In 2003, after getting a computer science degree from City University of New York-College of Staten Island, he launched Nerd Force, a web-design company that morphed into a tech-services firm that sent IT guys around in yellow vehicles. "It's a pretty small community, and they were some of the original pioneers."Īs much as Sela loved pizza, he decided to study technology. "My grandfather and my uncle and my dad ran Charlie's Pizza on 75th and Third in the '70s, and then opened John Anthony's, now Slice of Brooklyn," he says. through Italy, have long been prominent in New York City's pizza community. When the Selas arrived in the 1970s, they moved to Staten Island, where they, too, started opening pizzerias and where ethnic Albanians, many of whom immigrated to the U.S.
It has about five pizzerias for just 15,000 people, and its expats have opened at least 50 pizza spots in the U.S. Sela's family comes from a small town called Debar, on the border of Macedonia and Albania, that is crazy about pizza. Papa John's and Domino's and Big Pizza are kind of eating their lunch."
SLICE BACK HOW TO
"The vision," Sela says, "was how to unite local pizza to provide technology and convenience. Yet Sela believes consumers have been abandoning local shops-even those with fresher ingredients, better flavors and ties to their communities-mostly because they lack the ability to take mobile orders. While independent pizzerias represent 55% of the country's 75,000 pizza restaurants, they account for a declining 41% of sales, according to trade publication PMQ Pizza Magazine. Domino's, in particular, has been credited with reinventing itself as a tech company, cranking up online sales to more than half of total sales in the U.S.
But as the chains have expanded digitally, local pizzerias have fallen behind. Pizza, after all, is a $45 billion market in the United States. It has the potential to become much larger. Forbes estimates that with expected orders of $250 million this year, Slice should produce $25 million in revenue. It processed about $100 million worth of deliveries last year. Backed by $20 million in financing, New York City-based Slice is growing fast. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.Today Pizza Club is one of more than 8,200 pizzerias in 2,200 cities and towns in every state across the country employing Sela's pizza-ordering platform, now rebranded as Slice. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content.
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