A bigger slice of the pie
Ask anyone how to make millions and it's unlikely they'll tell you to sell tomatoes, flour and cheese.
This year, Sal Lupoli, who co-founded Sal's Pizza with his younger brother Nicholas Lupoli Jr., will take about an $18 million slice out of the saturated pizza industry, taking business from struggling mom-and-pop pizzerias on one hand and billion-dollar pizza chains on the other.
Lupoli's Salem, N.H.-based company, Double N. Inc., is steadily moving south, selling a fast-food value proposition: good, abundant food cheap. Lupoli and Double N. are enjoying a growth rate of about 20 percent through a mix of wholesale, retail and franchise operations.
Lupoli's father, the late Nicholas Lupoli, a former restaurateur, would tell his son: "If you produce a product and use only the best ingredients, and you give value in the form of quantity -- and sell at the best price -- you will do all the business," Lupoli recalls.
The recipe is working. All told, Double N. has 20 Sal's Pizza stores, which go through 40,000 pies a week. It also has five Mary's stores, a sandwich and fresh-pasta cafeteria-style concept the company created six years ago. Just last year, Lupoli changed the name of Sal's Just Pizza to Sal's, noting that he didn't want to narrow the scope of products he could sell.
Sal's holy grail is a 19-inch pie for $7.99, and "a slice" -- one-quarter of the pie -- for $1.99. Lupoli calls his brand "the inflation buster" for the simple fact that in 15 years of operation he's raised the price only four times. He is so price-conscious, he plans to carry over his lunch prices into dinner at his new restaurant, counting on heavy volume and liquor sales to boost the full-service dinner-hour sales.
Ten stores of varying Sal's concepts operate in Massachusetts, reaching as close to Boston as Tewksbury. Others operate in southern New Hampshire, with one in Florida and one in Maryland.
Company-owned stores drive about 65 percent, or $13 million, of sales. About 35 percent of those sales are from wholesale, which includes Double N. selling dough, tomato sauce and cheese to its franchisees. The remaining $5 million of company sales is derived from franchise retail sales.
