As from February 1st 2017 I don’t work with the Continuous Improvement Team of PGGM anymore…! I am not quite used to the idea yet, but it is really true. Instead, I will be focusing 100% on making a dream come true: opening my own high quality pizzeria….
Since I followed the pizza course two years ago I haven’t been using this blog anymore, but at big request I will provide a monthly update here about my struggles, next steps and little successes – for who’s interested.
Last year I bought a pizza oven that can handle pizzas of 50 x 50 cm. (It is so big that it doesn’t fit in my kitchen, so it is on wheels now and it can be rolled into my bedroom when not in use 😉
I practised a lot on friends, family, colleagues and neighbours. After a while, when I thought my pizzas were rather good, I started to offer them on http://www.thuisafgehaald.nl, a Dutch website through which people in the neighbourhood can buy eachother’s food.That went quite well (my personal record was 22 pizzas on one evening!) and I received a lot of positive feedback, really nice!
Last August for two weeks I replaced an Italian friend of mine who works as a pizza baker. During the weeks before that, I shadowed him to get the hang of all the ins and outs of his pizzaiolo work, as I am quite a – just a bit – perfectionist. It was rather scary, but in the end I was really proud that I pulled it off. Some of my friends (amongst those I also count my ex colleagues of PGGM now;-) came to try out my pizzas and everybody was so enthusiastic that it encouraged me to further develop my own plans.
So here I am, still at the very beginning of this adventure, but at the same time already at the heart of it. I set myself up with an ‘ETA’ of 1st October next, and I hope that will turn out to be a realistic planning.
Little steps at a time, my dear colleague Karin (now a friend, haha) had been helping me for a while to get my concept ideas on paper for my business plan. One of those ideas is to serve homemade Italian icecream as desserts. Therefore last October I completed a beginners’ and intermediate icecream course in Italy. Last week I finished a third one there, ‘New trends in icecream’, where I was the only student without any experience… We learnt how to develop recipes for sugerfree and lactose free icecream, vegan icecream and ‘clean ticket’ icecream; the latter a sort of ‘green’ icecream without any wrong ingredients, i.e. palm oil. I am also able to make gastronomic icecream now: salted icecream that starts to show up in the better restaurants nowadays, such as salmon icecream, cheese icecream and tomato and basil icecream. At first glance not really appealing, but on a piece of toast (or in my case: pizza bread) it might be a surprising appetizer!
In the beginning of February I went to Bali for a two weeks’ holiday, in order to relax a bit and to celebrate the start of this new ‘era’. The second half of February I had some appointments with companies that I got introduced to at the Dutch Hospitality Fair. One of them specializes in professional kitchen furniture and appliances. We put together a complete pizzeria kitchen inventory; man, what a lot of stuff I’ll need…. AAARG…!
I also joined the Royal Dutch Hospitality Group, an Entrepreneurs’ Association that offers a lot of information, help and advice. I met the area manager for Hilversum, who knows everything about the local restaurants, authoritities and permits. She gave me a lot of useful suggestions and information. I hope to find a great location soon!
I participated in a day’s course “Starting a restaurant business” in which the most important topics were explained that need to be taken into consideration… and they are a looooooot 😉 It was nice to get to know other people that have similar plans and to brainstorm about their ideas and dilemmas. One of them was an Italian cook who has been living here for 5 years now. He also knew a lot about pizzas, coincidence doesn’t exist!
Furthermore, Dania, Fleur and I went to see my ‘quarter sister’ Brenda (she’s not my half sister, so a bit less). She designs corporate identies and logos (amongst others). A corporate identity is much more than just logo and stationary, she claims; it starts with your business standards and values, that need to be translated into your target audience and then into the details of the location, … menu, website and, last but not least, logo. Dania designed a great logo in my opinion (the one at the top of this blog) so the possibility that that might not be the right one, generated a lot of resistance in me. ‘Kill your darlings’ Brenda calls that, but I am not very good at killing…
On 23 February I had my official goodbye party at PGGM; eventhough it didn’t feel as a real goodbye, because I am sure I will see them again. It was really special: they organized a cocktail party with Italian snacks, Italian music and balloons in the Italian colours. They wrote a song for me with lyrics to a song of Laura Pausini and made me my very first placemat for the pizzeria. On it, there were great original recipes for pizzas (each of my colleagues invented one) and on the backside it was filled with nice words and compliments. On top op it all, they bought me a huge glassboard as a gift, that I will use to make my current actions, obstacles and successes visual, as a good Continuous Improvement team member befits;-) In the future I hope it will be attached to a wall in my pizzeria!
Yesterday I spoke with a financial advisor who explained some things to me about funding and crowdfunding. It’s so nice that someone can make something I dread, seem like something simple! I am planning to fund part of the amount I will need for my pizzeria, by selling vouchers to everybody who would like to support me. As soon as the pizzeria will be open, those vouchers can be redeemed for a profitable pizza deal;-) I am also considering the option for people who would like to invest some more, to do so against an interest of pizzas and icecream.
Next to all the things above, I will be busy finishing a great part of my business plan, creating a website and a business Facebook page and looking for the perfect location. As soon as new developments arise, I will update this blog!
Kind regards, Anneke
Mrs. Italy 