Restaurant sharpening business – article

Just the volume alone. 8000 knives a week at $3 average per knife . They could charge whatever they want to. That’s impressive

“The service costs $2.50 to $3.50 per knife.”[/li]

” Most knives go through a simple process. First the hollow grinder, which thins the knife. Then the honing machine. Higher-quality knives are sharpened on a grindstone, then buffed, then hand-honed on a stone that Mr. Ambrosi expects will last throughout his sons’ careers.”

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1. How do they charge so little, is there some type of initial leasing/contract fee?
2. Is the “hollow grinding” process here described what people like me and other sharpeners have to end up repairing?

To #2 … yep, that’s what I was referring to. To the cheapo restaurant loaners, I never do them as they are not the shop’s.
But, it’s regular folks that can’t find a sharpener, use whoever supplies knives to the restaurants, and they will not think twice about doing the same to a $125 blade as a $5 throwaway.
When they finally find me, its a sad moment when the customer realizes they killed their whole set, hollow ground Scalloped Santokus and all! Repairable, but never again the same knife. The scalloped ones are the worst, always ground all the way into the scallop, not even a safe knife for much other than cutting lettuce.

Here they supply places sometimes under $2 per knife, sometimes 3 for $5 including cleaver.
They hit a small strip mall and they can bag $20+ dollars and usually have the whole town.

And they come all the way from PA.

I guess just volume and enough stops in a certain location and I’d bet you could do $500 cash in a day trading out, then figure the same stop weekly. X how many drivers covering a state or 2?

Not something I’d be interested in 🙂