As a restaurant owner, there aren't many things more challenging than keeping a steady stream of customers coming in through the front door. Unfortunately, these kinds of challenges can eventually arrest the cash flow of your business, which can cause all kinds of problems in the long run. About three months ago, I decided that it would be a good idea to start focusing more on my own restaurant so that I could improve things. I started small, by changing the way that our team handled a few things, and then eventually worked towards reworking the entire menu. This blog is all about making your restaurant more profitable.
Opening a pizza restaurant is not the hard part. The hard part is keeping your pizza restaurant open. This is an incredibly competitive market, with most cities being home to dozens of pizzerias where customers can purchase their pies. So how do you make your pizza restaurant the one customers come back to? How do you become the go-to pizza restaurant they want to tell all of their friends about? Here are a few tips.
Offer a couple of awesome specialty pizzas
A lot of customers like to customize their pizza and choose their own toppings from the list. But customers are not always as good at creating good combinations as they'd like to be. Some customers will know this, and they'll order specialty pies instead. So, make sure you have a couple of really good ones. Three or four really incredible specialty pizzas are better than 12 so-so ones. There's a good reason for this. When a customer tells someone else about your restaurant, that person will inevitably ask what they recommend getting. It's easy for the customer to recommend a certain specialty pizza. Their friend comes in and tries it, they love it, and just like that, you have another dedicated customer.
Perfect your crust game
If you have an excellent crust, everything else will come together. It's surprising the number of pizza shops that have a crust that's too chewy, too hard, too dry — and have not done anything to remedy this. If your crust is not perfect, watch videos by bakers to learn more about yeast doughs, and start troubleshooting. It might even help to take a class or two with some master pizza chefs and put their knowledge to use.
Offer specials
People like to feel like they're getting a good deal on pizza. It has a history of being a food that was quick and cheap. These days, ingredients and labor are more expensive, which means the days of $5 pies are long gone. But you can still offer discounts, when possible, to help reassure customers that you're giving them the best rate possible. Maybe you can offer $15 pizzas one night of the week. Or maybe you can give away free pizzas on birthdays — with proof, of course.
If you follow the tips above, you'll be well on your way toward becoming the "go-to" pizza restaurant in a swarm of other pizza restaurants.
Reach out to a company like Piero's Pizza to learn more.
Share19 October 2022
