Naked Pizza (Worlds Healthiest)

Here is an article from Michael Masterson's Early To Rise newsletter on pizza as a business opportunity:

In 2006, Jeff Leach and Randy Crochet decided to open a business selling healthy pizzas.

Jeff, an archeologist, was an amateur expert in natural health. He knew how bad processed foods are and convinced Randy, a mortgage broker, that they could make a nice living selling a healthy pizza pie.

They spent 18 months and $750,000 researching and testing their product. Then, last year, they opened their first store in New Orleans. Their pizza had a crust made of 12 whole grains, low-fat mozzarella, and a tomato sauce with no additives.

Why they needed to spend $750,000 to come up with that recipe, I can't say. Had they been reading Dr. Al Sears or Total Health Breakthroughs, they could have saved themselves a lot of money.

They called it the World's Healthiest Pizza. And printed on the pizza box cover was a mini "dissertation" (written by Jeff) about how food is processed in the lower intestines. A local marketing guy, Robbie Vitrano, saw their product and convinced them to change the name to Naked Pizza, rewrite their box copy, and advertise on the Net.

Their pizza was tasty -- really tasty, according to some local Internet ratings. And the new marketing pitch seemed to click. Their sales were growing and their reputation was spreading.

Then they took another step. They applied for funding from the Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan, and got the financial help they needed to franchise Naked Pizza nationwide.

Leach hopes to see 1,000 locations or more across the country. It could happen.

These guys wasted a lot of money "researching" their recipe. Still, even with the low-fat mozzarella, it isn't all that healthy.

But what they did really well was find a new way to sell an extremely popular product. And they did so without raising the price or sacrificing quality. In fact, they improved it.

Everybody eats pizza. If you can give people what they want anyway -- cheaply and with a significant advantage (in this case, less guilt) -- you have a product that can catch on.

If you wish you had thought of the healthy pizza idea yourself, don't sweat it.

If you think about it, you can probably come up with your own "spin-off" idea that should work just as well as pizza.

Just keep these points in mind:

• Retail is a very difficult business.
• But fast-food restaurants often beat the odds.
• Healthful foods are becoming more popular.
• Cheap is always better than expensive, especially today.
• A single-item restaurant is the easiest to manage.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

How Restaurants (and Diners) Are Reacting to the Struggling Economy

By Charlie Byrne

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

"If you really want to be sure of that 7:30 p.m. table, ask for it with a French, Spanish, or Italian accent. It will brand you as a potentially bigger spender, the kind helping restaurants outlast a weak dollar and a wobbly Dow."

This advice comes from Frank Bruni of The New York Times, reporting on how restaurants are reacting to the recession.

One noticeable trend: Americans are spending less (tap water instead of bottled water, dining at bars and counters vs. formal settings, no high-end steak and lobster), while splurging foreigners rush to take advantage of favorable exchange rates.

Result? All things being equal, restaurateurs would rather seat a table of Europeans than locals. "I mean, they're just spending. It's Monopoly money to them," said one NYC general manager.

Other notable changes:

• Dinner rush used to occur around 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. But outside the U.S., it's is a later-evening event, so now the peak is moving to 8:30 or 9:00 p.m.
• Less expensive ingredients lower the cost of food. For instance, using regular crabmeat instead of jumbo lump. Shiitake instead of morel mushrooms. More starches to fill out the plate.
• Menus are featuring more single-digit appetizers and "small plates."

And restaurateurs are offering more mid-range than high-end wines. "All of our wine directors are starting to play this game more aggressively," said Paul Bolles-Beaven of the Danny Meyer group. "People are spending less on wine right now, and they're not spending to impress."

Unless, that is, they're European, adds Bruni.

saferoadmaps.org

Are the roads you travel every day safe... or prone to deadly accidents? Find out with Saferoadmaps.org. Type in your address to see where every local vehicle fatality has occurred. You'll also learn such details as whether the driver was speeding or intoxicated.

The purpose of the website, created by the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS), is to make people aware of dangerous roads and intersections. The hope is that they will take alternate routes - or, if that's not possible, will at least be more cautious when driving in high-fatality areas.

(Source: North Florida Daily News)

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, an e-zine dedicated to making money, improving your health and quality of life. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.