How to Make Money Selling Pizza in New York City
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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.
And I'm Tracy Alloway. We are eating pizza.
We are recording this July eighth and we've done back to back to back episodes and we haven't had time for lunch. So I too am going to eat this bite of pizza. It's really good. We're eating really good pizza in the studio. It's really good. People are probably wondering. What's going on? Why we're what's like I'm gonna swallow my phone. But I swear we're not gonna be sounding like we're eating pizza the entire time. Maybe we'll speak
for yourself okay.
Tracy, a few months ago I noticed a new pizza restaurant had opened up in the East Village, and I thought to myself, what kind of person looks at the East Village and thinks, you know what? This neighborhood needs a new pizza restaurant. And I've always been sort of I've been vexed by that question for a long time.
Wait, it's a saturated market, but on the other hand, isn't like pizza in New York a slam dunk? Everyone loves pizza. We come here for pizza, don't we?
I guess that's true. It just seems like there there is a lot of pizza in the East Village. And opening up a new pizza place, it's very capital intensive. There's the stoves, there's the risk, there's the brand, there's all these things. I would not have the guts to open up a new pizza restaurant. I would just assume that the market I would just take the it's saturated view. Maybe you have the more maybe you would be the more o optimistic and entrepreneurial. It's New York City. I guess I could see it both ways, but I did find it striking. And it is of course one of the most ubiquitous businesses that you see at the ground level in New York City, great pizza city. And I don't really know anything about the business of pizza.
No, and we just spoke to a bakery business that is getting into the pizza business. So this is a really nice segue and natural evolution of the conversation.
Yeah. I want to know how you make money selling a slice of pizza in New York City. I'm really excited. We actually have three perfect guests in the studio today. They brought us pizza. So there is a disclosure that we have to get out of the way, which we are eating the pizza that they brought us. So if you listen to this episode and you think like we've been like, you know, painfully bought off or whatever, then this is then that's why. It's because I had some pizza. But It's also an interesting one because A, this pizzeria is right by Bloomberg. So that's another excuse for why we're doing this one. But also, two of the owners of the restaurant also own a um a deli or cafe near Bloomberg that I go to for lunch all the time, the Oxford Cafe.
I don't really like eating pizza for lunch, if I'm being honest. It's a little heavy. But I love a chopped salad. And the Oxford Cafe, which is very close to Bloomberg, in my opinion, is the best chopped salad operational. in the entire city or that I've been to. No, for real. And so I'm sort of curious about that, how you differentiate there. So I just want to learn about like lunchtime food, including pizza. Let's do it. Our three guests, I'm going to introduce them. We're going to be speaking with uh James Shields. He is a restaurateur here in New York City. He uh involved in multiple things, but he is a co founder of Xeno's Pizza, which is on 52nd Street between 2nd and 3rd. And then we're also going to be speaking with the other Xeno's co founders, Alex Xenopoulos, who also owns the Oxford Cafe, and his brother.
Brother, Evan's Annopolis. So they're all involved in multiple things and uh Evan and Alex and Oxford and James and Pizza, et cetera.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–16:18
2
Why did the founders choose the Bloomberg‑area location for Xeno's Pizza?
16:18–33:23
3
How does Xeno's differentiate its pizza product in a saturated New York market?
33:23–48:50
4
What role does dough fermentation and oven technology play in Xeno's premium slice?
48:50–51:23
Speakers
9 identifiedMore from Odd Lots
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