New York Daily News - Slice of Life for S.I. Guys

April 23, 2001

To Boldly Go...or Not?

Entrepreneurs can choose to create or improve when starting a new business. Which one should it be?

E. Jay Myers knew only three things about pizza in 1992: He loved eating it. There seemed to be a pizza joint on just about every corner of his native New York City. And the pies served up in many of them were less than great.

The 34-year-old -- at the time a regional manager for cosmetics company Estee Lauder Cos. in New York-area department stores -- readily admits he wasn't an expert on Italian food. But he wodnered if he had to be in order to open a pizza place of his own.

The answer he took heart in came one Sunday afternoon while he was standing in line with his two brothers-in-law at a small family-run Brooklyn pizza parlor. "The place didn't open until 2 o'clock," he says, "and there were already about 20 customers lined up. I felt like a fool waiting in line for a pizza."

Mr. Myers says he struck up a conversation with another patron. "This guy told me [that] he drove all the way from Staten Island to Brooklyn for pizza. I said, "I don't get it. Your drive 40 minutes, pay $7 in tolls and probably pass 50 pizza places on the way here?"

Mr. Myers says the man responded that it was worth driving a long way, even in New York, for better pizza.

That response got Mr. Myers and his brothers-in-law thinking how there are pizza joints on seemingly every corner of New York, but few really memorable ones. So if they started a better pizza parlor, they'd make good money. "Pizza has become a commodity in most of the country," he says. "So I wondered how tough it would be to break into the market with a product that tasted better."

So with all three men wanting alternatives to their current careers, they began cooking up the idea of starting their own pizza place. One of Mr. Myers' brothers-in-law, Scott Cosentino, now 37, owned a carpet-cleaning business. The other, Mark Cosentino, now 36, was a New York City policeman. Mr. Myers was then earning about $40,000 a year at Estee Lauder, but yearned "for more control over my life, and more fun. Pizza sounded like fun."

They relied on the man from Staten Island, the one Mr. Myers had spoken with in the Brooklyn pizza parlor, to help them find a location. "He said there was a fortune to be made in great pizza on Staten Island. So we went there."

The Cosentino brothers and Mr. Myers pooled their savings and came up with $75,000 to launch the venture. Meanwhile, they personally surveyed 300 people at the Staten Island Ferry terminal on how much they would be willing to pay for fresh ingredients, rather than processed items, in and on top of their pizzas. They found that people would pay as much as $5 more for their pizza, depending on how many fresh toppings they ordered.

The partners came in after their day jobs and often worked until 3 a.m. to build what they consider their restaurant's most important feature: a wood-burning brick oven.

"We got the idea from pizza trade magazines and 15 or 20 books about pizza that we bought," Mr. Myers says. "The wood cooks a pizza in about 4 minutes, compared with 20 minutes in a conventional gas oven. Plus it makes a crispier crust and you get a little smoke and ash that actually improve the taste."

He adds that the partners deliberately put the oven's bricks together "a little bit sloppy, so it would look a hundred years old. And we put it right in the middle of the dining room as a conversation piece."

The named the place "Goodfella's," but not after the hit movie about organized crime. "We took our own survey of names too," Mr. Myers says, "and we found that people associate 'Goodfella's' with good guys and a good atmosphere."

The first Goodfella's opened in 1993. Currently, there are five locations in New York and 11 more are planned -- some of which are already under construction. Mr. Myers says profit margins are at 20% to 24% of typical weekly sales of $20,000 per restaurant.

A large Goodfella's pizza with two toppings costs $15, about $4 more than pies from most big chains. But the partners think the fresh ingredients they use warrant the extra cost. Goodfella's pizza was ranked the "No. 1 pizza in America" in 1994 and 1995 contests sponsored by the rtade magazine, Pizza and Pasta. The pies also have been picked twice by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as his wager in bets with mayors of other cities during baseball playoff games involving the New York Yankees.