Big Manny’s Pizza’s has opened it’s latest venture – a bustling spot within Aberdeen University.
Scores of hungry students lined up to try the famous Granite City slices today, with a well-oiled machine running in the background on the first day of trading.
Big Manny’s is expanding fast, so we took the chance to to sit down with director, Calum Wright, on launch day to reflect on how far the brand has come in five years.
Slicing and serving hot pizza to hundreds of customers now comes naturally to Big Manny’s staff – but Calum revealed that getting here has seen some “facepalm moments”, as well as a lot of hard work.
He also revealed the story of a frantic opening day at The Adam Lounge, their first location.
Hectic opening night at Big Manny’s Pizza
“On the first night of opening on Holburn Street, we never actually thought about what would happen to the pizzas once they were ready. We just assumed that the customers would always be there on time to collect when they were done,” he said.
“But of course they can be late, or there can be large queues to collect.
“Within 60 seconds every order slot we had for the night was filled. The device almost crashed with the orders we had coming in.
“We decided to turn the orders off. But even then we had five hours worth or orders to make up – and with no hot plate we were having to keep them warm on top of the oven.
“We definitely kicked ourselves at the end of the night, and we learned that hot lights are certainly important
“We are a much slicker operation now from when we first started.”
Calum said he isn’t surprised to see the business do as well as it has.
He added: “The success of the business was never in doubt for me.
“We knew it would be good but we just never knew on what scale it would be successful – and if it wasn’t we’d work on it until it was.”
Big Manny’s Pizza beginnings
Calum, working alongside founders brothers Phil and Ashley Adams, also revealed how the trio started working together during lockdown, when he was running a food page on Instagram.
“They already had the idea of the whole Big Manny’s brand, and I already knew how to make pizza,” he explained.
“At the time it was just something to do during Covid, and we just wanted food to sell in-house at the Adam Lounge – it wasn’t anything more than that.”
They went on to open Pittodrie Street six months later, and could not keep up with orders.
“Within a year, franchising talk began with Codona’s approaching us for a location,” Calum continued.
“As soon as we announced publicly that we were franchising, we started to get calls from loads of different people.”
Within a few months their Inverurie location followed, which is the moment Big Manny’s began to “snowball”.
Stonehaven’s Redcloak Drive location opened thereafter, followed by Banchory last month.
Big Manny’s trio striking ‘while iron is hot’
Despite the rapid speed of expansion for the Big Manny’s brand, Calum added the trio are taking it one step at a time.
“We didn’t intentionally plan to open Banchory so close to Stonehaven – these opportunities just come at us and we take them, because we have great guys to run them,” he said.
“We have had more emails from people wanting to franchise other locations – it’s non-stop.
“But we are cautious not to expand too fast. We are trying to do it at a controlled pace, but at the same time you have to strike while the iron is hot.”
Now, Calum says the sky is the limit for Big Manny’s.
With further expansions in the works, he jokes that big name franchises such as Domino’s may have to watch their backs.
He added: “Domino’s is one of the most successful food franchises on the planet, so we have a while until we catch up with them.
“I think we are almost matching them for locations now in Aberdeen. We have our eye on them for sure.”