a deal. I can’t talk about the specifics of where it is because of the NDA, but the problem with the deal ended up being, and I had moved the money like I was ready. You told me that. But the lease was still going back and forth.

47:27 – Jim Serpico
You know, my concept evolved, even though from the very beginning I told them, I want to do a little bit like you’re doing, because you do at your new place, right? You’re doing a lot of breakfast stuff.

47:38 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, it’s cafe, pizzeria.

47:39 – Jim Serpico
And some pizza, right? So that’s how I build myself, more as a cafe that happens to have pizza. I’m not a pizzeria. Because I want to do just as much on my sourdough baguettes and sandwiches and stuff like that. I think that’s what makes me different than every other place in Long Island. Uh… And also a model that I see out in the west coast a lot and uh… So that the fact that there was a bagel store in the in the strip mall you know they said they have at the last minute they told me there was an exclusive and I couldn’t do the breakfast stuff so I I said I’m not changing my concept I’m not going to be just a pizzeria and I pulled out yeah and that was meant to be that I’m true believer that there’s a reason why that happened I think so, you know, but it kind of messed with me a little bit. It’s one of the reasons the podcast is back because, listen, I took a break starting last December from doing the podcast. Partly, you know, I took the class with you guys. I was moving in a direction. I got really fired up and started looking for space and left the entertainment altogether after I saw you. And, uh, I was, you know, all in now, all of a sudden my summer plans are a little different. I thought I was going to be in here every day at this point, you know, making this thing happen. I thought I would have had the space already.

49:09 – Mike Pitera
Right. But now, but now step back a little bit, right? How happy you right now that you’re back into you? Are you in a position right now where you’re excited to speak with me and other people to join your podcast? 100% and then spread it. So if that if so, if that’s if that’s the case, if that would have happened, that deal would have went through you would never be in the position that you are right now that could be put bring you further somewhere else that you know, and a happier place.

49:34 – Mike Pitera
True.

49:35 – Unidentified Speaker
Yeah.

49:35 – Jim Serpico
You know, I did get to a point with the podcast where I didn’t have it mentally in me to start making offers again to people to do the show. And I just wasn’t there for whatever reason.

49:46 – Mike Pitera
Right.

49:46 – Jim Serpico
Um, but, but now it’s like booked six weeks out in advance. I’m excited to do the stuff and I’m still able to do all the other stuff I’m doing, you know, by scheduling it properly. And, uh, and we’re also acting like we have the restaurant, you know, my, my son, You know, who’s home from college right now. He’s a little bit, he studies all the stuff we’re getting from Mike, and we’re filling out the menu, and we’re filling out the costing cards. Like, we’re actually making the stuff we would have in the restaurant, and we know the cost of goods. Like, we’re going to be so prepared when we go in. That’s great. You know, that’s how we’re using our time.

50:24 – Mike Pitera
So, let me ask you, what is your… What is your six-month goal? Where would you like to see yourself in six months from now? Is it having a brick and mortar? Is it maybe changing your truck a little bit and maybe having a different business plan for your truck? Have you thought about other things?

50:47 – Jim Serpico
Yes, I’ve thought about a lot of things. It’s not the truck for me. You know, if it was the truck, and I’ve talked to my wife about this, we’d have to get another truck. We’d have to sell this truck and build it out based on our new experience, the experience we’ve had for the last two years. And do it a little differently. But I don’t want to chase jobs. I don’t want to show up to places. I just, I’m okay doing it as an extension of, and make it catering. It’s all about catering, catering of my business. But I don’t want that to be my primary thing. Uh, six months from now, I would like to have a location locked and a deal on the location. I don’t need to be open, but I would like to be working towards this concept.

51:36 – Jim Serpico
So, but in all seriousness, 12 months from now, if it doesn’t happen, I may consider something else, which includes moving.

51:47 – Unidentified Speaker
Why?

51:49 – Jim Serpico
Well, will I consider something else?

51:51 – Mike Pitera
I do think there’s something that you love. If there’s something that you love and you have a passion for, which I can tell, you know, why give up from that point?

52:04 – Jim Serpico
Because I don’t know what’s going to change where I live. I have a little bit of this feeling that Long Island has this old infrastructure and it’s so There’s a lot of people, but it’s also not high traffic, like a main street in a city in another state, so it’s all spread out. But I think there’s a reason, every strip mall has a bagel store, a pizza store, and some other shit, and there’s all these competition clauses. And I think somewhere else it might be more spread out, and you have a better shot at finding and building something from scratch. Nobody wants you to build something from scratch here because the landlords want money from just the breakfast guy and they’re gonna keep him a breakfast guy. They want a pizza guy. And I think that’s part of the reason everything’s the same here. So it’s almost impossible to do a concept with all three meals.

53:03 – Mike Pitera
So I agree with you 1000% because there’s no way I would be where I am today if I stayed in Bethpage or if I stayed in Iceland. No way, right? So if that’s the case, which you’re right about, why open up a place six months from now?

53:21 – Unidentified Speaker
Why?

53:22 – Jim Serpico
I’m exhausting my possibilities in that I’m looking at freestanding buildings right now with no competition in the strip mall.

53:31 – Mike Pitera
Right, but even when it’s freestanding building, two miles down the road is going to be a bakery and a pizzeria. The other way is going to be another.

53:39 – Jim Serpico
Not a bakery. I don’t think there’s many things like I’m doing.

53:43 – Mike Pitera
Well, I know what you’re doing. A bread bakery. Yeah, I know what you’re doing. So you’re right. You are unique, which is great.

53:48 – Jim Serpico
I think, yeah. Now, I don’t mean to be pompous or, listen, it may not work. I’m not fooling myself. But it is one of the reasons I like the concept. We’re trying to be so different. No matter where we go, we wanna, cause I also have, I come to this from bread first. And I wanna anchor it on that. I wanna think about it out of the box in that way. And even if I went somewhere down south, I would still do it that way.

54:16 – Mike Pitera
Right, so that’s where I was going with it. So if you know there’s so much, and we’ve had these discussions before in Vegas of what you’re looking to do. And I think your concept is, Awesome. I think it’s something that no one’s really seen. I think it’s something that people will gravitate to and being, you know, the bread that you make is absolutely delicious and what you want to do with it, I think is phenomenal. Um, but now play devil’s advocates. I’m, I’m a big fan of playing devil’s advocate. I always like to think what’s the worst thing that can happen. So I know how to, how to angle it and how to better myself because of it. Right. So, yeah. So you open up a business six months from now, right? And say that you’re going great and things are going good. Now you’re married to Long Island and you’re married to that place for as long as you wanna be, right?

55:09 – Jim Serpico
Correct. We’ve talked about this.

55:12 – Mike Pitera
Right? So now you’re married there. You’re there 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week, whatever it is, right? Prepping, baking, working. Now, if you ever thought that you wanted to leave Long Island and leave your, you have a different quality of life, you can’t anymore. That’s it. You’re going to be there.

55:33 – Mike Pitera
So you gotta, I feel like you gotta ask yourself, what are you and your wife really, do you have kids holding you back in family in Long Island? Or do you want to get out of that rise and grind New York area that you’re in and take those skills and bring it down south where everyone’s nice and slow and you’re capitalizing on them? It is the answer.

55:58 – Jim Serpico
I’m a living proof of it. My gut says that that is, and you are the living proof of it, but my wife will not hear from it. She’s going to listen to this podcast. And I’m being honest about it. We talk about this every week. And she has a point of view that I have to respect. She says, you’re starting a brand new business. You know, that’s going to be new for you. Whatever experience you have, it’s still new. You haven’t actually done that. That’s a big life change. And then you’re gonna sell a house and move to an area you’ve never even visited. That is a big life change. And it’s too many life changes at once. And I don’t dismiss what she’s saying. She’s a very reasonable person and she’s absolutely my partner in this. She does as much work as I do. And we’re talking it out.

56:53 – Jim Serpico
And maybe in six months, we both are in the same place.

56:57 – Mike Pitera
Yeah, yeah. And she’s right about that. It’s it’s big life changing moments, right? And And I thought that for the longest time, Jim, I swear to you, like we spoke about earlier in the podcast. I had a career. I had a great salary. I had a DJ company that I was doing over 2,000 weddings a year. I had a house in Bethpage whose value’s going up to probably 700,000 by now, but there’s a little value of the property going up, right? I had all these things set up. One, you know, it’s all great, but I wasn’t super happy. But two, if I wanted to follow my passion, if I really wanted to do what I was doing, I truly, truly feel that I would not be where I am today with the same concept, as great as my pizza is, and how I talk to customers, because I can go right down the block and get it somewhere else. Even though your concept is different, there’s so much clutter of bread, and sauce, and cheese, and Italian restaurants, and pork stores, and this like that, it’s just hard to compete with. So I say to you that your wife has a very good point, right? With a lot of life changing things. But if I didn’t take the chance, To quit my salary job, to move out of the place that I love the most. I love Long Island. I love going to Fire Island. I love boating on the Great South Bay. That’s where I was brought up. I know everything about it. All my friends were there. If I didn’t take those big life-changing do those big life changes at that time, I wouldn’t have been here opening up a pizzeria of something that I love to do and going down the path of success. And one of those reasons is because it’s needed here. It’s in an area that’s not smothered by the same type of industry with people that want it because they’re from where it originated from My customers are Connecticut, Long Island, Jersey, even Pennsylvania. And everyone that comes into here, that’s why we were so successful for the Long Island Pizza Strong. That’s why they come in and they grab the slices because everyone’s moving down south. And to get ahead of the game, you’ve got to give them what they what the people want. Right. And I think that’s just something that I would invite you to think about, because if there’s no family or something really holding you back from Long Island, there’s a lot of opportunity down this way to follow your passion and be very successful.

59:46 – Jim Serpico
Wow. On that note, I’m going to dedicate this episode to my wife. I’m going to make her listen to it. And in three months, we may be broadcasting from South Carolina.

1:00:01 – Mike Pitera
I would say do it before somebody else does.

1:00:05 – Jim Serpico
I truly appreciate your insight and you know and you did it and it’s a valued opinion and it makes a lot of sense. These are all good things to talk about and question. Yeah, it’s scary, bud.

1:00:19 – Mike Pitera
It’s scary, but you got to do it.

1:00:20 – Jim Serpico
Part of the fun, and I always say this, is the part where you figure it out. It’s the journey.

1:00:26 – Unidentified Speaker
Yes.

1:00:27 – Jim Serpico
It’s not when you’ve completed and you have arrived and you’re done. So as stressful and scary as it is, Going through this process. I like to see that the good and the fun in it and it’s part of the puzzle and I like, you know, figuring these puzzles out. So, I’m open to to your pitch and who knows where the future will bring.

1:00:50 – Mike Pitera
Listen, pick my brain. But listen, Mike. If you guys have any questions, pick it.

1:00:55 – Jim Serpico
Absolutely.

1:01:00 – Jim Serpico
It was really good. Lots to talk about. Maybe we’ll do it again. And maybe I’ll come down and visit you.

1:01:07 – Mike Pitera
And we’ll figure it out. My house is always open to you, man. Be happy to show you around. All right, buddy.

1:01:11 – Jim Serpico
Thank you so much.

1:01:15 – Unidentified Speaker
This episode of Bread for the People was brought to you by Side Hustle Bread, Long Island’s handcrafted artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Bread is a family-run business that’s bringing the neighborhood feel back to Long Island one loaf at a time. If you like what you’re hearing, don’t forget to head on over to iTunes and rate and review this episode. Reviewing and rating is the most effective way to help us grow our audience. This episode was produced by Milestone TV and Film. I’m your host, Jim Serpico. Blessed be the bread, everyone.