CO: Pizza store franchisee

[elSicomoro]

And I'm not talking about Papa John's or Pizza Hut...

There are three chains for whom I would be a franchisee. The first is Imo's, a St. Louis-based chain; Cecil Whittaker's, another St. Louis chain; and Ledo Pizza, a chain based in Annapolis, MD. They all serve thin-crust (or St. Louis style) pizza, which I prefer vastly over thick-crust variations. (By the same token, I've heard a lot of people say that they can't eat the "cardboard" thin crust.)

The problem is...I can't seem to find any decent thin-crust pizza in this town, other than Pizza Hut. And Pizza Hut can be rather expensive if you don't have coupons. Therefore, I would like to bring thin-crust pizza to the masses of Philadelphia: a thin, crispy crust, homemade-style pizza sauce, fresh meat and provolone cheese, all for a reasonable price.

The other neat thing is that you can "personalize" the store. This is actually encouraged by Ledo. You know, I could put up a bunch of Eagles and Flyers stuff, get signed photos and what not. Make it feel more "local."

So, what could possibly be wrong with this scenario?

--$$$: A Ledo franchise is $20,000...the initial investment in opening one of their shops can be as much as $400K plus. That's a lot of dough...no pun intended. Which leads to...

--Demand: Pizza places, especially in this city, are a dime a dozen. While the places I mentioned above would be a unique niche in this city, many pizza places can be here today, gone tomorrow. I don't know if Philadelphians would "approve" of a thin-crust pizza (beyond being an option at Pizza Hut).

--Construction: This city is hard-core union. If I tried to use anyone other than union workers for construction, Johnny Doc and his Goon Squad could cause me a lot of pain--physically and financially.

--Location: Where do you put a pizza place in a city with a pizza place every 5 blocks? Within a 10-minute drive of my apartment, I can count 12.

--Liquor license (or rather, a license to serve alcoholic beverages): Most Cecil's, many Imo's, and every Ledo I've been to sell beer. Getting a liquor license in this state is incredibly tough. From what I've read, the state of PA does not issue them (b/c there are enough proportionate to the population, which is the standard that the state uses). It used to be that you could only buy licenses from within your own county...and I heard of one license fetching around $2 million. Now, you can buy them from any place in the state, but then you have to contend with your local populace. If you ever visit our city, you will notice that many restaurants in Center City are BYOB, which is almost unheard of where I'm from. I'm not saying that I HAVE to have a liquor license, but it wouldn't hurt.

Investors in said franchise would be greatly appreciated.