Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Nader.
Chris, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am from Michigan. I grew up outside of Detroit and I have been in the pizza business for most of my life. I started working for jets pizza as a dishwasher back in 8th grade. Ever since the first day, that’s all I ever wanted was to own and operate my own pizzeria. I loved the business and the product. The feeling of making someone happy by feeding them the best pizza in town was exhilarating. Plus, interacting with the customers, going out and getting new business, and the high pace of busy restaurant was something I really enjoyed. When I was 18 years old, the owners of the store I was working at fired the gm and put me in charge. My first year there, I raised the sales 40% after my take over as general manager and I then knew this was something I was really good at!! So, did the owners! They decided to open another location and put me in charge.
As the store was being built out, I was offered partial ownership! My dreams have come true!! After about a year of being in charge and getting the store to profitable numbers, the owner and I had a falling out. Unfortunately, because I trusted the owner like family and considered them that I was the only partner by a handshake. There was never any official documents signed and I had to walk away with nothing… I guess that’s apart of gowning and leaning making mistakes. Never trust anyone with just a handshake, even if it is family. My dreams of owning my own pizzeria were slowly diminishing. My family used to visit Florida when I was growing up to get out of the Michigan winters. Every time I came down, I thought it was a place I could live forever. Dreaming of riding a motorcycle along the beach into the sunset. So, I decided to pack up my life in Michigan and head down to Florida!!! At the time, there were friends of mine looking to open a store down south in West Palm Beach, so I helped them. Picked the location, designed the store, purchased all the equipment they needed and put them in touch with all the right people.
Once that got up and running, I moved more south to Pompano and helped with another location. Helped with all the day to day operation, making sure the store was in good working order and finally had the opportunity to open a store for myself!! After helping everyone else, it seemed like it would never happen, building this brand, opening successful stores for everyone else my time has finally come!!! I did lots and lots of homework and research on the location I wanted for myself. It had to be perfect. I wanted a combination of all the successful stores put together. So, that’s what I did. I took all the stores that were doing big numbers and I got the average of all of them. Population, household incomes, schools, colleges, business, easy in and out the parking lot. I found my location here in Davie and Griffin in the Publix strip mall. On paper, it was a grand slam!!! I was ready to move forward and put all my eggs in one basket. This was it and I knew it would work…. so I signed my life away with a five-year contract with a multi-million dollar origination the neglected to tell me they planned on tearing down 3/4 of the mall and the main draw Publix. I signed my lease there for the Publix.
Because no one knows my brand, I thought being next to a big box store like Publix would help foot traffic and sales. Little did I know, it was one of the worst mistakes of my life. Shortly after opening, construction began on the strip mall. They tore down Publix and a good majority of the remaining tenants left when this was happening. So now, having a brand new business that no one knows in a completely dead strip mall that’s under construction with “DO NOT ENTER” signs on both entrances, massive cranes and construction equipment everywhere I was struggling to keep the doors open. It took an entire year of construction for them to get the mall back in order. They had to re-do everything. My parking lot was closed off, people couldn’t get to me, see me, even scared to come to my business because of this. If I would have been informed of this construction plan, I would have gone else ware. Two years now have passed and we are still trying to build this brand. Finally, after all the hard work, we are starting to see some progress, I am literally going door to door for sales trying to get business and it’s working. I started an Instagram and Facebook page to reach out to people and that seems to be helping out a lot.
We recently have gotten some big accounts at the dolphin’s stadium and Manheim auto auction off state road 7. We work with all the schools and my goal is to give back to the community as much as possible. I have sponsored events for school where we give back 20% of our entire days sales just trying to help out the teachers. We give away pizza on the regular and if you stop in and say it’s your first time, we will give you a slice for free!!! Tuesdays, we do small one-topping pizzas for only $4!!! Two for $20 on Fridays, Saturdays, if you spend $15, you get a free small pizza!! And Sundays, spend $15, get a free cheese bread. My plan was to come down here and expand the brand and take over South Florida with our Detroit style deep dish, one slice at a time. It’s been a struggle but failure is not an option. I have given blood sweat and tears into this place and we will make it. It’s just a matter of time and more people falling in love with my product and it’s starting to happen.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. The main obstacle was when the shopping center knocked down most of the strip mall leaving only me and a few other tenants. Everyone else left. The shopping center did not tell me this and it was pretty detrimental. I would have gone else ware considering the rent here is very expensive for a new business. No one knows who we are, I have sent out over a million mailers and most people just toss them in the garbage. Reached out to everyone in the area but most were closed off to me and the other pizza places were in tight with the community.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Jet’s Pizza – what should we know?
We are from Detroit and we specialize in Detroit style deep dish pizza!! It’s one of a kind pan pizza that is NOT a heavy deep dish pizza. It is actually a light, airy, flaky crunchy crust. We make all our dough in-house every single day. No dough is used to pass a 24 hours period. We mix our sauce in house and grind the highest quality cheese you can put on a pizza. We get it in blocks and grind it by hand in the store. All of our vegetables are purchased locally and chopped daily. Salads are made to order. You order a salad, we bust open the head of lettuce, chop it up, chop the veggies, and mix it together for you right then and there. Nothing pre-made sitting around. We also have special buttermilk shipped in from a small dairy farm in Michigan to make our famous ranch that has been known to change lives! I am the owner and operator and I am here every day overseeing the operation and making your pizza!!!
What’s your outlook for the industry over the next 5-10 years?
I believe pizza will always be around. Once people know about us, it will change the pizza game. We have our famous deep dish pizza that is like nothing else and premium ingredients that speak for themselves.
Once it catches on, it will go like wildfire. There will be a Jets on every corner and a household name. We just need to stay on top of the marketing and make sure people know about us.
Pricing:
- Monday $8.99 large one topping
- Tuesday $4 small one topping
- Wednesday $8.99 large NY style one topping
- Thursday $5 Medium one topping
- Friday 2 large pizzas one topping $20
- Saturday spend $15 get a free small one-topping pizza
- Sunday spend $15 get a free cheese bread
Contact Info:
- Website: WWW.JETSPIZZA.COM
- Phone: 954-858-JETS (5387)
- Email: SOFLOPIZZACO@GMAIL.COM
- Instagram: YOURNEWFAVORITEPIZZA
Image Credit:
Flyshots by Franklin
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