If we were to ask how your current menu is doing, you’d probably answer, “Good!” But is “good” good enough...when a digital menu board could take your game up to “great?”
Your one-stop resource for insights and tips related to pizza: making, eating, and selling it!
While there’s something to be said about pizzerias that still make their pies and do things “the old-fashioned way”, there are several new technologies today that can help improve your pizza ordering, payment, and delivery processes, while also helping you deliver a better final product. It’s important that you keep up with industry standards and patron expectations, and in 2017, that means having a mobile-friendly website, being present on mobile apps, providing an online ordering option, and using a sophisticated POS system to help make your restaurant more accessible and run more efficiently.
The more options, the better, right? Not always so when it comes to pizza crusts. Offering too many options on your menu can not only overwhelm customers, it can overextend your staff.
Legend has it that the first official pizza delivery happened in 1889, when King Umberto I of Italy and Queen Margherita of Savoy desired some delicious local cuisine, but didn’t desire to mingle with the masses. A famed Naples pizza chef was happy to provide the royal treatment, so to speak, and trundled three different pies—fully cooked and piping hot—from his kitchen to the doorstep of the king and queen.
Losing a good employee not only disrupts your operations; it impacts your bottom line. A study by the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University estimates that the true cost of staff turnover could be as high as $5,864 per employee when factoring in hidden productivity loss, recruitment, training time and other expenses.
The price of putting a meal on the table keeps going up, and that includes the tables at your restaurant, too. In fact, food prices are expected to rise beyond inflation for the next few years, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Add to that increased wages, equipment costs and other expenses, and small pizzeria chains, restaurants and commercial kitchens have a hard time making ends meet.
Pizza and delivery have been synonymous for decades, and the number of people having it delivered to their doorstep continues to rise. But those customers still expect the same fast, fresh and hot pizza they’d enjoy if they were sitting at a table in your restaurant.
As someone who’s spent many years running my own pizzerias, I know that managing inventory can be a make or break situation for restaurants and commercial kitchens. Aside from paying employees, inventory can be one of your largest expenses. Avoiding problems such as spoilage, lack of cooler or storage space, running out of product and a host of other issues can quickly turn a profitable balance sheet upside-down.
Have you ever ordered at a restaurant only to be repeatedly told that the menu options you selected weren’t available? Chances are, that was the last time you visited that dining establishment.
When your pizzeria is operating smoothly, the synergy between the back of the house and the front of the house translates to happy staff, satisfied patrons and more sales. Encourage efficiency and consistency with these best practices for the front of the house (and check out out back-of-house tips here):
