Once you submit your initial application to us, we will send you an email to schedule a time for us to meet virtually, discuss how you can start a pizza business with Crust, and get to know you. From there, if we feel you would be a great partner for Crust, we will send you a personality test and financial application which will go through an approval process.
Following your approval, we will send you the Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDD) and get you in touch with our financial partners for pre-approval. After 15 days of signing receipt of FDD and getting a bank pre-approval, we set up a discovery day where we will show you how Crust operates and you'll sign your official agreement to start your pizza franchise.
Once you have signed the paperwork for your pizza franchise, we will either already have a suitable site for you or be on the search for one. Our team will help negotiate all the terms in the form of a Letter of Intent (LOI). Once the LOI is approved, the landlord will draft the lease and our thoroughly vetted real estate lawyers will help negotiate the lease and protect your interests. Upon signing the lease, you can get in touch with our support team.
Once your lease is signed, we will get you in touch with our architecture team. They will use our prototype and send us a preliminary design for us to approve. Once approved, they will complete a full set of drawings, including MEP’s to submit to the county or parish for permitting.
While waiting for permits, we will send your plans to our trusted contractors to bid out and if you have your own contractor, we will add them to the list to bid on the project too. Once all of the bids are in, we will help you select the contractor. Shortly after your permits are approved, you can start building your pizza restaurant. It typically takes 90 days for you to get your CO (certificate of occupancy) when you open a pizza franchise with us and usually during the last 30 days, you will receive all your equipment.
In the first week of construction, we start recruiting for your manager who then goes into your next support team with training.
Within 30 days of construction, your manager is hired and instantly enrolled in a 6-week training program where they will get our 400-page training manual and will be taught how things work. You are also welcome to attend as much of the training as possible.
After the 6-week training program is completed, your manager will start hiring your entire staff. From there, they will get ready for the 3-week onsite training program, which starts after your CO is received. This entails training your staff for 2 weeks, followed by a friends/family opening, and then a grand opening.
Once your restaurant opens, our team will do a 30, 60, and 90-day audit to make sure your restaurant and team are optimized and following all processes and procedures to be successful.
Our marketing strategists will assist in the grand opening of your pizza startup restaurant by making sure your community knows you are opening and by building anticipation. Discover how they make it possible.
Learn MorePlatform Reviews
• We ensure all customer reviews will be responded to within 48 hours of them being posted by utilizing our Bespoke Review Tracker.
Resolve Conflict with Disappointed Guests
• Disappointed guests will receive an apology and voucher within 48 hours of their complaint. We either send the two straight to their mailboxes or through our backend platform.
Social Media Marketing
• Posts will be made 2-4 times per week. They will include captions on several topics to promote your pizza business including Wine Nights, Kids Eat Free, Pizza of the Month, Lunch Specials and other promotions.
• The posts can be used on your Facebook (Meta) and Instagram platforms.
Boost Posts
• Posts will be boosted accordingly based on your marketing budget.
Spirit Nights with Local Schools and Organizations
• We will reach out to schools and organizations to plan spirit nights and send all information to you.
• The spirit nights will be held on Monday nights. Monday nights should always be available for the program.
Monthly Report on Facebook Engagement
• This report will be sent via email at the beginning of every month.
Track Loyalty Program Sign-Ups
• This information will be added to a Google sheet and shared with you.
Run a Monthly Report On Reviews
• We will send you a monthly report via email on how you are performing in the public eye once you start your pizza business.
We know that in order for you to be successful you need support! You will have a support representative that will be a call or email away when you need us. For the first 12 months we will have monthly success calls to go over your P&L and discuss the upcoming month’s outcomes. We don’t want 200 locations and 200 franchise partners…Our goal is a max of 30 partners for these locations so it's important that you are successful so that you can scale more restaurants with us.
We have an in-house team of software developers that work full time on improving our platforms and keeping them up and running around the clock daily, from restaurant development to guest experience. We currently use Toast POS and Toast Payroll, Jolt, and our proprietary Crust software to help you streamline your operations and deliver quality service when you take advantage of our pizza franchise opportunity.
Learn More• Crust University
All staff members are trained online while learning skills on the job to ensure that they meet our high standards of quality service and customer care.
• Loyalty Program and Review Tracker
We provide perks for regular guests and keep track of all external and internal reviews daily with incentives to leave reviews on Google, Yelp, and Facebook (Meta).
For bad reviews, we incentivize them with a free pizza and we take care of the issue immediately to maintain a positive brand perception.
• Employee Onboarding
We eliminate the tedious processes and guesswork from onboarding new employees when you hire them.
• Monitoring Accounts
Account payables and cash deposits are tracked and monitored daily, allowing you to keep your eyes on numbers that matter.
• App Development
iOS and Android customer applications are coming soon.