(Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a series about opening a mobile pizzeria by Jason Cipriani, co-owner of Sips & Pies. You can read the first installment here.)

Over about 15 months, my wife and I spent countless hours debating and talking about ways to make my dream of owning a pizzeria a reality. There were some non-negotiable aspects for both of us that eliminated owning a brick-and-mortar location, but outside of that we brainstormed and tried to be as creative as possible for what our business might look like.

Jason Cipriani (Courtesy photo)

Brick and Mortar Was a Non-starter

Opening a brick-and-mortar pizza shop has always been the dream – and frankly, it will continue to be. But the logistics that go into owning a physical location is far too much for us to commit to at this point.

Once you open a physical restaurant, you’re married to it. The hours on your door and website are the hours you’re expected to be open. When you’re just starting out, that often means you can’t afford to hire management staff to run the business for you. In turn, you live at the restaurant. I don’t want to live at a restaurant, and neither do my wife and three kids.

Not to mention, the startup costs of a brick-and-mortar store dwarf the startup costs of a pop-up pizzeria or mobile food unit. I didn’t get very far down the path of looking into a fully kitted pizzeria at a physical location, but depending on the make and model, the deck oven alone can cost more than I’ve invested in our entire mobile setup.

One day …

Pop-ups Aren’t Simple

My original vision for Sips & Pies was to do something similar to Jeff Taylor’s Staglio Pizza with a pop-up tent, a few tables and a couple of table-top pizza ovens. I priced out everything I thought I’d need to mimic a pop-up like Taylor’s, and startup costs came in around $6,000. (Knowing what I know now about startup costs, it realistically would have been closer to $10,000 all-in.)

The initial startup cost and being able to pack everything into the back of a truck was attractive, and so I decided to call my local health department to figure out next steps. It took all of five minutes for the employee on the other end of the phone to crush my dreams. In Colorado, all mobile food units must be on wheels. More specifically, operators must use a trailer or a truck. So, what was supposed to be a quick call before I started buying equipment sent us back to the drawing board, and what was supposed to be a $6,000 investment quickly ballooned to $50,000 – or more. Ouch.

To be clear, not all municipalities have the same policy. Staglio Pizza, for example, is able to do frequent pop-ups in Carroll County, Maryland. I recommended calling your local health department and asking questions if this is the route you want to take.

After I hung up the phone, I thought, “Well, that was a fun idea and exercise.” I wanted to give up, and if I’m being honest, I did give up for a time. However, over the next few weeks, I slowly found myself browsing used food truck websites looking for inspiration – and a deal too good to pass up.

Why We ‘Settled’ for a Food Truck

If owning a brick-and-mortar restaurant means you’re married to the business, then owning a mobile pizzeria is like dating your business. At least, that’s what I assume dating is like. (I’ve been married for 18 years.) We can set up for service as often or as infrequently as we want, letting our kids’ activities schedule dictate our pizzeria schedule. If we don’t want to think about pizza for a few days or a week, we don’t have to.

Our wood-fired oven – complete with tent and tables – is very similar to the original vision for tent-based pop-ups. Only instead of tabletop ovens, we have a 48-inch oven on wheels. All told, we’ve invested over $40,000 – a big difference from the estimated $6,000 for a pop-up. (I’ll provide a more thorough tally in a future column.)

Moving beyond the flexibility of a mobile setup, the idea of being able to roam around our city and ingrain our business into the community remains super appealing. During our first service, a nearby business owner stopped by to introduce himself and ask how often we’d be in the area. He welcomed us to the neighborhood, and we’ve had a few other locals express the same sentiment. That’s exactly what I hope will happen, wherever and whenever we set up.

Outside of a typical service in parking lots, we’re able to offer a superior experience at private events. Instead of delivering 100 pizzas made in a wood-fired oven back at the restaurant, we can bring our restaurant – complete with our pizza oven – to your backyard or wedding reception and make each pizza to order.

While a food truck-like setup wasn’t the original vision, there isn’t a single part of me that feels like we should have figured out how to make pop-ups work or jumped into the deep end with a brick-and-mortar location.

JASON CIPRIANI is the owner of Sips & Pies, a mobile wood-fired pizzeria serving Neapolitan-inspired pizza, in Pueblo, Colorado.