How a company manages its financial and operating performance on a daily basis is very important. Margins in the restaurant business average three to five cents out of every dollar of revenue. When managing pennies, how you account for them is very important if you want to end up with the financial performance needed to grow a successful business. Pizzeria Uno is a good example of a company that has learned to manage its financials very effectively and because of that has grown its business dramatically over the years. The Pizzeria Uno Restaurant Corporation started in 1979 and was taken public in 1987. Currently the chain operates in twenty-nine states and four foreign countries with one hundred sixty-five restaurants, both franchised and company owned. Its average restaurant generates $2 million in revenues annually.

1. What are the primary sources of funds that Pizzeria Uno uses to run its business, and how does it use these funds?
2. How does Uno monitor and evaluate the financial performance of its restaurants?
3. Pizzeria Uno typically buys the land on which it builds new restaurants because “it allows the company to control its own destiny and future.” What are some possible disadvantages to this practice?