“We did our absolute best,” says franchisee Jeff Horner, who manned the cash along with his wife Melissa, while a team of employees worked quickly to meet a huge demand for the new-to-St. John’s product only minutes after a small grand opening ceremony.
“The concept is to have people in and out in 30 seconds, and we weren’t able to do that with all our customers this morning due to the overall volume but as it gets to a normal flow I want people to expect that if they come in for a Hot-N-Ready products, that they’re in an out in 30 seconds, a minute tops.”
Unlike traditional pizza places, there’s no calling ahead, no specialty orders and no waiting. You drop in, order and pay, and you’re out the door with pie in hand.
“For people that are the go, running from activities and events, they can run in and run out without any real thinking ahead, it can be a complete impulse buy and pizza typically isn’t that,” says Horner.
Roger Burt of Torbay, one of the first dozen or so customers through the door on Wednesday, had been thinking about it since the signs advertising its arrival went up.
“I found out last night it was opening, so I said ‘I’m going there today,” says Burt, who first sampled the fare while working in Nova Scotia and developed and affinity for the chain’s famous deep-dish pizza.
Horner is a native of Manitoba and met Melissa, from Outer Cove, while she was on a pharmacy residency at the Health Sciences centre in Winnipeg.
Nine years ago they moved to St. John’s where he worked in a variety of sales positions, most recently as an account executive for Purolator Inc.
Upon arrival, he was surprised the to see the popular chain, No. 3 in North America behind rivals Pizza Hut and Dominos, missing from the local pizza landscape.
“It stuck in the back of my head and as time went it came to a point where I thought ‘I’ve gotta jump and run with this and now is the time,’” says Horner, who’s making his first foray into the food service industry.
The take-out restaurant is located on the corner of White Rose Drive and Aberdeen Avenue across the lot from the Former Golf Town location.
Horner says he chose the Thompson Centres-owned development because of the traffic flow through the area.
“Not only that, but the communities Torbay, Flatrock, Pouch Cove... it’s kind of the last stop leaving town for someone to come in and grab a Hot-N-Ready and continue on it made a lot of sense to be where we are today.”
Despite strong speculation that Costco, the area’s anchor tenant, is set to pull up stakes and move to Galway at some point in the next two years, Horner is confident other businesses, including his own, won’t suffer from a lack of shoppers in the area.
It’s already a strong commercial area with more expansion in his lot in coming months and more still on Hebron Way, and there’s a bevy of residential areas on the store’s doorstep.
“Most Little Caesars, a lot of the customers are coming from a 5-kilometre radius is kind of the norm so you really want to have that strong residential area presence to determine where you want to go.”
Little Caesars is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Twitter: kennoliver79
