Pizza Eatery Sets Records At Lake Gaston

For many years, the dominant pizza franchises have turned away from Lake Gaston, saying the area was too seasonal or there were not enough customers to justify the investment of opening a restaurant. Gary and Sue Bardwell have now shown them the errors of their ways.

The Bardwells moved to Lake Gaston from Leesburg, Va., in 2003. Sue found work in South Hill, Va., and Gary worked on The Randy Parton Theatre for a while, but wanted something more.

He had heard the stories about the lake being unable to support new businesses, but had a gut feeling it could if the right business was brought in, so he searched the Internet for franchises.

None of the large food franchisers were interested, but Bardwell finally found a Greek family in the Washington, D.C., area who offered a full menu of take-out or delivery-only Greek, Italian and American food, along with pizza.

The small franchise, known as Manny and Olga's Pizza, seemed perfect to Bardwell, so he began the process of bringing it to Food Lion Plaza on River Road.

"They were very excited about opening down here," said Bardwell.

Once preparations began on the storefront, Bardwell found he had room available for an eat-in dining area, which hadn't been done at any of the other locations. He wasn't out of ideas, though, and began looking at the area in front of his store.

"Why not put tables and chairs outside during the warm months?" he thought, and once permission was granted, the largest Manny and Olga's Pizza was in place.

In the store's very first week, the new location had broken every record for sales at any of the franchises.

"We had planned for 30-50 customers a day," said Bardwell. "We ended up with between 150-200 that week." Final first-week figures were 150 percent higher than their most optimistic expectations.

"We ran out of bread that week," Bardwell continued. "I had to send my son, in a U-Haul, to get more supplies. The supplier simply couldn't get it to us in time." The franchisers had been very excited about the new store and came down for the grand opening, so they witnessed the phenomenal first week. Since then, they told Bardwell his store will be the new model for all future Manny and Olga's Pizza franchises.

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