Pizza Factory withstood the COVID-19 restrictions that hurt most restaurants.
When the state forced restaurants to close their dining rooms for a period and limited capacity once they could reopen, the pizza industry was ready to handle that, as pizza delivery has been big for decades. Most have their own delivery drivers.
In fact, sales actually increased for Pizza Factory, said Jake Sheire, who took ownership of the business with his wife, Marcy, in July 2020.
“I think it was March 2021 when Gov. Doug Ducey closed dining rooms for about a month,” said Sheire. “But we were busier because everybody was ordering takeout and we were set up for delivery already.
“We have our own drivers and we don’t use any of the outside sources that charge like 25%. Unfortunately, there were a lot of businesses in town that had to close.”
But Pizza Factory at 238 E. Highway 260 in the Bashas’ Shopping Center must deal with the other issues hurting most businesses. The list includes inflation and supply chain issues.
Inflation
Rising costs for most products made Pizza Factory increase prices.
“Yeah, we just had to I think about a month or two ago because we didn’t last year and we had a 26% increase in the cost of goods,” Jake said. “So, this first quarter we were in the red because we weren’t making any money because it was costing us so much money.
“I didn’t raise them a lot — 50 cents to $1 per pizza. It’s not a big increase, but it helps cover the overhead because wages went up last year.”
They had to increase wages to their employees when the minimum wage rose from $12.15 to $12.80 in 2021.
Employees wear gloves after removing the pizza from the oven. That’s another item that costs more these days.
“Gloves used to be like $2-$3 a box and now they’re $11 a box,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. We go through a lot of gloves.”
The cost of cheese has soared, as well. And cheese is one of the key ingredients in pizza.
“The price of cheese, that’s gone up astronomically,” Sheire said. “It’s probably tripled. It used to be like $1.19 a pound and now it’s up to $3 a pound. And we go through a lot of cheese and we use 100% mozzarella. We don’t skimp on any of that, it’s important. So, we’re not cutting back on any of the product quality. We’re not gonna cut back on cheese or any of that. We still want the same product.”
They have no choice except to pay what they have to pay.
“These are things we need,” he said. “We have to have them in order to stay open. So, it’s been hard.”
Sheire said if prices on so many of the products they require continue to rise, they’ll have no choice but to increase the price of their pizzas.
“If inflation continues like they’re saying, we’re going to have to raise prices again,” he said. “And, yeah, we don’t want to do that.”
Supply chain
“That’s been the hardest thing, getting products,” he said. “Sometimes we can’t even get products.
“Like this week, there were five or six items we didn’t even get. For the longest time, we were out of paper products. Paper products have been a really big problem. We couldn’t get our boxes. We couldn’t get our cups. We have white napkins now instead of our Pizza Factory napkins. So, it’s hard to get supplies right now.”
Boxes are harder to find.
“We would go to the Valley to find boxes,” Sheire said. “Restaurant Depot down there sells boxes. We just pay twice as much for them and they’re not our brand.”
Bashas’ also sells pizza and the two have borrowed from each other when possible. And they’ve relied on other Payson businesses for other products.
“We help each other out as much as we can,” Sheire said. “Same thing with Backwoods (Grill & Bar). They’ve been great when we need vegetables if we can’t get them and we help them out. We don’t do that very often, just when we need to.
“Sometimes they’ll need mushrooms or something, so we give them lots of mushrooms and they give us back cheese or something.”
Sheire said there just aren’t enough workers making boxes right now, although that’s changing.
“That’s one of the main problems,” he said. “The plants don’t have people willing to work, so we didn’t have anybody making our boxes.”
COVID-19 issues led to many supply chain issues.
“The government was paying people to stay home from work,” Sheire said. “They were making more money to sit at home than to go to work. But I feel like most of that money has run out and they’re starting to come back to work and make money and spend it again. So, we have more people in the factories.”
Cargo ships waiting long periods to unload their crates is another problem that led to delays in delivering products.
“A lot of the stuff was stuck in crates in the ocean when we had the problem with COVID and they were keeping all the ships at bay,” Sheire said.
Workforce
Minimum wage and tips is enough to attract mainly students, but not adults.
“We’re only getting high school kids,” Sheire said. “These adults who come in, I’ll interview them, then they’ll get hired, but they’ll never show up, or they won’t show up for the interviews. That’s been our biggest problem.”
Employers across the country are dealing with the same issue, a shrinking pool of workers to choose from. But, that’s OK with the Sheires, who say students are outstanding employees.
“We take pride in the high school kids, even the junior high kids. They’re stepping up. They want to work. At 14, they can start working. It’s a lot of work on our end to train them, but we have them for at least four years. It works out good.”
But they’re limited in how many hours they’re allowed to work, which requires Pizza Factory to hire more of them.
“We have more than 35 employees,” Sheire said. “They can only get three hours a day during school days and they can’t work past 9:30 (p.m.). I think they’re getting like 20 hours a week.”
In the last year, the Payson Unified School District switched to Monday through Thursday classes, giving students Fridays off. That helps.
“Since they have a three-day weekend, that can work out for them because they can work longer shifts,” he said.
Community
Hiring students not only helps them earn money, it also benefits them in other ways.
“These kids are learning good accountability, responsibility, respect,” he said. “So, it makes it worth it, you know what I mean? Pizza Factory’s been here what, 35, 38 years. So, it’s a part of the community. We donate to the high school and a lot of things around town. It’s important to give back to the community.”
Pizza Factory donated “seven or eight” pizzas a week to the warming center. They also donate pizzas regularly to Payson Community Kids and Payson Christian School.
“We donate pizza to the Christian School and they sell them for $1 a slice,” Sheire said. “We just had to raise that to $1.25 a slice a couple of weeks ago.”
And they donate to other groups, as well.
“There are others,” Sheire said. “I can’t keep up with all of them.”
A couple of weeks ago, they gave all Payson High School teachers 32-ounce purple hydroblast tumblers with a Longhorns logo on it and will fill them with free soda when they bring them into the store.
Outlook
He doesn’t think we’ve seen the worst of things yet.
“A recession’s coming,” he said. “We’re on the edge of it. I don’t think we’re in it right now, but it’s gonna hit us. I think by summer it’s gonna be harder to get some of the food supplies just watching the news and seeing everything that’s going on. It’s scary. Hopefully, the elections in November help change some things, but it’s hard to say. We’re in a pretty deep pit right now.”
He said other issues like “over a dozen food processing plants bursting into flames” last month and the bird flu that led to the slaughter of chickens in Wisconsin, are going to lead to more supply issues.
“They’re predicting we’re going to be short of supply as soon as July,” he said.
And if they continue to see price increases for their supplies, they’ll have no choice but to pass them on to customers to stay in business.
“We may have to raise our prices (again),” he admitted. “We’re trying not to because we know that everybody’s being affected by it. But if the prices get up there, we would definitely bring them back down once the chaos ends.”
He remains optimistic that things will improve.
“I always have to look to the positive,” Sheire said. “If I stay in the negative, it would be depressing.”
To order a pizza, call 928-474-1895.
