On the far north side of town, along Main Street and past campus, midtown, and downtown Gainesville, Mamma Mia’s New York Style Pizzeria closed its doors for the final time this past Saturday. Despite undergoing renovations and a change in owners within the last year, the business still failed to make ends meet. Many who have had a chance to eat there consider it their favorite pizza joint (when they can afford it) and when it was announced on the restaurant’s Facebook page that September 14th would be its last day open, the response was largely that of disappointed Gainesville residents sad to see it go.
Despite all of the negative responses to Mamma Mia’s announcement, when I got the chance to drive up there for lunch with my sister on the restaurant’s final business day, we found the place to be totally empty. Of course, business might have picked up during dinner hours, but let’s be honest: No one is going to want to make a night out of driving all the way up to a pizza joint on a Saturday night just because it’s closing down when there are so many other things to get into. Although there were minor flaws with the experience, such as certain drinks being unavailable and being sat at a table that was literally falling apart, Mamma Mia’s food (we ordered a New York Style Medium Cheese Pizza) and management was overall average and enjoyable.
So we can rule out bad food and bad customer service as the reason this newly renovated pizza joint failed.
Mamma Mia’s certainly isn’t the first food business to fail in the north side of town either. Even just driving up there along Main Street, one has to pass the abandoned husks of other forgotten restaurants, including a Sonic’s Drive-Thru. If even a Sonic’s can’t keep open in the area, what is the problem? Why do all of these businesses fail? The main issue is perhaps the fact the north side of town is so far removed from some of the Gainesville’s more well-known “hot-spots” like the UF campus, Butler Plaza, midtown, or downtown. Couple that with the fact that many of Gainesville’s residential areas are centered around these spots and it turns out that many people find it far more convenient to drive along Archer or walk around Midtown rather than take a 15 minute drive along Main Street when they decide to dine-out. Furthermore, the north side isn’t exactly populated with people able to afford a 16 dollar specialty pizza or 8 dollar sandwich, especially when so many other pizza places around town have delivery or offer cheaper prices.
The best piece of knowledge almost everyone understands about real estate and the restaurant business is “location, location, location”; for restaurants in Gainesville specifically, it can be changed to “Don’t open at north side.”
Photo courtesy of: Facebook.com
