Pizza Corner Plans 100 Outlets

Pizza Corner (India) Pvt Ltd is moving quickly to take on the multinationals for a share of the Indian palate.

The company has in just six months opened three restaurants in prime locations of the city and is planning to have 100 outlets throughout the country by the turn of the century. Investment in the first couple of years will be $5 million.

Pizza Corner, says CEO and co-founder of the company Antonie Backache, will strive to be the family restaurant that serves the real pizza. The product will not be totally "Indianised" but will have the option of being made more spicy to suit Indian food habits.

To help make the pizza to international standards, the company has taken the services of consultants in Europe and the US. It also has a team of Indian product managers to add "a touch of Indian flavour to the pizza."

Four categories of restaurants will be set up in the country by Pizza Corner - the super dine in restaurants - seating capacity 160 that will have added attractions like a playpen for children; dine-in facilities: seating capacity 100 plus; delivery outlets - that will only take care of deliveries and will have no dining facilities and mobile centres that serve pizza by the slice.

The last category of service stations will be stationed in shopping malls, airports, parks and beaches to serve the moving crowd, Antoine said while opening the first super-dine in facility of Pizza Corner at Adyar on Saturday. Home delivery will be an important business segment and the company will have restaurants/delivery outlets spread throughout the city to cater to key residential and office localities of the city. "Each such centre will do door-delivery only within a six Km radius. This will ensure that a pizza is delivered within half-an-hour of an order being placed.

Pizza Corner hopes to be price competitive by sourcing from within the country most of the ingredients that go into the making of a pizza. "Cheese accounts for 60-70 per cent of the cost of pizza and is not available in the right consistency from a single supplier," says Backache.

Once these products can be sourced from single reliable vendors, prices of the pizza can be brought down further. Pizza Corner now serves veggie pizzas that are priced between Rs 65 and Rs 1005 (regular size) and non-veg pizzas whose prices range from Rs 75 and Rs 135.

Pizza Corner is 51 per cent owned by Global Investment Partners (GIP), with rest of the capital being brought in by resident and non-resident Indians.

GIP is owned by Lebanese and functions from Thailand, Geneva and London. The group has varied interests ranging from gem and jewelry to real estate and property development.