Let's say you live in the Town of Tonawanda, near St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute, and you're in the mood for pizza.

Like in most neighborhoods in Western New York, you've got a lot of options -- and we're not talking about whether to put sweet or hot peppers on your pie.

To the east there's Sal's and Di Marco's. To the northwest, Milano's. To the west, Franco's and Gr8 Pizza. And to the south, on the Buffalo side of Kenmore Avenue, Pepe's and Jacobi's.

And that's all within one mile. People in this area love their pizza, but Kenmore and the Town of Tonawanda might be the cheesy, gooey center of the pizzeria universe.

A Google search, augmented with on-the-ground reporting, found 35 pizza places within the town limits, not counting restaurants on the other side of Kenmore Avenue and Niagara Falls Boulevard.

"Western New York as a whole has really perfected the art of pizza-making. We're pretty spoiled," said Tracey M. Lukasik, executive director of the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Chamber of Commerce, who fondly remembers the pizza from the late Sardina's Italian Restaurant & Pizza House, at the corner of her old street.

A lot of pizzeria owners got into the business because the shop was started by a parent, or because they wanted the chance to be their own boss.

The sheer number of independent, locally owned pizzerias in this area raises the question of how they all manage to survive and compete with each other -- as well as with the few national chains here and the supermarkets that now serve pizza.

Pizzeria owners say they have low profit margins to begin with, and the rising cost of ingredients is only making it harder for them to make money and keep their prices down.

There's a lot of turnover in the industry. But successful pizzerias find a niche, grab customers with the right location or an easy-to-remember phone number and -- most of all -- hold onto them with good service and consistently high-quality food.

"People are loyal to their little, local restaurant," said Brendan Toy, who took over La Hacienda Brighton from his late father, Thomas C. Toy Jr., in 2009.

People get into the pizza business for a variety of reasons.

Kurt Raepple, for one, wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life when he got out of high school. He was playing junior hockey in Canada and working at a series of part-time jobs.

So he joined a group, including his brother, in taking over John's Pizza and Subs on Niagara Falls Boulevard from its original owner 30 years ago. The four partners have four locations now -- two in the Town of Tonawanda, one on Grand Island and one in Getzville.

"It's worked out very well for us," Raepple said.

Toy's parents started La Hacienda Brighton in 1977, two years before Brendan was born.

While Brendan's brother didn't want to go into the family business, he did, and began at a young age washing dishes and clearing tables.

By the time he took over the place, the only thing he hadn't done was the paperwork.

Most people opening a pizza place have an idea of what they want the restaurant to look like and what they want to serve on the menu, said Cindi Thomason, a senior business adviser for Buffalo State College's Small Business Development Center.

The more difficult part is the hiring and training of employees, managing the restaurant's finances and payroll, dealing with suppliers and marketing the restaurant to customers.

"The trick is usually staying in business once you get it open," said Thomason, who is coordinator of the center's Restaurant Institute and who owned a bar and restaurant in North Carolina for 10 years. "A lot of people have no clue about how to run the business end of it."

Restaurants that are run well typically have a profit margin of 8 to 12 percent, she said.

Locals favor locals

Pizzeria owners live for a busy day like Feb. 5. Toy said Super Bowl Sunday is one of his three most profitable days, along with Halloween and the night before Thanksgiving.

People who have lived in other cities say Buffalo has a higher than average number of locally owned pizza joints, and a smaller number of national-chain pizzerias.

Those national outlets here tend to be concentrated in the suburbs, often along main business corridors such as Niagara Falls Boulevard and Transit Road, and they do have their customer base.

"I think some people are just chain restaurant people," said Nina Barone, an Elmwood Village resident and author of the Buffalo Foodie blog.

Raepple said he isn't worried about the Papa John's outlet that moved in across the street and down the road from his restaurant. He cited the old Syms tag line: "An educated consumer is our best customer."

Toy said La Hacienda Brighton's competition isn't Pizza Hut or Papa John's, it's the other independent pizzerias.

There are 35 of them in the Town of Tonawanda, or one for every 2,100 town residents, according to 2010 Census figures.

Thomason, the Buffalo State instructor, said she believes pizza from an independent pizzeria in this area takes the prime position held by chain fast food in other cities.

"I've never seen Burger Kings and McDonald's go out of business in other places, but I've seen two of them here," she said, referring to the now-defunct McDonald's in downtown Buffalo and Burger King in the Elmwood Village.

So how do all of these pizzerias stay afloat?

Location is a big piece of it, with convenience playing a big part in the decision of where to go to get a pizza.

Toy said La Hacienda Brighton has a good location near Kenmore East High School and Eggert Road, with the Youngmann Highway and Niagara Falls Boulevard not too far away.

La Hacienda Brighton, like many pizza joints, offers weekly specials for different food items, with pizza on Wednesdays, wings on Thursdays and a Friday fish fry.

"I would say 75 percent of our customers are repeat customers, every week, and you can set your watch to them depending on the day," Toy said. "People feel comfortable here. They feel like they're part of the family."

He also has offered online coupons and recently started advertising on the dasher boards at Brighton and Lincoln ice arenas.

A niche food has helped John's Pizza and Subs thrive for three decades. Raepple said John's can take credit for inventing the chicken finger sub. He said his restaurant was the first to put chicken fingers dipped in hot sauce on a sub roll with blue cheese dressing, lettuce, tomato and provolone cheese.

"That drew tons of attention to our place," Raepple said, and it remains their No. 1 seller.

Pizza is popular because it's a family-friendly, relatively inexpensive comfort food, said Lukasik, of the Ken-Ton chamber.

Of course, it's not the healthiest food in the world, so it's best to eat pizza in moderation, said Jo Freudenheim, chair of the University at Buffalo's department of social and preventive medicine.

Consumers should watch what they put on top of their pizza. Vegetables such as spinach or brocolli are far better than fatty, salty pepperoni or Italian sausage.

"If pizza's the only thing you eat, that's not great. If you eat it occasionally, that's OK," she said, noting the "empty calories" of the crust, the few nutrients in the tomato sauce and the protein and calcium -- and fat -- in the cheese.

Diners are loyal to their favorite pizzeria, and some customers have more than one favorite depending on which type of pizza they want to eat that night.

Barone began going to Romeo & Juliet's Bakery and Cafe on Hertel Avenue soon after it opened because her father, who is from Italy, loved the authentic taste of their bread.

She said she usually orders the pizza San Vito, with artichokes, Kalamata olives and soppressata, a hard salami.

The taste of the high-quality dough comes through because "it's not covered in sauce and cheese," Barone said over a slice of "pretty good" Sicilian-style white pizza from La Nova.

Thomason said there's a trend of restaurants serving gourmet, oven-style pizza. She pointed to Romeo & Juliet's, and Vera Pizzeria on Lexington Avenue and the Eights Bistro on Main Street, both in Buffalo, among others.

"They're gearing their business toward an adult clientele," Thomason said, adding, "The other ones are strictly looking at volume and convenience."

Attention grabbers

Some pizzerias try to stand out with an easy-to-remember phone number.

Partner's Pizzeria takes it further, putting its 834-3434 number in giant neon letters above the entrance to its new Tonawanda location at Eggert Road and Niagara Falls Boulevard.

The name of the pizzeria can be important, too, though most have some version of the owner's name and the words "pizza" or "pizzeria."

La Hacienda Brighton took its name from what was once a local chain -- Bob and John's La Hacienda is the only other one left -- and its street.

But Toy said if he were starting over he wouldn't use "La Hacienda," the Spanish words for "the homestead" or "the ranch."

"People think we're a Mexican restaurant," Toy said.

But consistency, Raepple said, is the most important factor.

"We can't make a mistake, because if we make a mistake, they're going somewhere else," he said.

There's a lot of turnover, and new owners often move into a vacant pizzeria thinking they will have better luck.

In the Town of Tonawanda, for example: Rizzo's took over Rodney's Pizza on Eggert Road; Romeo & Juliet's replaced Fat Man Pizza on Sheridan Drive; Gr8 Pizza replaced Sardina's Italian Restaurant & Pizza House; and the old Pizza Palace on Delaware Avenue is now De Wald's.

"The competition is very hard," Raepple said.

For pizzeria owners, the cost of doing business is only going up as the price they pay for their raw materials -- flour, cheese and fryer grease -- is rising.

Toy noted that last year at this time he was paying 98 cents per pound for his chicken wings, but this year he is paying $2.30.

John's Pizza and Subs and La Hacienda Brighton both raised their pizza prices recently. John's now charges $15.63 for a large cheese pizza with one topping, up 35 cents, while La Hacienda Brighton now charges $14 for the same pizza, up $1.

"I would rather raise my price than cut down on the quality of my ingredients," Toy said, noting his customers have "a trained palate" and can tell when something changes.

swatson@buffnews.comnull