A 40-year pizzeria and the math of a 150% rent hike

Gino's Pizza, a fixture at Flatbush and Bergen for nearly four decades, closed in January 2026 after the landlord demanded $25,000 per month at lease renewal, up from $10,000. Owner Naser Kucevic offered $15,000. The landlord refused. Here is what the three numbers mean, in slices.

The three numbers

All figures as reported by the owner to ABC7 New York.

Old leasePrior monthly rent

$10,000

baseline

Owner's offerProposed renewal

$15,000

+50%

Landlord's demandRefused by tenant

$25,000

+150%

Where the money goes

Cost structure for an independent New York City counter-service pizzeria doing roughly $40,000 per month in revenue. Each bar is 100% of monthly revenue, divided among the categories that every small storefront has to pay. The left shows an industry-healthy rent share. The right replaces rent with $25,000 and shows what happens to everything else.

Healthy benchmark

Rent at 15% of revenue ($6,000). This is the median for independent pizzerias in industry studies. Gino's old rent, at $10,000, was already above this at 25%.

Food 30%

Labor 30%

Rent 15%

Ops 10%

Profit 15%

Viable. Owner take-home plus reinvestment in the 10 to 20% range that industry benchmarks describe as the normal profit band for a small pizzeria.

At $25,000 rent

Rent alone is 63% of the same $40,000 in revenue. Even if food and labor were each cut by a third, every other category still has to come out of what is left. Profit is gone first.

Rent 63%

Food 20%

Labor 17%

Ops, insurance and profit: 0%. Food and labor compressed below industry minimums.

The math does not close. To restore a normal cost structure at $25,000 rent, monthly revenue would need to roughly double to around $80,000.

3 min

between orders, rent-only

At $25,000 per month, covering rent alone during the lunch rush requires one paying order every three minutes, for two hours straight, every weekday. At $10,000 the same window tolerated one order every 7.5 minutes. The landlord's number more than doubled the required lunch pace.

The lunch rush, in ticks

Each mark is one paying order needed during the 12:00 to 2:00 PM window to cover that scenario's rent alone. Based on a blended $8.40 contribution margin per order and industry-typical sales distribution (40% of daily receipts in the lunch window).

$10K rent

orders over 2 hrs
1 every 7.5 min

$15K rent

orders over 2 hrs
1 every 5 min

$25K rent

orders over 2 hrs
1 every 3 min

12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM

How these numbers were calculated

Rent figures. The three rent amounts ($10,000 old lease, $15,000 counteroffer, $25,000 landlord demand) come directly from owner Naser Kucevic's January 16, 2026 interview with ABC7 New York. Gino's actual revenue, margins and cost structure are not public; all other numbers in this piece are modeled from industry benchmarks, not from Gino's books.

Revenue assumption. $40,000 per month is used as an illustrative baseline for a small independent New York City counter-service pizzeria. This is a midpoint figure drawn from operator guides published by Toast and 7shifts. Gino's actual revenue could be meaningfully higher or lower.

Cost structure. Independent pizzerias typically spend 25 to 35% of revenue on ingredients and 25 to 35% on labor; rent and utilities together usually total 12 to 20%; net profit generally falls between 10 and 20% (Toast, 7shifts, UpMenu). The "healthy benchmark" bar uses midpoints: 30% food, 30% labor, 15% rent, 10% operations and insurance combined, 15% profit. At $10,000 rent on $40,000 revenue, Gino's was already running above the benchmark rent share, at 25%.

The $25,000 bar. Rent fixed at 63% of $40,000 revenue. Food and labor in that scenario are shown at 20% and 17% because everything else has already been zeroed out; these are arithmetic residuals, not operationally realistic values. The bar shows that no realistic distribution leaves room for the other costs.

Contribution margin. $8.40 per order, assuming a roughly 30% food cost ratio on a blended mix of slices and whole pies. Slices carry thin margins but sell in volume; whole pies carry higher dollar margins at lower frequency. The 30% food ratio aligns with 7shifts and Financial Models Lab.

Lunch pace. Daily rent obligation equals monthly rent divided by 30. Lunch is assumed to carry 40% of a day's sales, consistent with counter-service pizzerias near office and transit corridors. Orders needed per two-hour window equal (daily rent x 0.40) / $8.40. For $10,000: 16 orders. For $15,000: 24. For $25,000: 40. These figures cover rent only; labor, food, utilities and insurance sit on top.

Limitations. This is a modeled analysis, not a forensic audit of Gino's. Gino's actual revenue, product mix, hours and margins may differ. The conclusion that the $25,000 rent is mathematically incompatible with a small-storefront pizzeria doing anything close to typical volume does not depend on the exact revenue assumption: it holds across a wide range.

Primary source: ABC7 New York, January 16, 2026. Industry benchmarks: Toast, 7shifts, UpMenu, Financial Models Lab. Rent figures as reported by owner. All other figures are industry-midpoint estimates; see methodology.

Slice Math