Lending Perspectives: Are you just cheap pizza, or more?

In addition to being a lending geek, I’m also a bit of an armchair economist. Like an armchair quarterback, an armchair economist has never actually been an economist, but I think I have a good working knowledge of economics and am qualified to opine on the topic.

What does this little glimpse into the workings of my mind have anything to do with lending or, better yet, pizza? It all started about a year ago when a go-to, locally owned pizza place in Colorado Springs closed all of its locations. When it had opened a decade earlier, the restaurant provided an opportunity to exit the veritable pizza wasteland that Colorado Springs had previously been. I was born and raised in New York, and of the many topics New Yorkers can get snobby about, pizza is close to the top of the list. Before their opening, I only had the chains to choose from: Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Little Caesar’s. No one made authentic New York pizza.

For several years, “B’s” pizza (let’s keep them anonymous in their failure) offered the real thing: good, foldable-crust New York pizza. However, B’s opened several additional stores over a five-year period, which to a certain extent forced its hand and ultimately caused their demise. To build the business, B’s felt it had to go head to head with the chains on price. Up to this point, they offered high-quality pizza for what some consumers would consider to be a premium price. Those consumers just wanted cheap pizza because they didn’t know better.

 

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