Amici's hot slice of success

Amici's hot slice of success
Friendship adds spice to this pizza chain's secret sauce
San Francisco Business Times - by Pia Hinckle San Francisco Business Times Contributor



Spencer Brown “I ate pizza for 400 days straight,” says Cooperstein, remembering the early days.

"Amici" means "friends" in Italian, and friendship has been a key ingredient to the success of San Mateo-based Amici's East Coast Pizzeria for two decades.

Founded by Peter Cooperstein and Mike Forter, Boston and New York natives who found themselves in California in the 1980s with no decent New York-style pizza, Amici's opened its first restaurant in San Mateo in 1987. Still privately held by the two, the company made $29 million in sales in 2007, up from $23 million in 2006, and opened its tenth restaurant in Danville in March with a Cupertino location to come on line in the fall.

Pizza Today, an industry trade magazine, has consistently ranked them as the No. 1 independent pizza chain in the United States by revenue for the last six years.

A quality product, home-grown staff, and a carefully managed growth plan have been key to their success, said Cooperstein. The first three restaurants were opened four years apart, but the pace has quickened since then. The company plans to open another one to two restaurants per year for the next few years, focusing on the Sacramento and South Bay areas.

"With ten locations, we can take one person from each restaurant and have a great opening staff," Cooperstein said. "So that makes it easier to grow a little faster."

New York-style touch
Cooperstein said the reason New York-style pizza is so good is its simplicity: "If your ingredients are only crust and cheese and sauce, that crust and cheese and sauce better be really good," he said. "We do a really good New York style pizza but since we're in a California market, we try to do a really good job at the toppings as well."

Their pizzerias are designed more as upscale Italian restaurants, offering pastas, soups and salads, along with their trademark thin-crust pizza baked in special 700-degree ovens, about 200 degrees hotter than traditional pizza restaurants. About half the company's revenue comes from delivery and take-out and half from dining.

One of Amici's biggest fans is Ralph "The Razor" Barbieri, the KNBR sports-talk radio personality who asked Cooperstein if he could advertise their pizza after tasting a slice ten years ago. "I'm Italian, I've eaten a lot of pizza, I spent a couple of years in Philadelphia ... and in New York and ... I was just blown away." Barbieri, a vegetarian with an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business, said Cooperstein is a "good businessman but an even better human being."

Bubbling with ideas
Cooperstein, who came to Silicon Valley in 1981 after getting an M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was preparing to start a computer leasing company when that market died in 1986. So he decided to open a pizza restaurant.

His father had been in the restaurant business in Boston, but Cooperstein had never worked in one. For 18 months Cooperstein worked at various pizza restaurants as a dishwasher, delivery person, busboy, waiter, prep-cook and chef while his wife, May Lin Cooperstein, supported them.

Forter was manager of the Village Pizzeria on Steiner Street in San Francisco (now closed) and hired Cooperstein as a waiter. Cooperstein asked Forter to become his partner. With $200,000 in start-up capital from friends, family and savings, they opened the San Mateo restaurant. Both men worked 14-hour days seven days a week. "I ate pizza for 400 days straight," Cooperstein recalled with a smile.

The crust and the sauce
Many of Amici's managers have been with the company for years and started as dishwashers. Many vendors have also been with them since the beginning.

"Amici's is my favorite client because they're the most fun to work with," said Tim Eastman, whose Burlingame-based company, Pacific Construction and Manufacturing, has built eight of their restaurants. "They really care about people, their customers and their product."

Forter said the partners' different skill sets -- Cooperstein focuses on long-term strategy and marketing and Forter on food operations and the menu -- complement each other.

He said growing as a business meant that their partnership has evolved too, and "that's been very exciting and very rewarding -- not just moneywise."

Cooperstein summed it up: "It's 20 years later and we're still best friends."

Snapshot: Amici's

Founded: 1987.
Start-up capital: $200,000 from savings, friends and family.
Founders and principals: Peter Cooperstein and Mike Forter.
Revenue 2007: $29 million.
Revenue 2006: $23 million.
Revenue 2005: $21 million.
Restaurants: 10.
Employees: 300 (not including delivery drivers who are independent contractors).
Web site: www.amicis.com

sanfrancisco@bizjournals.com