<\/p>\n
When Art Bonn and his business partner Rolly Jackson were looking for a new venture, the plan was to find something that was \u201cInternet-proof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson owned the former RadioShack on Main Street, a once-popular retailer that has been hit hard by increased competition from online retailers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Internet killed RadioShack,\u201d Bonn said. \u201cWe were thinking something food-related. Something that we don\u2019t have to cook, or have waiters on staff. A really simple concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fit to fill the storefront, they found, was a Papa Murphy\u2019s Take \u2019n\u2019 Bake Pizza shop.<\/p>\n
Bonn managed the Pagosa Springs Papa Murphy\u2019s for about eight months, and he and his business partner determined that Cortez would be a great market for a new store. The closest Papa Murphy\u2019s location is in Durango.<\/p>\n
After retrofitting the former RadioShack into a pizza shop, the new Cortez Papa Murphy\u2019s quietly opened its doors on Monday, Jan. 5.<\/p>\n
Bonn hasn\u2019t advertised and decided not to put up a grand opening banner, typical of most new stores. He doesn\u2019t want to overwhelm his small eight-person staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we\u2019re new and still learning menus and portions, I don\u2019t want to give customers coming in for the first time a bad impression,\u201d Bonn said.<\/p>\n
Something many don\u2019t realize about the Papa Murphy\u2019s menu, he says, is that dough for the day\u2019s pizzas is made in-house. Papa Murphy\u2019s pizza makers also cut the vegetables, cheese and other toppings fresh and portion them out to a specific weights indicated on the menu.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the company\u2019s way of keeping pizza recipes consistent and inventory under control, he says.<\/p>\n
Despite the store\u2019s quiet opening, the public\u2019s interest has been piqued since the official Papa Murphy\u2019s sign went up on the front of the building. As the remodel and setup was underway, Bonn put paper covering over the windows but occasionally spotted a curious passerby peeping through.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe opened at 11 a.m. (on Jan. 5) and had people pulling on the door to get in before then,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chelsi Frascht, the store\u2019s manager, said 120 pizzas were sold on the opening day.<\/p>\n
The busy opening day was a good primer for $10 Tuesday, when the store sells any large four-topping pizza for $10. Bonn and Frascht expect to be busy, but say the store\u2019s staff is still up for the challenge. He expects to hire an additional seven people to help out with increased business over the next few months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need is a crystal ball, but since we can\u2019t its right now about learning patterns and how we can improve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Take-and-bake pizza shop boasts fresh ingredients, handmade dough<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[431,21,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-115361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-business-general","tag-cortez","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115361"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=115361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}