# FIREPIE® Artisan wood-fired pizza delivered in 15 minutes - The new way ## Elevator pitch Artisan Wood-fired pizza delivered in 15 minutes. This next-generation operational model deploys custom-designed Portable Kitchen Facilities (PKFs) equipped with large 900-degree Italian wood-burning ovens geographically tied to its routing and logistics technology. These units are strategically deployed in proximity to densely populated high demand neighborhoods in major cities. - Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/firepie - Entity ID: wefunder:company:46697 - Last updated: 2026-06-12T05:00:14Z - Generated at: 2026-06-12T13:13:54Z ## Quick facts - The perfect convergence of product, process, and technology, at the right time. - Exceeded $1M in revenue in the first 12 months. - Customers love Firepie — 4.5 Yelp stars from 260 reviews - 50% faster avg delivery time than third party platforms. ## Active fundraises - wefunder:fundraise:28368: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) ## Story I have always been obsessed with convenience. As a kid, my mind would spin with ideas on how to make simple things work better. I would take my bicycle and my Tonka toys apart and try to modify them. That made me happy.While in college I worked at California Pizza Kitchen now known as CPK.It was an innovative rapidly growing fast-casual dining concept centered around a Pasquini Italian wood-burning pizza oven that heated up to 750 degrees cooking a high-quality pizza in less than two minutes.One evening I forgot to order a BBQ chicken pizza for one of my customers.I rushed the order and timed it. It took about 90 seconds to cook that pizza. Being obsessed with "convenience" I thought to myself, “That is faster than cooking a hamburger, why not do a drive-through version of this?” I spent the summer working on my business plan to unleash the convenience potential of these high temp wood-burning ovens. I was also accepted into the CPK management training program and learned about scalable operations. I thrived.The years since are a blur. Although I never raised the money for my drive-thru pizza concept, that dream stayed with me in the back of my mind. I did move from Los Angeles to Northern California to help start a wood-fired pizza chain but then went into mobile technology and logistics software sales. At that time I saw a future when mobile devices and data would eventually converge. For the last decade leading up to starting Firepie®, I was selling mobility software to fortune 1000 companies, mostly related to routing and logistics.The decisionIn the winter of 2015, while sitting on my couch after being laid off from a tech startup that ended, I took a moment to reflect. I remember experiencing a feeling from deep inside, perhaps my younger self gently reminding me about my dream and quest of providing great pizza with a new level of convenience. Obsessed with convenience, I asked myself a question. “Can I deliver a wood-fired pizza in 15 minutes?”. It took three months using some complex software, but I eventually figured it out. In this process, I also inadvertently created a revolutionary distribution model that solves the riddle of the last mile of on-demand food delivery in major cities. So, with my savings, credit cards, and some seed investment from a great friend that really got what I was doing (who happened to work at Black Rock and did predictive financial modeling) I risked all and started Firepie®..On June 1st, 2016 Firepie®  launched operations. It was me alone in a custom-designed pizza trailer with a massive built-in 900-degree Italian wood-burning oven and a laptop. We call these portable pizza kitchens nodes. I was terrified, I thought "Three pizza choices, one size, delivered lightning fast? Will people go for this new experience?" I had no idea what the future would hold. That first month we did about $3000 in sales. We couldn't even cover the rent.In month two our sales tripled. We had repeat customers every week! In month 8 Firepie®  reached $85k in monthly sales. In month 25 Firepie® exceeded $100k in monthly sales.  We have had many twists and turns along the way and it has been quite a journey so far.  Currently, our average annual revenue is over $1M with our single proof of concept location. Here's some metricsIn 2019, repeat orders represent 75% of orders each monthNew customer acquisition has grown by 15% since the beginning of 2019Average order total is up 5% this yearEach month in 2019, 10% of our orders have been from customers that migrated from third-party platforms to our current mobile platform and apps, lowering the cost of those transactions from 27% per order to 3%CLV of our retained direct customers is averaging $301. With no real marketing budget, our single proof of concept reached $1.1M in revenue for 2019.Firepie avg delivery time (from order to delivered) is 17.6 minutes. 4.5 stars on Yelp3500 customers have the Firepie® (Powered by ChowNow) mobile app ## FAQ 1. **Two questions: 1. Is the portable kitchen stationary at the same location everyday? 2. Is cooking a pizza in 15 minutes in a wood fired pizza considered fast?** - Thank you Kevin, It is at the same location. The pizzas cook in about 90 seconds in our 900 degree wood-burning oven. This is much faster. Typical pizza ovens using gas or air impingement usually take 5-8 minutes to cook. Rick 2. **I see that in 2018 you grew revenue about about 250k from 2017 but losses more than doubled from 2017. Can you explain what happened there? One of-course wants to see losses go down as one scales. Also any chance you can share how 2019 has panned out?** - Thanks Pedro! Yes, glad to cover this. Our sales increased so fast that our low tier equipment started to buckle. We had to invest in infrastructure, going to industrial equipment. We also did the largest music event in San Francisco (Outside Lands). To scale for this required even more capital and team resources. We had to prepare for what we sold in one week to selling that volume each day for three days. Unfortunately, with where were placed at the event, we took a loss. They also had us u... 3. **Is there a way to cut operational expenses? I noticed you said 72K was operational expenses and 16K was cost of goods - so that is 88K outflows per month w/ 80 revenue per month, that is what, -8K revenue per month? Anyway to break even somehow? Or, if not, do you have reserve...** - Thanks, Francis, We reached break-even last quarter. But your question is a great opportunity for me to talk about what is so compelling to me about this new business model and why investors should be interested. I want to help investors understand a clustered kitchen operational model. It is very different with much more opportunity and flexibility than a brick and mortar dine-in concept. Unlike traditional brick and mortar restaurants where you would look at the first single location P&... 4. **One thing I just thought of is there is going to be issue w/ carbon footprint re. wood burning ovens - wood burning is much more carbon than say natural gas based oven. Ppl care about carbon more than they used to, rightly or wrongly, that is just a market condition now. Will ...** - Thanks Francis, These ovens, due to the design and materials, are one of the most efficient and clean ways to burn wood. Very different than a fireplace. Should that issue come up though, we would switch to gas assist. There are also filtration systems that can be installed. 5. **I've seen your emails around the current Corona virus situation as it has been unfolding here in San Francisco. Very much impressed with your communication around this to your customers. Can you provide more color on the impact you are seeing right now? Are orders increasing? ...** - Thanks Pedro, Our delivery orders this weekend surged by 53%. Saturday may have been the busiest day in the history at Firepie. I am looking for previous history to validate. With this said, I want to make sure this is a trend before making any conclusions of the correlation to current events. It is highly probable there is at least some correlation but need more data over the next 10 days. Furthermore, we have made team and public safety a priority and this will add approximately 3-7 minutes... ## Team - Rick Richman (Founder CEO) - Peter O'Leary (Technology Lead) ## Q&A - Q: I notice that your Instagram handle has "SF" in it for San Francisco. Shouldn't this SF be dropped as you expand outside to other locations? - A: We are aligned. We couldn't get @firepie because it is sitting as a dormant account by someone unknown that is not using it. I filed a request to Instagram to have @firepie transferred to us. We own the trademark. I will keep you posted. - Q: Do you intend to pay a dividend (post-SAFE conversion)? - A: That will depend on who funds the priced round when we get there and the terms and conditions created at that time. I cannot answer that where we are at this stage. - Q: Do you intend to franchise out the new locations? - A: Thanks Craig, franchising is a potentiality. It also provides capital for growth, plus additional lines of cash flow for us. With this model we could potentially disrupt the restaurant franchising industry because unlike brick and mortar we can sell and deploy pre-built equipment and licensed software as a turnkey package and a franchisee could deploy a market much faster. But the economics also work with only corporate owned because of the 70% lower cost than brick and mortar and gives us more control of the brand. If we did find franchising to be part of our strategy we would only sell to tier 1 operators. We will make strategic decisions including potentially franchising based on what's best for the company and its investors tied to the economics and market conditions at that specific time. - A: Thanks Craig! Great questions. I encourage more. I have information on all of this. Please know, as my first priority is currently leading my team through and monitoring our evolving operational safety measures with the current situation in the best interests of the team, customers, and our many investors, there may be a delay in my responses but I will respond shortly. - Q: Sorry for an obvious question here, lol, do you guys see an adverse impact w.r.t. COVID-19? On one hand, ppl are ordering more delivery so that is obviously a positive, on the other hand, due to the business model of higher quality ingrediants (which I would agree with) this also means slightly higher price point compared to say Domino's so unclear in a recession environment if slightly higher price point would still work at least outside the pilot location MSA. Just wondered your thoughts on that, i.e., does increase of ppl ordering delivery due to COVID-19 make a net benefit for this business or is this offset by ppl being gun shy w.r.t the price point as compared to competitors. - A: Hi Francis, Thanks for your question. I don't have enough data to answer this question. The way we plan locations through data layers is based on similar demographic to our current market but how shelter in place measures will influence consumer behavior, more will be revealed. - Q: Are you guys on the Where's The Foodtruck app? - Q: Just invested and just ordered some pies too. My kids are looking forward to the new Kid Sauce. Good-luck with securing funds via wefunder. - A: Thanks for the investment and your good wishes Pedro. It's time to take this brand to the next level. Thanks for helping to make this happen. - Q: In my home i'm the FirePie fan. My kids find the sauce too spicy so I've had to choose other options about half the time or order from two pizza places to get my pizza fix. Have you had this feedback? and are you open to a less spicy sauce option.... :) I'm just one data point but I've ordered a lot in the past and the kids vote has made me cut back significantly on orders. Since you have an app have you been able to use the App for surveys to get feedback like this? And see trends based on age, family with kids etc.... See customers drop off like i did and reach out for feedback? Another example of data analysis: use location data to see people downloading the app and trying to order from an area that is not in your delivery zone? Any plans to use the app to be smarter than the average pizza place to understand trends like this. - A: Hi Pedro! My apologies for the delay. I have been highly involved with our aggressive safety measures and ramping up for delivery and pickup increase due to Shelter In Place directive. There may be a delay in general on questions for all while I manage this situation. For feedback with the "too spicy for the kids". Yes, I have received that feedback. We have tested a version of our sauce for kids. Please put "kids sauce in the notes" on your order. We will be rolling this out as a modifier in the following days. We use data a lot to look at our feedback, The capability you are mentioning is not available. We are trying to find a way to get this. There is so much I want to do with data and strategy Pedro. Being under-capitalized and focused so much on tactical operations has slowed several projects. - Q: I've seen your emails around the current Corona virus situation as it has been unfolding here in San Francisco. Very much impressed with your communication around this to your customers. Can you provide more color on the impact you are seeing right now? Are orders increasing? decreasing? Staying about the same? What's your assessment on the impact assuming this lasts 2 - 3 months. - A: Thanks Pedro, Our delivery orders this weekend surged by 53%. Saturday may have been the busiest day in the history at Firepie. I am looking for previous history to validate. With this said, I want to make sure this is a trend before making any conclusions of the correlation to current events. It is highly probable there is at least some correlation but need more data over the next 10 days. Furthermore, we have made team and public safety a priority and this will add approximately 3-7 minutes to our delivery times. We still seem to be on point with and 1-2 minutes - Q: One thing I just thought of is there is going to be issue w/ carbon footprint re. wood burning ovens - wood burning is much more carbon than say natural gas based oven. Ppl care about carbon more than they used to, rightly or wrongly, that is just a market condition now. Will there be efforts to mitigate carbon footprint in some capacity such as buying offsets? Again, not making a judgment on who has bigger carbon footprints, but just something younger ppl are caring about more these days. - A: Thanks Francis, These ovens, due to the design and materials, are one of the most efficient and clean ways to burn wood. Very different than a fireplace. Should that issue come up though, we would switch to gas assist. There are also filtration systems that can be installed. - Q: Is there a way to cut operational expenses? I noticed you said 72K was operational expenses and 16K was cost of goods - so that is 88K outflows per month w/ 80 revenue per month, that is what, -8K revenue per month? Anyway to break even somehow? Or, if not, do you have reserves to ensure a runway until you can get enough funding? - A: Thanks, Francis, We reached break-even last quarter. But your question is a great opportunity for me to talk about what is so compelling to me about this new business model and why investors should be interested. I want to help investors understand a clustered kitchen operational model. It is very different with much more opportunity and flexibility than a brick and mortar dine-in concept. Unlike traditional brick and mortar restaurants where you would look at the first single location P&L to evaluate the business, Firepie is different. This operational model is designed for multiple trailers. The economics on a single location where we are combining all G&A and location expenses together is not the way to measure or operate. G&A expense must be distributed at a minimum between two and maximizes at 4-5. Think about a traditional restaurant that for some reason could only use 25% of their dining room space and only do 25% delivery. They still need a base amount of expense and labor to operate. With Firepie each trailer expands the addressable footprint which increases revenue at a higher rate than expenses increase. I hope this makes sense. - Q: I see that in 2018 you grew revenue about about 250k from 2017 but losses more than doubled from 2017. Can you explain what happened there? One of-course wants to see losses go down as one scales. Also any chance you can share how 2019 has panned out? - A: Thanks Pedro! Yes, glad to cover this. Our sales increased so fast that our low tier equipment started to buckle. We had to invest in infrastructure, going to industrial equipment. We also did the largest music event in San Francisco (Outside Lands). To scale for this required even more capital and team resources. We had to prepare for what we sold in one week to selling that volume each day for three days. Unfortunately, with where were placed at the event, we took a loss. They also had us using their POS (The first year they rolled this out) and after assuring me that we could enroll customers in our loyalty program on their system, they then told us at the last minute that vendors couldn’t. It was an expensive lesson for me. My takeaway from this was “stay focused on your core business.” What we did get from the experience was the expertise to truly scale and the infrastructure to support multiple trailers covering a city. In Q4 of 2019 we finally reached break even. - Q: Two questions: 1. Is the portable kitchen stationary at the same location everyday? 2. Is cooking a pizza in 15 minutes in a wood fired pizza considered fast? - A: Thank you Kevin, It is at the same location. The pizzas cook in about 90 seconds in our 900 degree wood-burning oven. This is much faster. Typical pizza ovens using gas or air impingement usually take 5-8 minutes to cook. Rick - Q: Hi Rick, Sorry for maybe obvious question. How do mange 15 min delivery? do you have multiple carts across the city to make the delivery from them? - Q: Hi I'm interested in your product, how would you compare your company to the Blaze pizza franchise? Price points? Cooking process? - Q: Hi. It sounds like you currently have one PKF. What's the capacity for it and what % are you currently operating at? Is the plan to have more PKF units? Will they be stationed at one location or will they be moved to certain areas to meet demand and maintain low delivery times? Thanks for your time.