To understand a successful restaurant startup’s recipe for success, check out the new issue of the Haas School’s California Management Review’s case study on Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria.
The latest installment of the Berkeley-Haas Case Series, which is regularly featured in California Management Review, takes an in-depth look at opportunity identification, scaling up, and growth strategy in the context of an entrepreneurial startup. The Amici’s case was co-authored by Haas lecturer and self-described “serial entrepreneur” Naeem Zafar, entrepreneurship lecturer Jack Fuchs, and business writer and editor Victoria Chang.
Started by an East Coast transplant craving the thin-crust pies made in his hometown of Boston, Amici’s opened in 1982 in San Mateo, California, with a traditional Italian wood-burning oven. It became one of the Bay Area’s most successful low-tech businesses in the last several decades, with 12 restaurants and revenue reaching $32 million by 2011.
But in 2011, Amici’s founders had reached a fork in the road as they debated whether to continue growing their business, and if so how. Options for Amici's to be weighed by readers included expanding within the Bay Area or into different regions such as Southern California and even China; selling the company; franchising; and opening in new venues such as airports and sports arenas.
Published quarterly, California Management Review is a top-ranked management journal that serves as bridge of communication between those who study management and those who practice it.
To subscribe to California Management Review, visit cmr.berkeley.edu.