Building Jonny's Pizza in NYC at just 24 years old with Jonny Rashtian

Alan Li (00:01)
Johnny, thanks so much for joining the opening soon podcast.

Jonny (00:04)
Thank you for having me.

Alan Li (00:06)
Well, really excited to dive into Johnny's Pizza. I love your slices, but before we do, could you give a little bit more about your background and how you got here today?

Jonny (00:16)
Yeah, so I started Johnny's Pizza about a year and one month ago and I got into the food industry not planned I would say. It started when I was going to 7th Street Burger and he had just opened a second location on McDougal Street.

Alan Li (00:37)
Mm-hmm. And what year is this?

Jonny (00:39)
This is 2022. And I'd been planning to get a JD MBA because I wanted to do like a tech startup. And then I just like stumbled into his store. I had a feeling he was the owner. So I asked him like a genuine question about if he decided to open the burger shop because he loved burgers or he wanted to just create a successful restaurant and

Alan Li (00:42)
Okay.

Jonny (01:07)
He happened to hit it off on full Persian, he's half. And he gave me his telephone number and then from there I just kept texting him asking if I could go with him to store build outs. So from there I started to create a relationship with him and I was working as cashier part time as soon as I graduated from NYU and I was going with him to build outs.

Alan Li (01:30)
Okay. And what did you

study at NYU and you're planning to do a JD MBA, right? Okay.

Jonny (01:35)
Yeah, I was a psych major.

Yeah. And then from there, I just started getting more and more attracted to the idea of opening a restaurant in New York. just seemed really fun and exciting. And eventually it started to realize that it is a startup in its own way. I never really viewed it that way when I was younger. ⁓ And then from there, my dad told me I had to come back to Los Angeles because that's where I'm originally from in August.

And then I made a decision that I would stay in New York and support myself and that's what happened so I worked at 7th Street Burger part time and then would cycle through various restaurants. Initially I wanted to do ice cream so it was a variety of ice cream shops throughout the city like Elaboratory Ditcholato, Cafe Pond and then I decided

Alan Li (02:25)
Great place. Cafe Pana is

also my favorite ice cream spot.

Jonny (02:30)
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely really hot in the city. And then from there, I transitioned to pizza. I felt like I didn't want to deal with the seasonal aspect of ice cream. And then from there, I started working at pizza shops while still working part time at 7th Street so I could learn the principles that they applied there and then also just pick up things. So I started picking up things from businesses that were successful, also not so successful. So I was able to learn the good and the bad.

Alan Li (02:57)
Okay.

Jonny (02:59)
And that was like a two year process. then during that two year process, I was also doing personal research on like, and reading books on just pizza making. I started making pizza in like a studio apartment in Chelsea. And I was awarded like 50 pound flour bags just because you couldn't get access to like those commercial flours unless you were like a restaurant. And then from there, I was like,

slowly fine-tuning my understanding of the pizza game. But truthfully, wasn't until I opened the doors in June of 2024 where shit really started getting real and the recipe that I initially had didn't taste nearly as good. And I didn't really have, I never worked as a pizza cook at the pizza places because they never really wanted to teach you if they felt like you were going to leave.

And so I was mainly working as a cashier. So it wasn't until I opened the shop that I started to ⁓ really get my hands dirty and like make pizza. I could make dough. I wasn't too worried about that. And I was able to like refine my understanding of making dough, but pizza making was a different game. ⁓

Alan Li (04:17)
Okay.

And I guess before we dive into, you know, everything that happens at Johnny's, I'm just a little bit more curious about your background of you were thinking about doing a JD MBA and then you got interested in Seven Street Burger having walked by. ⁓ Talk to me through that process because that's, you know, two very different paths.

Jonny (04:38)
Yeah, I think I was always very intrigued by being an entrepreneur. Like in high school there was like an entrepreneurship class where we like made backpacks from scratch. Both my parents had their own businesses growing up and I didn't really recognize until I got older how much that kind of left a place in my mind of like how I want to kind of just go about my career. I never really liked...

I really like following rules in school. I kind of feel like that's how the corporate world is in a way. Yeah, and it's funny almost how like some working at 73 burgers and employee was also my first job and it was very.

Alan Li (05:16)
Yep, same here.

Jonny (05:28)
beneficial for me because it also reaffirmed the fact that I wanted to be a business owner because I felt like had a lot of ideas that I was excited about and I wanted to put them into action and you can't really do that that much when you're when I assist them.

Alan Li (05:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. But when, when

you were intrigued by 7th Street Burger, you joined to just get a feel out. Did you also have in the back of your mind like, okay, if I'm not really interested in this, you know, I'll end up getting a JD or an MBA or was it, you know, after the first few weeks, you're, you're like, this is, this is the path I want to take.

Jonny (06:05)
I I just went with it honestly. As soon as I started going with him to build outs and I always loved food growing up. I used to like when we would go to sushi restaurants when we were in high school I'd always be like want to buy this place and I don't know it just happened so quickly I can't even remember I truthfully don't ever remember thinking like if this doesn't work out I'll go back to that. I'm very much

Alan Li (06:30)
Okay.

Jonny (06:33)
the type of person I like is very optimistic so I feel like I tend to only focus on like the best-case scenario.

Alan Li (06:42)
Yep. I like that. I

mean, you need that because you get hit in the face so much doing startups or building businesses.

Jonny (06:49)
Yeah, I just find myself feeling a lot happier focusing on like the best case scenario and just constantly fixating on that and working towards that as opposed to thinking of things.

Alan Li (07:05)
Yeah, okay. I like it. And then you also mentioned ⁓ while working at some of these other restaurants, you got a sense of ⁓ what's good and what's bad. ⁓ Could you talk a little bit more about that?

Hey Johnny, there?

Hey Johnny.

Jonny (10:10)
There we go, sorry Alan.

Sorry about that. never had that happen before. It just turned off on me in the middle.

Alan Li (10:20)
⁓ no worries. Do you need to plug it into like a battery source or something or?

Jonny (10:25)
It was plugged in. I'm not too sure why it happened.

Alan Li (10:28)
⁓ okay. No worries. ⁓ All good. We can obviously edit that part out. But what I was saying was, so you were also saying when you were working at some of these other restaurants, you learned some of the good and some of the bad. Could you briefly describe some of the things that you learned?

Jonny (10:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

for sure. ⁓

I think one of the biggest things that I learned and I still deal with on a daily basis is understanding that you need to listen to every opinion that you hear.

Alan Li (11:08)
You need to

listen to every opinion? ⁓

Jonny (11:10)
Yeah, you need to listen. I mean, not

you need to hear. I should say that's a better word. You need to hear every opinion that you get. And then I think it's the it's the job of the business owner to navigate all those voices and be able to take the good and the bad from all those voices. Because I one thing that I recognize when I worked at places that weren't so successful is that the owners felt like they were selling a good product.

but didn't understand why they weren't making more money. you have to be very critical of...

Alan Li (11:40)
Hmm.

Jonny (11:45)
everything that you're hearing and see if there's validity to it. And I felt like it was a very common theme to see business owners that they thought their product was good, but they weren't generating any money and it was stagnant. There's a case to be made that there's like a variety of ways for you to be successful and that like your location can carry for you, social media can carry for you, or the product can carry for you, or it can be one of those two things, one of those things or all three. And...

I think that there were times where I felt like I was at a restaurant I was working at and the product wasn't good. And the business owner just didn't accept that. They didn't even like want to consider that. And I'll experience a first hand where I'll release new items.

Alan Li (12:26)
Hmm.

Jonny (12:35)
⁓ in an effort to get more attention to get a larger following you know to just constantly grow the business and Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't I personally don't get offended by it. It's just a matter of Moving to the next thing if it's not working. You just got to your losses and move on ⁓

Alan Li (12:55)
Hmm.

I see.

Jonny (13:00)
And I think it's challenging for business

Alan Li (13:01)
So if I...

Jonny (13:03)
owners to be that critical and to kind of put their emotions aside because it is a very draining job where like you put, you have this idea, then you put a lot of like time and effort into it, and then you're emotionally attached to that idea. And then if people don't like it, then you feel like it was all for nothing. ⁓

But in the business world, kind of can't take things too personally.

Alan Li (13:31)
⁓

If I could summarize or if I could, if I understand what you're saying, it's basically taking reality for what it is. Like if I'm releasing a product and people don't like it, but I personally like it, ⁓ that's the reality is other people don't like it they're not going to buy it. So if I don't change something, then that's going to be bad for business. Okay.

Jonny (13:53)
Yeah, I think

it's a hard pill to swallow,

Alan Li (13:57)
I see.

Because I almost thought you were going the other direction where ⁓ some of the business owners ⁓ thought they had a good product and ⁓ other people were telling them to do other things. So they weren't clear on their vision of like, this is what I'm doing. And they started doing too many other items and lost focus. Have you seen the opposite happen as well? Or is it mostly the former?

Jonny (14:17)
Thank

No, I would say both scenarios happen. ⁓

It's a principle that I learned actually from 7th Street having he had worked in a lot of a lot of like fast food places as well and one principle that he instilled in me that I

Honestly, I always agreed with because growing up in LA I loved In-N-Out and their menu is very limited. In that you focus on making a few things really good and if they're really good, people don't really need it much. Much more than that, you know? And I find myself going to restaurants these days and if the menu is too long I just don't want to read it. You know? I kind of want it to be like a positive experience where I'm going somewhere and I don't have to make too many decisions because when you make too many decisions it's just kind of like uncomfortable, you know? It should be a

experience when you're going out to eat. It should be that the owner has like this one or two three things that they really want you to try and hopefully you like it and if you don't I won't see you again but if you do then I'll see you and you'll follow the brand and like that's when fun things will start to happen you know

Alan Li (15:31)
Cool. No,

I really like that. ⁓ Are there any other guiding principles that you also learned from your time at 7th Street or any of the other restaurants you worked at?

Jonny (15:42)
Yeah, no, there's definitely like endless things that I learned. I think another important thing is once you have a product that is working and...

Once you get to that point, I think it's very important to not really get complacent. I think complacency is also another thing that separates people that are really successful from just a middle of the bunch. And that when you have something that you worked so hard for, it's really easy to just take your foot off the gas and be like, all right, I did my job. But it's always about constantly pushing to be better. So let's say once you make that good product, then it's your job to create like...

layers of organization where how do you create a consistent product? How do you get that every single time an employee or a customer comes in that likes your product is having that same experience every single time? ⁓

Alan Li (16:29)
Mm.

Jonny (16:39)
And I've noticed my role shift considerably from day to day, week to week, month to month, where I have to, and it was part of the reasons why I was attracted to being a business owner, that one day I could be doing a marketing problem solving, or I could do food testing, or could demo construction, or I could be doing HR stuff, which is my least favorite. But.

It's really challenging to constantly have to become really informed in all those different things, those problems. And it can be draining at times, but I also think that's what keeps it exciting.

Alan Li (17:22)
Cool.

Yeah, I mean, that's also what draws me to entrepreneurship. Every day can be different. ⁓ And that's what's exciting about it. There's a lot of unknowns out there. ⁓ So tell me, you know, maybe about the year leading up to actually opening Johnny's. ⁓ When you had the idea that you had to open your own pizza restaurant, what were the next steps that you took? Was it to look for...

new spaces, talk to brokers, where are you starting to do your menu, where are you doing design, like walk me through that whole process up until you open.

Jonny (17:55)
⁓ I would say in terms of My branding I had that done early because I really liked branding and marketing ⁓ So I had that designed about like probably six months in advance ⁓ And then in regards to the recipe I had one recipe It was probably like two years of just kind of getting a feel of like what New York pizza really was

and how to affiliate with like the New York culture, what were different like recipe techniques, what were my favorite restaurants doing with their recipes, how could I like emulate those things with our recipe. And then in terms of construction, I mean I was fortunate where I was able to ask my mentor questions, but it was still like...

very messy. was about a three month job. The store ended up being a lot dirtier than we expected. The equipment that I was going to be using that was grandfathered in ended up not being serviceable and I didn't want to the risk of like using equipment that wasn't going to be clean or would break down soon. ⁓ Unfortunately I

Alan Li (19:10)
Mm.

Jonny (19:20)
It's one of those things that you really will never be able to learn that much of until you do it yourself, even if you're surrounded by someone in the scene. Like I was surrounded by someone exactly in my field of work. But it's just a different level of accountability when it's you leading the ship, you know? One of like the biggest things that was very challenging when I first started...

Alan Li (19:40)
Yeah.

Jonny (19:46)
that is very hard for people to internalize is that you get decision fatigue in the beginning. And what I mean by that is you start to have so many decisions asked that you need to, like so many questions asked of you where you need to make decisions and it starts to compound and you start to like get really stressed and question whether it's the right decision and...

You kind of have to just go with it. You gotta like try your best to make the like the thoughtful decision and just whatever happens, happens. You have to just move forward. And if it doesn't work, when the time comes, you'll adapt and change. And so when I talked to other founders, they also agree where you kind of look back on some of the things you do and you cringe, but that's just kind of a part of like the learning curve. We're never gonna really.

Alan Li (20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jonny (20:39)
open it and be like, wow, I'm so glad I did everything like that from the get-go. It's just not gonna happen. It's gonna get better and that's just like a byproduct of learning. ⁓

Alan Li (20:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So for your space on 173 Orchard, how did you even find that space? Was it through a broker or did you find it yourself or through a friend?

Jonny (21:01)
through a broker. I was looking for my store for about six months. ⁓ Another big thing that I learned from my mentors that you really shouldn't trust anyone. So I was out there looking at the stores myself. I was sending locations to the broker. Because at the end of the day, the broker has so many different clientele, they can only do so much. So if you really want to get informed, you got to do it yourself. So I was walking and just kind of learning.

Alan Li (21:05)
Okay.

Jonny (21:32)
I initially actually wanted to do the East Village because I went to NYU, I was very familiar with the area, I knew there was a late night crowd there. Lower East Side was interesting in a sense that I knew it was really busy late night and I wanted to open up a pizzeria that was open late night because I felt like all my favorite pizzerias would close past like 10pm. And then I knew Katz Deli was there and Russ and Daughters and those were both really big staples in like the New York food scene. ⁓ And there was Scars Pizza on Orchard but I felt like

Alan Li (21:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jonny (22:02)
it

was far enough where we could kind of build something where we felt like an institutional place and another institutional food group in the city and it sounded like a good brand story and my location was Zazie's Pizza and prior to that it was Rosario's. Both of them were pizza places and Rosario's was there for about like 20 years.

And so I felt like the opportunity was there where we could do a late night pizza place. We could brand it in a way that felt familiar, nostalgic. And that's how I went with it, honestly.

Alan Li (22:39)
Yeah,

I love the branding. ⁓ How much did you spend on renovating, opening up the location and how much is like rent to go for and space like that?

Jonny (22:51)
Sure, it was about like 250 to 300,000 and then the rent for my location is about 16 and half. So yeah, so it is a pretty hefty price tag.

Alan Li (23:00)
16 and a half.

Yeah.

Where did you get the funding or how did you fund ⁓ the 300,000?

Jonny (23:13)
It was through my dad, but my dad is based in LA, so it was just me running the show. So was a lot of stress, and in the beginning it was a lot, because it was late night, I didn't have good staff. ⁓ That was also one of the hardest aspects of the business and learnings. ⁓

Alan Li (23:36)
So you

opened up and then you're saying you were working day in, day out, late night yourself?

Jonny (23:43)
yeah, in the beginning it was, I have around 15 employees right now. In the beginning, I didn't even have the bandwidth for like staffing. So we were just open Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I ended up over staffing because I knew I was gonna inevitably have to get rid of some people. I've hired someone the first day, the first night. They refused to clean and I was just, I was so confused.

Alan Li (23:58)
Ha

Wait,

when you opened, ⁓ you only opened the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and how many employees were there with you? And then I know you said you have 15 now, but how many work in the store at any given point in time?

Jonny (24:15)
Yeah.

I think the first day we probably had like five pizza cooks and two cashiers. And then we eventually trimmed the fat considerably. A lot of those pizza makers ended up being like crazy, like super crazy. So then at a certain point I had like one pizza maker and one cashier and one prep cook and then me. And then it was kind of a revolving door of people from there on out.

And then eventually that pizza maker ended up just kind of like recognizing how much value he had because I couldn't make the pizza with my hand. So I was still learning and I kind of knew... I was very aware that everything I was doing was very risky. But I was kind of okay with it. I was okay with throwing myself in the fire because I wanted to just expedite. ⁓

the process. ⁓ It definitely was maybe not the wisest thing looking back, but I have no regret doing it.

Alan Li (25:29)
Yeah, but

for, mean, the pizza maker in that scenario, he knows, you know, he's a key man in this operation because you can't do the pizza making yourself at that point. So what does he do? Does he ask for more money or does he ask for better terms or like what, what is, what does he actually do to you?

Jonny (25:41)
Yeah.

So one thing about the food industry is that it's very important to have a hierarchy. And as soon as your employees sort of recognize that they have an upper hand, things start to get problematic with power. ⁓ So he did end up getting raises and he did end up getting a lot of leniency. But with that, eventually it starts to get taken advantage of where.

the first he started not showing up to work and not telling me and be on like busy days. So there was one day where I think he had been doing it but he did it on a Saturday night where he just didn't call and didn't show up and he was the only pizza maker and that's our busiest day and I was like holy shit I can there's two things I can do.

Alan Li (26:19)
wow.

Jonny (26:39)
I can run away and try to find a pizza maker for tomorrow. Because I had worked in the pizza game for two years. was able to, for the first four or five months, I got away with not knowing how to make pizza. And then this guy put me my back against the wall and I said I could either stay in the store and make pizza because I still knew how to make it, just not to the same standard that I wanted it to.

or I can close the doors and find someone. I was extremely stressed out. My stomach had turned over and I was alone. None of my family members were here, none of my close friends. I was like, no. This is what's going to separate me from being successful. I can either run away from the problem or can face it face first and whatever happens, happens.

Alan Li (27:11)
Yeah, I bet.

Jonny (27:31)
And that's what we did. I served pizza till we closed on Saturday at 3.30 and the pizza did not look great, but we sold pizza.

Alan Li (27:40)
wait, so you ended up making the pizza that entire night?

Jonny (27:43)
Yeah, it was... it was hectic.

Alan Li (27:49)
Oh man. For someone who doesn't know how to make pizza or for the audience listening who doesn't really understand, for your pizza maker, if their standard out of one to 10 is a nine or 10 to your standards, what kind of pizzas were you making? Was this a three or four? Is it a five or six?

Jonny (28:09)
It's funny because I'm so critical that sometimes I would say my pizzas were like a five But like that stressed me out a lot like my name was on the restaurant ⁓

Alan Li (28:22)
Yeah. Yeah. What did

people say? Were people like, what the fuck is this?

Jonny (28:28)
You know, I'm kind of fortunate where it was a drunk crowd. So I think it was fine at the time because it was so late. But I know that the people that were coming to the pizza shop when the pizza maker was making it, they noticed like a difference. Like there were bubbles, it would be a little bit drier or be like too thin where it flop. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. ⁓

Alan Li (28:33)
There you go.

Yeah.

man.

Jonny (28:56)
There'd be times where we'd run out of pizza and I would try to make the dough after the shift at like 340 a.m. I'm trying to make though and then I was too tired so I put the dough in the fridge and then I came the next morning and the dough had Fermented so much that it I was bulk fermenting it. So the whole thing Expanded so much that it opened the fridge door and was hitting the floor. I was like, my god. What am I gonna do? ⁓

And there would be days where we'd have, I didn't have pars, which is just like how much pizza you need to make for that day. And so I didn't have pars, so there would be days where I'd have to close the door because we didn't have pizza that was fermented. So if it's not fermented, like your stomach's gonna have a hard time. ⁓ There was countless learnings, but it's honestly funny to talk about now, but back then I was super embarrassed.

Alan Li (29:41)
Yeah.

Yeah. So,

I mean,

Because the pizza maker is such a key person here, ⁓ and for other people who open restaurants, their chef is the key person, or maybe they open a car shop, or maybe a mechanic is a key person, ⁓ and they're so critical to the business, and maybe the owner doesn't know how to do it as well or to the standards, what do you do in that scenario when the employees do have that much power? How did you get across this, not just that one day, but like, you

to now, like what is the process?

Jonny (30:25)
for sure. It's honestly a great question and I still ⁓ work towards resolving it. Well, I think it's really important to like as the owner and that's part of the reason why I worked as a cashier at 7th Street is that and then eventually worked as a manager and I learned how to make the burger. That it's very important for you to have a certain baseline understanding of every aspect of the business. ⁓

I do think the best way for a business to run is for them to know how to do the most difficult thing because I think it's kind of important to have that sort of dynamic that like maybe I can't make it as good as you but I'll fire you and I'll do it myself and I'll be fine with the results, you know? ⁓

One thing that I've done is that I put a lot of thought to it where I try to constantly think of ways to explain things. And I think it's very important for the founder to be bad at it, actually. Because if they're bad at it, then they can relate to someone that has no experience. And the more you can relate to someone that has zero experience, the better you are to teach them. And so I was terrible at making pizza. And that was the best part.

Alan Li (31:21)
Mm.

Jonny (31:37)
in that I can have someone come in now and they can do things that took me like six months because I've just learned from so many pizza makers that I've cycled through and learned from so many mistakes I've made that now it becomes a little bit easier. ⁓ So for example I

try to hire now people that have zero experience and train them from the ground up. And I try to also hire people that are younger, because younger people tend to be a little more hungry, a little less molded and set in their ways. And so I thought about, okay, so I'm hiring young people and I'm hiring people with no experience.

Alan Li (32:14)
When you say

zero expense, mean they've never made a pizza before. Wow. Wow.

Jonny (32:17)
never made a pizza before. That's what I do now. Usually

if you hire someone that has pizza making experience, they're gonna come in with their experience and they think that that's the right way to do it. And they're not gonna agree with you and they're gonna think very highly of themselves. Pizza making is very different from a lot of foods where it's so hard to train that everyone feels very, very highly of themselves when they know how to do it.

⁓ But there's so many different ways to make pizza and recipes that it doesn't always translate from pizza shop to pizza shop. But one thing that I did is, and like I could tell you new ideas that I'm currently working on, but one thing that I did is I'm hiring young people and I'm hiring people with no experience. And one thing that young people do is they're always on social media. So I created an Instagram for strictly training my employees. And in there, ⁓

Bye, Louis.

Alan Li (33:16)
Wait, this,

made an Instagram account that's to train your employees? Wow.

Jonny (33:20)
correct. So

we I had my branding team make covers and I'll be like opening the dough and then I took videos of my head cook and I was like how do I teach myself to get better and it's like why every time he teaches me something I forget it the next day even if I practice it the whole night so I'm like I need an archive where I can refer back to it and people don't like booklets in restaurants it's just like

You're working with your hands, you just wanna, you know? So I felt like I could DM this to the employees and they'd watch it. And then if they watch it before they sleep, like it's gonna be in their, just like in the back of their mind. And it's a fun way to kind of keep them accountable and also relate to them. Like I'll literally put songs that they listen to when they're working as the, as like the real song. ⁓ That was like one way. And then another way is just kind of.

Alan Li (34:10)
That's incredible.

Jonny (34:16)
kind of creating a division of labor. So I don't want to overwhelm someone. So one aspect of pizza making, for example, like taking the dough out of the tin, I'll have someone practice that for like a couple of days. And then for a month, I'll have them just create the crust. And then from there, then they'll bring it in the air. And that tends to be the hardest part. And I'm still trying to trim down that.

length which it takes someone to learn how to make pizza because I still think it's a considerable amount of time. We have a lot more infrastructure now but I still am running into the problem like how do I expedite this? One of the things that I look up to my mentor for is like you can have like anyone become pretty good at making a burger there in like a month.

And like that's a very strong competitive advantage to be able to train quickly. ⁓ Another problem that I noticed with a of founders is that they'll be so in love with what they're doing, which there's nothing wrong with that, but they don't want to let anyone else make the food.

It's not that you shouldn't be making the food, it's just that like as a founder you have a lot of problems that you have to constantly problem solve as I was saying. So you can't be the one making the food all the time. Eat to be able to delegate and I don't think delegating is a bad thing at all. I think it's just like a necessary aspect of the business that is needed in order for you to really put more brain power towards new ways of expanding.

Like maybe you're not, maybe your goal isn't to open more stores, but it could be to make the store cleaner. It could be to make training easier. It could be to making your employees happier. So the more you like are locked in there and refuse to train people, like the business is just not in a good place.

Alan Li (36:14)
Yeah. ⁓

no, I think that's a very important point. It's, know, you have to work on the business instead of, ⁓ always in the business. Cause that's not, that's not scalable. You only have 24 hours in the day. ⁓ but I really love the Instagram DMing people how to actually make the pizzas. That's just such a great example of meeting your staff where they are, which is on Instagram and feeding it to them because yeah, no one wants to take home a binder.

Jonny (36:26)
Yeah.

Alan Li (36:44)
full of pictures and paper and text. So I love that.

Jonny (36:48)
for sure.

It's also like, I think my employees have come to respect me in a different way where I'm willing to, I'm obviously young, I'm only like 25 years old and it was...

Alan Li (37:03)
You're 25 now,

so you opened this when you were 24. Okay. ⁓

Jonny (37:06)
Correct.

It's really... ⁓

it's challenging to be command respect at this age, you know. So I kinda decided to just run things in my own style of just being who I am, you know, just kinda being goofy and making jokes with them. But I commanded respect by like work ethic.

Like, I'll be there 24-7. I'll be constantly coming up with new ways, like the Instagram, to teach you, because that's how much I care. And that was how I was able to open a store with no experience and get a pretty strong team rather quickly. I wasn't trying to be something that I'm not for the sake of creating like a hierarchy.

Alan Li (37:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. For, ⁓ now that you have this training program in place, how long does it take you to get someone like me who's never made pizza to a proficient level where you'd feel comfortable having me work this, work the night shift on Saturday?

Jonny (38:11)
.

Yeah, wow, Saturday shift? That's ⁓ It unfortunately still depends on the person. Like if someone is, because with our pizza dough it's so... ⁓ Like you have to use your hands and you have to be very detail oriented. I would say it takes like five months and I really don't like how long that takes.

Alan Li (38:18)
You

Five months.

Jonny (38:38)
Yeah, just because it's so frustrating, so many different aspects of it. ⁓ I'm trying to trim it down to one, honestly. ⁓

Alan Li (38:43)
Wow.

Yeah.

Jonny (38:50)
And it's funny because I'll look at other pizzerias and I'll be like, how do they do it? And it really just comes down to the recipe where we have like a very high water content in our dough. And so just picture working with something that it just like kind of falls apart rather quickly. Super delicate. It has all this water in it. ⁓ Whereas like, for example, bakeries, that's a very hard.

Alan Li (39:09)
I

Jonny (39:16)
thing to train for like a high scale bakery that's pumping out a lot of quality. The thing is, is they don't have to make a circle that's 20 inches and it's thin in the middle and then I have to throw it in an oven and it stays the exact same shape. Granted, I still think bakers have a way harder job, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make it less

Alan Li (39:21)
for sure.

Jonny (39:42)
overwhelming of a thing and also just a quicker process because file montage is still a problem for scaling.

Alan Li (39:48)
Yeah,

for sure. ⁓ Let's dive a bit into the numbers too. So when you were first opening back in 2024, how many pizzas were you selling ⁓ maybe every week or every month? And then as of like the last month or so a year in, how many pizzas or slices are you selling now?

Jonny (40:07)
Yeah, it's hard because obviously we initially were only open the weekends at night and then eventually every week every night and then eventually every morning to like lunch.

I really know Fridays and Saturdays. I would say Fridays and Saturdays, initially I was doing like 150, 100, 150 pies, which is still a lot. Like I worked at pizza places where they would sell 50 pies that day. And that was it.

Alan Li (40:27)
Okay.

100 150

pies and that's like eight slices a ⁓ pie? Okay, so like a thousand plus-ish around a thousand slices a day.

Jonny (40:42)
Yeah.

Yeah, now we do like 250 on a Saturday.

Alan Li (40:55)
Whoa.

Okay, so like, yeah, I mean, 1700 slices plus.

Jonny (41:05)
Yeah, it's around like anywhere from 800 to 900 tickets.

Alan Li (41:12)
Okay, that's incredible.

Jonny (41:16)
Yeah, it's crazy.

Alan Li (41:18)
⁓ And an average ticket, I assume, is people buy a couple slices like 10, 20 bucks or something. Is that how to think about it or?

Jonny (41:25)
Yeah, the average speaking

is really close to like 12, 11 to 12 for us.

Alan Li (41:29)
12 bucks, Wow, those are incredible days. It's like almost 10 grand on the weekends.

Jonny (41:37)
Yeah, but it's still challenging for sure. Yeah, like for example, like these days, it's more so about, I always know what I'm gonna get Friday, Saturday. It's like, okay, how do I stimulate more sales? So.

Alan Li (41:43)
Yeah.

Jonny (41:55)
Didn't want to do like other things outside of like the large pies So I ended up talking to like an uber eats rep and they told me about small bonds. So I was very stubborn initially where I was like, I don't want to do that It's not the business. I'm trying to do and then I was just like We weren't Generating enough revenue and I needed to generate more revenue So we started doing the small pies and that stimulated more sales during the week

Alan Li (42:22)
Hmm.

Jonny (42:23)
and then I needed to stimulate more sales during the day because no one's really walking.

Alan Li (42:27)
Yeah.

Jonny (42:28)
near all these clubs so I was like okay I need to come up with some sort of deal so we started running out of deal and even now I constantly think of new ways so we launched like a I'm full Persian so we launched like an ice cream sandwich that I used to have when I was a kid which is like saffron and rose water and ice cream and then like a Persian flatbread that's called Babari that we like serve with like whipped feta and hot honey

Alan Li (42:46)
Nice.

Jonny (42:58)
So there's constantly experiments that I run like every quarter. And I think it's fun and exciting, but it's also kind of necessary to constantly be pushing.

Alan Li (43:10)
Yeah.

Is the two or the lunch deal, two slices, one drink for 8.50. That's how you guys found us for making the sign to have that deal, right?

Jonny (43:17)
yeah, it's what I... the sign, exactly.

Exactly. it was perfect honestly the sign because we wanted the whole thing with Johnny's is that I try my best to make it that we are very familiar in old school. So like the neon channel lettering and

a rather simple menu, but then it's modern and we use really high quality ingredients like organic tomatoes, naturally fermented cheese, our dough processes like multiple days and like the flowers are not enriched or bromated and your guys' like stainless steel A-frame was like perfect where like I felt like it demonstrated quality and like

higher standard of what we were going for for like an a-frame because you'll see a frames on the street and like They fly over like they're not the best material but like this a-frame is like heavy stainless steel and then with the design it looks like an old-school pizza ad for like slices Like a deal like you'll see some of like the less Reputable pizza shops in the city and it'll be like two slices in a drink 699

Alan Li (44:20)
Yeah.

Jonny (44:31)
And I kind of wanted to pay homage to that aspect of the New York pizza game where you can get deals. Even though our deal is crazy, but it's still, it kind of just works.

Alan Li (44:43)
Yeah.

No, I thought your design looked awesome and we had a lot of fun making it. I also remember the little snafu with ⁓ our team delivering it to ⁓ your ex-girlfriend's house. I went to, ⁓ I had to go personally pick that up ⁓ to go bring it to your store. Cause I was like, man, I don't know what type of relationship y'all have, but I can't risk her throwing this out.

Jonny (44:55)
Oh my god. I have it. Yeah, we delivered it my ex-girlfriend's apartment.

my god.

So funny, I remember actually calling the super because the super loved me for the building and telling him and he was so confused He's like this Albanian guy and he just really didn't understand and Then I remember seeing your text and you're like, ⁓ we dropped it off at your store. I was like, my god. Thank God

Alan Li (45:30)
Yeah, no, that was funny, but I'm glad I didn't get into you. This is really cool. Johnny, what are your plans now that you're testing a lot? It seems like you're pushing and thinking about all the right things. ⁓ What does the next two, three years look like for you and Johnny's Pizza?

Jonny (45:52)
Yeah, you know in the beginning I was very quick to say I wanted to scale. ⁓ But as I've kind of become more experienced in the scene, I like to take things slower where I'll kind of see where it goes based off like what our learnings teach us. And what I've been by that is like how much am I able to create a strong brain following? And how much am I able to create a more streamlined training process?

⁓ And those things will kind of dictate what I do with the business and I think it's important to kind of focus on those things Because things compound very quickly ⁓ And sometimes when you fix it on like scaling It will kind of just like hurt you if you look too far ahead So I try my best to remind myself that because it's obviously very exciting to open more stores ⁓

But it's also important to remind yourself that I'm like fortunate enough to even have a store. And for some business owners, that's everything, you know? ⁓ So I'm not too sure that I do want to open more stores, but I might not necessarily do that. I might.

go into a different ⁓ food group. There's definitely a lot of ideas I have in that. There's definitely a lot of learnings I've learned with the shortcomings of pizza. Every food has its own shortcomings and ⁓ strong suits. So I do want to scale, but at the same time, I'm not married to the idea. I think there are pros and cons to having one store like similar to Kat's Deli where it's just like... ⁓

Alan Li (47:34)
Crush.

Jonny (47:35)
just crush it, just like institutional, they're not gonna lower their quality. ⁓ So we'll see what happens.

Alan Li (47:43)
Cool.

And for your guys, you know, Instagram and getting ingrained into the New York scene, I feel like you guys do a really good job of that doing like collabs or like pop-ups or like sponsoring events. Is that, are you the one pushing on that or someone else? And how do you think about that route or going around that route?

Jonny (48:01)
Yeah, it's me. ⁓ I definitely think that it's really important to keep an open mind when you're talking to people because your worst enemy could like introduce you to your biggest investor, you know? ⁓ So I try to stay open-minded when I'm talking to people and just...

In the beginning I was very stubborn where I was like I don't need anyone's help. I can do this myself. And it was through painful lessons that I learned that like you need everyone's help when you're running a business. It's not one person. It's really as many people as you can get. And the more people you can convince to help you, the better off you are. Because you're really creating something out of nothing and convincing people that it's worth their money. And that's a very difficult thing to do.

And so with collabs and just how I position Johnnys, I'm very intentional where I don't want to like, I don't like corporate things. I want to keep that mom and pop sort of appeal and aesthetic of not forcing my product in your face and not over branding where you see Johnnys everywhere. It was just like organic growth. And I kind of came to realize that like,

run clubs are a big aspect of like the New York scene these days and I was like okay this is like a cool way to inform people about my brand in a way that isn't about Johnny's like I'm just having them meet at the store and I'm giving them slices but the main thing is they're coming they're running with their friends they're getting a good workout in and

Alan Li (49:27)
Yeah.

Jonny (49:48)
I felt like that was the way to go with brand building. Where Johnny's isn't like the main attraction, it's just like a supplementary thing where we're giving them pizza. Cause at the end of the day, I really liked In-N-Out Burger. We'd go in LA after every party to In-N-Out and you just go there after a party, after you had like a really fun night and you're just creating memories with your friends. And I think that's like a component of running a restaurant where like people want to enjoy their food and like create memories and you kind of want to

create those opportunities for people and they'll have a positive association with your brand. And so that's what I kind of do.

Alan Li (50:27)
Yeah,

no, I think that's really smart. mean, the first example I think of ⁓ is like Coca-Cola, how every one of their ads is ⁓ either around a fun gathering or like a cool event or a happy memory. And just having that association with those things makes you want to consume that product more. And run clubs are like so hot over the last few years in New York. So I think that's really smart.

Jonny (50:52)
Thank you, appreciate it. it's definitely now becoming too much of a thing where everyone is doing it. We have to move. we started, we made a tent and we did like a cycling community and like park slope. We don't discriminate against any sports we do often. But it is honestly so competitive and it's hard to be unique because I feel like the food scene kind of just took another step.

Alan Li (51:07)
Yeah, you're one step ahead. I like that.

Jonny (51:21)
of everyone thinking that why can't they do it, which is true. Everyone can do it if they care enough. ⁓ But I think after COVID, it really started igniting a new sort of renaissance of food business owners. Because everyone was cooking at their house.

Alan Li (51:35)
Yeah. Yeah,

that's true. I that was the first time I started cooking because of COVID as well. ⁓ But don't worry, I'm not going to open up a pizza shop anytime soon. ⁓ Johnny, last question for me. ⁓ You know, over your journey the last three, four years working at really cool restaurants, opening your own, ⁓ is there anything looking back, knowing what you know now, anything you would have done differently?

Jonny (51:42)
There you go.

you

There's a lot. I would say... ⁓

Well, it's similar stuff that I've already mentioned. Well, one thing's for sure. I would definitely not do it alone. It's definitely been a very big burden to... It alleviates a lot of stress when you're able to feel as though another person that isn't an employee is also taking on those problems. And they could literally be suggesting the worst ideas, it'll still be better with them, in my opinion. Just because...

at least their brain is working towards solving them and like you want that like that extra support system if you will. ⁓ So I would encourage to have more founders. I was like I guess just childish and greedy where was like I don't want more founders like I just want to do it myself. ⁓ I think it was an important learning lesson to recognize that a business has so many problems and it's okay.

to that you're not gonna solve them all yourself. I think certain people will be better at certain things and it's important to let them help you. I, when I wanted to do the tech startup, was like, okay, I need to go to like...

software engineering bootcamp because I need to code it too. Looking back that would have been a disaster. hate math. I was like determined to try to learn. And then another thing is

I would say, similar to what I was saying earlier, is to listen to everyone, but like learn how to navigate all those opinions. And I think it's important to give every voice you hear a chance in order for you to get closer to achieving what you want.

Alan Li (54:12)
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. ⁓ Johnny, thanks so much for taking the time today and congrats on the success so far of Johnny's. ⁓ I've been there multiple times and always enjoy the slices. So looking forward to going back.

Jonny (54:26)
I appreciate it Alan, thank you for having me.

Alan Li (54:28)
All right,

well, thanks so much.