PMQ Pizza Magazine March 2014

MARCH 2014 | WWW.PMQ.COM

5 Tips for Creating a Moneymaking Loyalty Program

METRO PIZZA'S

JOHN ARENA TAKES A SWING AT BAKING 36 Page

Page 58

Turn Your Menu Into a Power Tool for Sales Page 68

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PMQ Blogs ThePizzaInsider.PMQ.com

Recent Videos (pmq.com/video)

Liz Barrett, PMQ’s editor at large, brings you the inside scoop on the industry’s latest trends, marketing and technology.

Recently at The Pizza Insider: Liz shares five steps toward higher profits in 2014; tips to fight a sales slump; and how to get your pizzeria ready for a historically big sales day.

PizzaWithoutBorders.PMQ.com From PMQ’s headquarters in Paris, Missy Green, PMQ’s international correspondent, reports on pizza events, trends and curiosities from around the world.

Recently at Pizza Without Borders: Missy discusses expensive giveaways in Japan; how breaking a Guinness World Record can make you famous; and the tasty European appetizer flammekueche.

Pizza TV: Pasquale’s Deli & Pizza Patrick Maggi was a teenager when his dad sold his pizzeria, but sauce was already in the boy’s blood. He now owns Pasquale’s Deli & Pizza in Damascus, Maryland, and has become a regular on the pizza making competition circuit.

SliceofLife.PMQ.com PMQ’s social media director, Melanie Addington, brings you weekly posts on the latest trends and tips in social media.

Recently at Slice of Life: Melanie talks about social marketing success with Two Cousins Pizza Co. in Ohio, Dare Devils Pizzeria in North Carolina, and Brickfire Pizza in Wisconsin.

Think Tank Hot Topics (thinktank.pmq.com) PMQ’s Think Tank is the only online forum for the pizza industry. With a membership of nearly 2,500 and more than 80,000 posts, you’re sure to find the answers you’re seeking. Some examples of recent posts: I want to start delivery service. Where to start? – A pizzeria/barbecue restaurant operator is thinking about starting to offer delivery but has no idea where to begin. Several Think Tankers tell him not to do it, while others offer some detailed advice on how to go about it. $3-a-pound cheese? – Think Tank members discuss the price increase of cheese around the country and how some of them have handled it by stocking up beforehand or raising menu prices.

Pizza 360 Pizza 360, the pizza industry’s only online talk show, turns the spotlight on marketing guru Tom Feltenstein, who talks about recruiting great employees and distinguishing between “eagles” and “turkeys.”

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This Week in Pizza (pmq.com/thisweekinpizza) PMQ’s weekly e-newsletter brings breaking industry news to your inbox every Wednesday. Receive it free by visiting pmq.com/subscribe.

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PMQ Pizza Magazine

The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Join the discussion! thinktank.pmq.com

Pizza Expo

March 25-27, 2014

Booth # 601

CONTENTS MARCH 2014

| January/Fe bruary 2014

The Breakfast Club

| WWW.PM Q.COM

Issue 1

The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly | PMQ.com

John Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza in Las Vegas, believes pizza making and bread baking go hand in hand, and his new concept, Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast, is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this moneymaking trend.

By Rick Hynum Photos by Dick Waterman and Daniel Lee Perea

MARCH 2014

| Volume 18,

36

36

PMQ PIZZA MAGAZINE

ON THE COVER

MET RO PIZZ A'S

JO H N AR EN A BA KI N G TA KE S A SW ING AT Page

36

5 Tips For Creating a Moneymak ing Loyalty Progr am

Page 58

Turn Your Menu Into a Powe r Tool for Sales

Page 68

FEATURES

28

The Instagram Effect Instagram, the increasingly popular online photosharing and networking app, offers an unmatched opportunity to engage customers and promote your pizzeria.

By Melanie Addington

48

Bacon Boom Customers will want to pig out on your pies when you add bacon—the fastest-growing protein in the industry—to your specialty pizza recipes.

By Liz Barrett

56

Hitting the Jackpot PMQ subscribers can browse the action-packed exhibit hall and enjoy a keynote speech by Spike TV’s Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue at the 2014 Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas this month.

58

Maximizing Loyalty Marketing experts offer five tips for creating a personalized, easy-to-use loyalty program with tailored rewards that customers really want.

By Tracy Morin

64

The Direct Mail Solution Attract hungry new customers to your pizzeria by integrating old-school direct mail offers with an online activation strategy and social media marketing.

By Tom Feltenstein

68

Moneymaking Menus Gregg “The Menu Magician” Rapp explains how a few design tweaks to your menu can boost its profit potential by 15% or more.

By Rick Hynum

74

Taxing the Tips A controversial new IRS ruling treats automatic gratuities as service charges, with significant legal and accounting ramifications for pizzeria operators.

By Melanie Addington

76

The Pizza Trainer: Itemizing Learn how to implement an orderly itemizing process to ensure that every pizza is topped correctly and consistently.

By Dan Risner

8

PMQ Pizza Magazine

The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

DANIEL PEREA

CONTENTS MARCH 2014

58

LOU MALNATI’S

48

64

NATIONAL PORK BOARD

DEPARTMENTS 20

New York’s Finest: Tuna and Roasted Pepper Pizza Alone at the office on a snowy winter’s day, a hungry Chef Bruno dreams up a unique tuna-based pizza recipe.

22

24

Caputo and Roberto Caporuscio, owner of Don Antonio by Starita, share an authentic Neapolitan pizza recipe using pistachios and fresh Italian sausage.

In Lehmann’s Terms: Creating a Pretzel Pizza Crust Learn how to create your own signature pretzel pizza crust with these detailed instructions from Tom “The Dough Doctor” Lehmann.

46 From the Test Kitchen:

Neapolitan Pizza Dough

Accounting for Your Money: Calculating Your True Pie Costs

83

To rein in your food costs, create an online database that lets you track your actual costs daily while setting your ideal costs and target profit margins.

26

44 Recipe of the Month:

Pistachio and Sausage Pizza

Marketing Maven: How to Score With March Madness Linda Duke outlines six easy steps for cashing in on this month’s NCAA basketball tournament.

Follow this recipe and check out our online Pizza TV video to make authentic Neapolitan dough.

Meet the Tank: Nick Sasso Nick Sasso, former owner of Nick’s Pizzeria, says the Think Tank helped him persevere— and continue to learn—during challenging times.

106 Time Capsule:

Vince the Pizza Prince A family-owned Scranton, Pennsylvania, pizzeria has been treating its customers like royalty—and its employees like family—since 1955.

Click here to view bonus video coverage of John Arena Click here to view PMQ Extra: Behind the Scenes at PMQ Click here to view Pizza 360: Marketing guru Tom Feltenstein talks about recruiting great employee Click here to view our featured video Pasquale’s Deli & Pizza 10 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Coming Next Month Desserts: Your guests always have room for dessert—make sure they buy it from you rather than the sweets shop down the street.

Equipping a Bar: According to research firm Technomic, customers who order an adult beverage at a restaurant are more likely to go home highly satisfied. Our experts will share their secrets for creating a successful alcoholic beverage program.

Why Pizzerias Close: Five pizzeria operators who have faced closure explain what went wrong—so you won’t make the same mistakes!

IN EVERY ISSUE 6

Online at PMQ.com

14

Editor’s Note

16

Letters to the Editor

18

Pizza Press

84

Product Spotlight

91

Advertiser Index

92

Pizza Industry Resource Guide

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EDITOR’S NOTE RICK HYNUM

The PMQ Test Kitchen Is Now Open for Business

PMQ PIZZA MAGAZINE | January/February 2014 | Volume 18, Issue 1

MARCH 2014 | WWW.PMQ.COM

The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly | PMQ.com

5 Tips For Creating a Moneymaking Loyalty Program

METRO PIZZA'S

JOHN ARENA TAKES A SWING AT BAKING 36 Page

Page 58

Turn Your Menu Into a Power Tool for Sales Page 68

On the cover: John Arena, co-owner of Las Vegas-based Metro Pizza, recently helped launch the PMQ Test Kitchen and also talked to us about his new baking venture, Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast, and the rising popularity of artisan breads and pastries.

Photo by Daniel Lee Perea

DANIEL PEREA

It’s hard to lose weight when you work in an office that has its own pizza oven. Case in point: The new PMQ Test Kitchen recently opened for business with a visit from John Arena from Las Vegas’ Metro Pizza (metropizza.com). We invited John to make three items, and he ended up making eight. Not that anyone complained, least of all me— everything was delicious, and not a morsel went to waste. This is why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions; I just make helpful suggestions to myself, such as, “Hey, buddy, how’s about cutting back on the Cheetos and Dr. Pepper for a week or two?” Then, I ignore myself and pack on another five pounds.

As described in this month’s cover story (“The Breakfast Club,” page 36), John and his business partner Sam Facchini have moved into the bread baking business with Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast (lulusonthemove.com), taking advantage of the rising popular demand for artisan foods. It makes perfect sense—pizzeria operators already work with the basic ingredients and equipment for baking, and most pizzerias sit empty in the mornings; building a breakfast daypart could be just the thing for operators looking for new revenue opportunities.

Chatting with John is a true learning experience—he’s so knowledgeable, he even teaches a course in pizzeria management at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Adding to the pleasure was the arrival of another man who has excelled in his field—the great blues music manager, promoter and photographer Dick Waterman. Author of Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive, DANIEL PEREA Dick managed blues legends including Son House, Buddy Guy and Bonnie Raitt and promoted concerts by Bruce Springsteen, Cat Stevens and James Taylor. But he’s equally renowned for his intimate backstage photography of musical icons, including Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and Janis Joplin.

When Dick dropped by to take photos of John for our article, the conversation that followed was entertaining and often fascinating. As a manager and promoter, Dick has traveled the world and enjoyed his share of great pizza. The PMQ staff couldn’t help but eavesdrop as Dick, who hails from Boston, and John, a native New Yorker, reminisced about their favorite pizzerias around the country and talked food, philosophy and music.

It felt like a special moment to all of us, spending time with these two gifted and erudite men, brought together in our test kitchen by a shared love for pizza and finding they had more in common than anyone would have guessed.

Granted, this has little to do with our focus on John’s latest venture, but John made it clear during his visit that he’s proud to work in the pizza business, and the above story illustrates why: Pizza brings people together in a way that nothing else can. Forget burgers and tacos; pizza is a cultural touchstone for people across the globe. Like John, we’re proud to work in the pizza business. And we hope that you are, too!

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE Subscribe to PMQ now!

Get your print, digital or mobile edition!

14 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Rick Hynum Editor-in-chief PMQ Pizza Magazine

Sometimes the best kitchen tool is a new ingredient.

Craft unique pizzas that keep customers coming back for more with a fresh, new ingredient. Try Tampa Maid’s flavorful Fried Green Tomatoes or any of the freshly picked and lightly dipped vegetable and fruit products we’ve added to our Harvest Creations lineup.

Order a free sample today and see how our creations can become your tools for success.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR RICK HYNUM A P U B L I C AT I O N O F P M Q , I N C .

The Gourmet Touch

Winner of 5 ASBPE Awards Winner of 4 GAMMA Awards ISSN 1937-5263

I couldn’t agree more with Tracy Morin’s article “The Gourmet Experience” (January/ February, 2014). I’m the owner of Easy Pie in Braintree, Massachusetts. Our formula consists of a creative menu fusing great, fresh gourmet ingredients and presenting them in the most unorthodox fashion.

I love how your article featured so many creative shops and hope you’ll take a look at our menu and see if you’d be interested in our shop for future articles. Check us out at theeasypie.com. Thank you!

Spiros Stogiannis Easy Pie Braintree, MA Spiros, we checked out your menu, and we’re impressed! We’ll definitely reach out to you for future articles.

The Family Business I’d like to tell you about my son, Anthony Nestorovski, and his pizza restaurant. I loved eating pizza from a very young age, and when I got a job at Vince’s Bakery & Party Store in Detroit at the age of 14, I fell in love with the business. After I got married and started a family, we purchased an independent pizza shop and worked from open to close, with our three kids helping out a few days a week. We later took over a Little Caesars location.

Its sales were very low, but we turned it around with hard work. We soon had three Michigan locations and four Indianapolis locations. In February 2011, I suffered a stroke, and, under doctors’ orders and with a desire to be around my family for a long time, we sold all of our locations.

PMQ, INC. Publisher Steve Green sg@pmq.com ext. 123 Co-Publisher Linda Green linda@pmq.com ext. 121 EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Rick Hynum rick@pmq.com ext. 130 Editor at Large Liz Barrett liz@pmq.com Senior Copy Editor Tracy Morin tracy@pmq.com International Correspondent Missy Green missy@pmq.com DESIGN/PRODUCTION Art Director Kara Hoffman kara@pmq.com ext. 135 Designer Eric Summers eric@pmq.com

Anthony Nestorovski (left) and his dad, Lou Nestorovski, show off a pizza.

In the summer of 2012, my son Anthony came to us and said he wanted to start his own pizza business. We were hesitant because he was taking classes in college and we didn’t want him to quit.

We made a deal with him—we would help him out as long as he continued taking classes. So Chubby Charlies Pizza (chubbycharliespizza.com) opened on November 14, 2012 (on Anthony’s 19th birthday). He has put a lot of time and dedication into the business. It got off to a slow start, but the customers love the pizza and everything on the menu. Last week he celebrated his 20th birthday and Chubby Charlies’ one-year anniversary. He has high goals for the business, and we know he will succeed in it!

Lou Nestorovski Commerce, MI Thanks for sharing this great story, Lou. We wish Anthony a successful career in the pizza business, and we hope you’re doing well, too!

Share your passion!

Have a complaint, compliment or suggestion about something you’ve read in the pages of PMQ? Send your letter via email to editor@pmq.com with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line, or mail to PMQ, ATTN: Letters to the Editor, 605 Edison St., Oxford, MS 38655. We look forward to hearing from you!

Friend us on Facebook! Visit facebook.com/pmqpizzamagazine.

Thank You to Our PMQ Think Tank Moderators Daddio: Member since June 2006 Tom Lehmann: Member since June 2006

Rockstar Pizza: Member since June 2006 ADpizzaguy: Member since January 2007

16 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Media Producer Daniel Lee Perea dperea@pmq.com ext.139 ADVERTISING Sales Director Linda Green linda@pmq.com ext. 121 Account Executive Clifton Moody clifton@pmq.com ext. 138 Account Executive Tom Boyles tom@pmq.com ext. 122 Account Executive Anna Zemek anna@pmq.com ext 140 Sales Assistant Brandy Pinion brandy@pmq.com ext. 127 MARKETING Social Media Director Melanie Addington melanie@pmq.com ext. 133 ADMINISTRATION Chief Financial Officer Shawn Brown shawn@pmq.com Circulation Manager Sherlyn Clark sherlyn@pmq.com ext. 120 Director of Operations/ Event Coordinator Brian Hernandez brian@pmq.com ext. 129 PMQ INTERNATIONAL PMQ China Yvonne Liu yvonne@pmq.com PMQ Australia-NZ Tom Boyles tom@pmqaustralia.com France Pizza Julien Panet jpanet@francepizza.fr Pizza e Pasta Italiana Massimo Puggina redazione@pizzaepastaitaliana.it Spain—pizzanet.es Eduard Jiménez info@pizzanet.es Brazil—Pizzas & Massas Michel Wankenne wankenne@insumos.com.br EDITORIAL ADVISORS Chef Santo Bruno Tom Feltenstein Tom Lehmann Joey Todaro Ed Zimmerman CONTRIBUTORS Chef Santo Bruno Linda Duke Tom Feltenstein Tom Lehmann Michael J. Rasmussen Dan Risner Volume 18, Issue 2 PMQ Pizza Magazine 605 Edison St. • Oxford, MS 38655 662.234.5481 • 662.234.0665 Fax linda@pmq.com PMQ Pizza Magazine (ISSN #1937-5263) is published 10 times per year. Cost of U.S. subscription is $25 per year. International $35.

Periodical postage pricing paid at Oxford, MS. Additional mailing offices at Bolingbrook, IL. Postmaster: Send address changes to: PMQ Pizza Magazine, PO Box 2015, Langhorne, PA 19047.

Opinions expressed by the editors and contributing writers are strictly their own, and are not necessarily those of the advertisers. All rights reserved. No portion of PMQ may be reproduced in whole or part without written consent.

Ovention® Matchbox® 1313

BIG MENU. BIG PROFITS. SMALL SPACE. Whether it’s pizzas or a whole lot of other profit boosters,

no other oven cooks a full and varied menu better, faster, easier.

Sure there’s new. But this is more than that.

It’s a step-change, a game changer. If you’ve been wishing for an accelerated-cooking countertop oven that does everything better than yesterday’s models, the revolutionary new Matchbox is it. It’s fast without microwaves.

Precision Impingement gives you exceptional cooking quality for everything from breakfast sandwiches and paninis to grilled vegetables, to pizza and cookies. It’s UL-certified ventless, so you can put it just about anywhere.

See the Matchbox in action at: OventionOvens.com/videos

Ovention® Matchbox® 1718

Expect the unexpected from Ovention!

• •

Accelerated cooking No microwaves

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UL-listed ventless Easy and programmable

The 1718 upgrades you to twin 17” x 18” cook surfaces for bigger batches, bigger pizzas, etc.

Otherwise the 1718 delivers all the features and advantages of the 1313: Twin cook surfaces alternate, matchbox-style, into and out of the cook chamber. Program controls for 1,000 menu items set times, temps, separate top and bottom blower speeds. When done, food unloads automatically. See it in action at OventionOvens.com/videos

Ovention® Shuttle™

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What if you want the Matchbox, but at certain hours you have rushes for particular menu items? Maybe for those times, you think you need a conveyor. Meet the Ovention Shuttle— think of it as a Matchbox with a conveyor mode, or a conveyor with a Matchbox mode.

Most of the time, you probably need a cool, quiet, energy-efficient oven. For those times, it operates as a Matchbox. But for those certain times when you want a conveyor, you’ve got it.

See the Shuttle in action at: OventionOvens.com/videos

PIZZA PRESS NEWS & VIEWS

Best in Show Metro Pizza (metropizza.com) co-owner Sam Facchini is making sure pizzeria owners—and all restaurant operators—are well-represented at this year’s National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show. Named NRA Convention Chair for 2014, he’ll oversee the largest restaurant and hospitality convention in the country, which draws as many as 80,000 attendees per year—quite a responsibility for someone who already oversees a multimillion-dollar pizzeria empire. “Naturally, I’m honored to have been asked to serve in this capacity,” Facchini says. “From being a sounding board for the exhibitors to hosting our international guests to being the face—figuratively speaking—of the restaurant operators in attendance, this year’s NRA Show promises to be an exciting time for me.”

A Bonus to Remember Many pizzeria owners pay lip service to the importance of employees, but Klavon’s Pizzeria and Pub (klavonspizza.com) owner Justin Klavon put his money where his mouth is by rewarding employees in a big way late last year. About two weeks before Christmas, the Jackson, Michigan, pizzeria gave an entire day’s sales directly to employees as a holiday bonus—and Klavon’s customers did their part by coming out in droves, giving the pizzeria a record-setting sales day (ultimately netting more than $300 for each employee). “The excellent employees we have are the main reason we are successful, so I thought dedicating 100% of one day’s sales would be a nice way to recognize them,” Klavon says. “Our customers obviously agreed.

Really, I was blown away by the response!”

Employees netted more than $300 apiece when Klavon’s Pizzeria and Pub gave an entire day’s sales back to its staff as a Christmas bonus.

Year of the Pie The Year of Pie from Your Pie (yourpie.com) began as a small monthly campaign when its first store opened in Athens, Georgia, in 2008, but in 2012, the fast-casual pioneer expanded it to a yearlong extravaganza. In the promotion, customers submit suggestions for topping combinations, and Your Pie’s Facebook fans vote each month for their favorite. At the end of the year, fans select an overall winner from the previous 12 months. The 2012 winner, Kelly Brooks, had her customized pie (dubbed The Aloha) added to the menu and received free pizza for a year. For 2013, founder Drew French decided to sweeten the pot by offering the winner a trip to Ischia, Italy.

The winner of Your Pie’s Year of Pie contest won a free trip to Ischia, Italy.

18 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

While customers share their best pizza concepts on Facebook, Your Pie receives more likes and more engagement on its page. (Customers must like the Facebook page, and then they can vote daily for their favorite customer-created pie.) Cheri Walker from Fleming Island, Florida, won the 2013 contest and the trip to Italy. “The Year of Pie helps build awareness,” French notes. “I think by letting our customers create the combinations and then featuring them, it helps people understand what we do and why—and it’s a social media driver.”

Getting Stuffed!

New Year’s diet resolutions were undoubtedly postponed for attendees who flocked to the grand opening of Giordano’s Famous Stuffed Pizza’s (giordanos.com) 41st location in Chicago’s South Loop in mid-January.

But the day also offered up a feel-good vibe as the pizzeria partnered with Bears Care, the charitable arm of the Chicago Bears, for an opening day complete with appearances by former Bears offensive tackle James Williams and the team’s mascot, Staley, with 25% of all dine-in proceeds donated to support the charity. Among its many charitable activities, Bears Care provides assistance to disadvantaged children and their families in the Chicagoland community.

The Giordano’s expansion plan for 2014 (aiming for five new locations around Chicago) follows a successful menu revamp that added Italian-inspired salads, pastas and sandwiches to the classic stuffed pizza lineup. “Business is on an upswing,” says CEO Yorgo Koutsogiorgas. “We’re hungry to bring our great menu to more and more fans throughout the Chicago area and beyond.”

For the opening of its 41st location in the Windy City, Giordano’s Stuffed Pizza raised money for Bears Care, the charitable arm of the Chicago Bears.

52 Weeks of Giving

Online Milestones Just two weeks into 2014, Pizza Hut (pizzahut.com) set two digital sales records, logging the two biggest days in company history for sales received by a method other than traditional phone calls. Roughly 40% of all transactions occurred digitally from January 1 to 10, with select markets surpassing 50%, as the company celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first-ever online order by offering 50% off pizzas ordered online. Pizza Hut also launched a brand-new hand-tossed crust in January, boasting “a lighter, airier crust” that’s “brushed with a garlic buttery flavor”—and offered a money-back guarantee to encourage customer trial of its most-oftenordered crust type.

The pies at San Francisco-based Patxi’s Pizza (patxispizza.com) have been listed among the top 10 “Most Life-Changing Pizzas” by Esquire, but the heart behind the business literally changes lives all year long. The company’s 52 Weeks of Giving program dictates that every week of the year, each of Patxi’s 12 restaurants donates a percentage of all sales from one day to a partner organization. In 2013, Patxi’s Pizza donated more than $166,620 to partner organizations through a total of 395 fundraising events. More than 397 community organizations participated in last year’s program, including 128 local schools and in-school programs, plus dozens of nonprofit organizations. Patxi’s goal is to raise $200,000 to benefit charity organizations in 2014.

Every location of San Francisco-based Patxi’s Pizza donates a percentage of sales from one day each week to a nonprofit partner.

March 2014

pmq.com 19

NEW YORK’S FINEST CHEF BRUNO

Tuna and Roasted Pepper Pizza A cold, snowy day in New York inspires a delicious tuna-based pizza from Chef Bruno.

By Chef Santo Bruno

H

ello again from New York City! I was sitting at my desk and looking out the window from my office recently, and the snow began to fall once again. It was coming down rather heavily, but it looked so pretty. It was shortly after noon, and for once, the phones weren’t ringing, and everything was quiet. I started to feel a little hungry, and I’m lucky enough to work in a place where cooking your own lunch is always an option. Since it was a chilly day, I knew I needed to make a warm meal.

And nothing’s better than a pizza, right?

I walked over to the refrigerator and found two items that were ready to be used: tuna and roasted red peppers. That gave

me an idea for a new pizza I’ve never made before. I was missing a few products, so I took a ride to the supermarket and stocked up on everything I needed for a Tuna and Roasted Pepper Pizza. I tried it myself, and it was delicious, so I made it a couple more times and shared it with others. Everyone loved it, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did. Mangia!

SLNY PRODUCTIONS

Chef Bruno is PMQ’s culinary advisor, with more than 40 years of international pizza experience. He is the corporate chef for Marsal & Sons and the culinary coach of the U.S. Pizza Team.

You’ll Need: 10 oz. pizza dough 1 c. marinara sauce 6½ oz. can chunk tuna, drained and broken into chunks 7 oz. roasted sweet red peppers, drained and cut into small strips 6 oz. mozzarella, shredded 3 oz. pistachios, crushed (for garnish) 4 oz. Parmesan cheese Directions: Lightly grease a 13” pizza pan, then unroll the dough and transfer to the pan. Press the dough out with your hand and make the edges slightly raised. Prick with a fork. Bake in the oven at 425°F for 7 to 10 minutes, or until brown.

Spread the Parmesan and marinara sauce onto the hot crust. Top with tuna and roasted red peppers, then sprinkle on the mozzarella. Bake for 10 minutes longer, or until the cheese melts and the sauce bubbles. Garnish with pistachio nuts and enjoy!

20 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Fresh Quality, Made Easy

π

Quality, Selection, and Value.

That’s the beauty of Bellissimo. our line of fully cooked and par-fried poultry products offers pizzerias and italian restaurants convenient solutions to traditional favorites. available in a range of restaurant preferred sizes and styles, our poultry products are quick and easy to finish to perfection and can be prepared in common areas safely without cross-contamination. From garlic wings to breaded breasts, our chicken products can be served with pride. enjoy the beauty of Bellissimo - the taste of fresh chicken made easy for every occasion.

To l o c a t e y o u r l o c a l B e l l i s s i m o d i s t r i b u t o r, v i s i t B e l l i s s i m o F o o d s . c o m o r c a l l 8 0 0 - 8 1 3 - 2 9 7 4.

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© 2013 Bellissimo Foods Company

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IN LEHMANN’S TERMS TOM “THE DOUGH DOCTOR” LEHMANN

Creating a Pretzel Pizza Crust Take advantage of a hot new trend by developing your own signature pretzel pizza crust.

By Tom Lehmann

QUESTION: What’s the secret to a good pretzel pizza crust?

ANSWER: Lately, everyone’s talking about pretzel this and pretzel that. Pretzel buns for hamburgers and hot dogs are all the rage.

I was recently asked how to make pretzel breadsticks, too. Since pizza dough is so similar to pretzel dough, you can simply use your pizza dough to make the breadsticks and then brush them with an alkali solution—that’s how pretzels are made

and the secret to their unique signature flavor and chew.

Historically, people have used sodium hydroxide to make the alkali solution, but it can inflict caustic burns if it gets onto your skin, and severe eye injury or even blindness if it gets into your eyes.

Therefore, extreme caution must be exercised when using the sodium hydroxide solution. Instead, I tried a well-known alternative: baking soda (or sodium bicarbonate). The baking soda solution imparts many of the pretzel-like characteristics to the finished product, and it’s much safer to work with. However, when comparing breadsticks made with the sodium hydroxide solution to those made with the baking soda solution, there was a slightly different (browner) crust color associated with the latter, and the flavor was a little different, too.

Neither approach yielded a true “pretzel” taste until salt was applied to the dough

right before baking; both solutions then yielded a flavor that we immediately identified as the classic pretzel flavor.

So what about pizza crusts? In our trials, we took a standard pizza crust formula and changed it to a pretzel crust by brushing the edge of the formed skin with a sodium hydroxide solution in one case and with a sodium bicarbonate solution in the second case. (We made a 2% sodium hydroxide solution and heated it to 190°F before brushing it onto the pizza skin.) In both cases the solutions were applied immediately before baking.

We sprinkled kosher salt lightly on the edge and immediately baked the pizza in an air impingement oven just like our regular pizzas. (Warning: If you value your baking screens, disks or pans, don’t use them in this application. As the pie bakes, the highly caustic nature of the sodium hydroxide solution will eventually destroy any aluminum that it comes into

In his pretzel crust experiments, Lehmann worked with both sodium hydroxide and baking soda solutions, applied both hot and cold, to achieve the classic pretzel flavor. The above photos show the crust results yielded in the various trials.

22 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

contact with. Instead, use an ovenable baking tray designed for take-and-bake pizzas, or use a piece of baking parchment paper to hold the pizza during baking. Either way, spray release oil on the tray or parchment before you place the dough on it. Failure to do this will most likely result in the edge of the dough, where the alkali solution has been applied, sticking to the tray or paper.)

The resulting crusts had a deep, pretzellike, mahogany color with recognizable pretzel flavor. We also tried the sodium hydroxide at 6% solution using cold water and applied the solution cold. This gave a very acceptable crust color and flavor, but it must be cautioned that both of these solutions are highly caustic and, at the very least, a respiration mask, goggles and plastic gloves should be worn while working with these solutions.

As a safer alternative to the sodium hydroxide, we also used a 15% solution of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and applied it to the dough both hot (190°F) and cold (room temperature/ambient).

These solutions are much safer to work

with, but the color and flavor were not quite as good as that from the sodium hydroxide solutions. The color came out more dark brown than mahogany, and the flavor, while good, was less identifiable as a pretzel taste. We did not see any significant advantage to using this soda solution hot as opposed to the cold preparation, so we recommend the cold/ ambient approach for safer handling.

Immediately after baking, we brushed the crust with melted clarified butter to create a gourmet pretzel-like presentation. (The accompanying photographs show the differences in color between each of the solutions tested.)

A pretzel crust makes for an interesting variation on standard pizza fare. Testers found the salted crust to be very acceptable in all cases. Different types of toppings can be applied to the edge of the pizza skin, including pretzel salt (slightly different from kosher salt), sesame seeds or poppy seeds. And a simple mustard makes a great dipping sauce.

Whatever type of caustic solution you use, be sure to follow all precautionary

measures. Do not bake your pretzel crust pizzas on a metal pan; instead, use an oiled, ovenable paperboard tray or an oiled silicone baking sheet. For the best pretzel flavor, we think a salt topping works best, but other toppings can be used. Be sure to use a sanitary, plastic bristle brush to apply the caustic solution to the dough, because the solution can potentially destroy a natural bristle brush. Finally, when forming the dough, we got the best appearance and presentation with a raised or beaded edge as opposed to a flat or nonraised edge.

One last note: I would like to thank my fellow PMQ columnist Jeff Zeak (Zeak’s Tweaks) for his assistance in the lab as we developed this data and Renee Boeckman for her assistance with the photography.

Tom Lehmann is the director of bakery assistance for the American Institute of Baking (AIB). Need more dough advice?

Visit the Dough Information Center at PMQ.com/dough.

March 2014

pmq.com 23

ACCOUNTING FOR YOUR MONEY MICHAEL J. RASMUSSEN, CPA

Calculating Your True Pie Costs

By maintaining up-to-date records on true costs for every menu item, operators can control their expenses and boost their profits.

By Michael J. Rasmussen

QUESTION: My food costs are out of control. What can I do to rein them in?

ANSWER: To get started, compile a list of all existing recipes—including exact portions for all ingredients—as well as any new recipes you’d like to add to the menu. Then create a separate list of all ingredients required for those recipes. Finally, assemble the most recent invoices from all of the vendors that supply you with those ingredients, so you’ll know exactly what you’re currently paying for each ingredient. Put all of this information together in an online database so that the owner, manager, supplier and other parties can access it 24 hours a day.

Once you’ve got this vital data at your fingertips, you can determine your actual pie costs and set your ideal pie costs. What is that meat lovers pie costing you now, and what do you want to pay for it? How much profit do you need to make from it?

This should be done for each item on your menu (not just your pizzas, of course). By knowing what you pay for each ingredient in every item and setting a target profit margin for each item, you can then work with your suppliers to reach those goals.

The next step: Schedule a meeting with supplier reps and ask them to develop purchasing solutions that will fit your plan.

(If possible, try to limit your total supplier base to no more than four.) The suppliers may have to suggest alternatives for some of the products you currently use, and product testing may be required. Remember, the end goal is to get the best price on each ingredient and increase your gross profit per pie while maintaining the customer experience and delivering a better product.

During this process, you should also require suppliers to send you the most current invoice data for all purchased ingredients on a daily basis. The data should be provided electronically so it can be automatically entered into your database and updated with every fluctuation in price. (You want to receive the data in electronic form so you won’t have to manually enter all of this information into the system.)

24 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

If this process sounds time-consuming, remember that all of the successful chains have these systems in place. Their executives have learned that such systems, when implemented effectively, generate a consistent product and a solid profit. Can you build a physically fit body without diet and exercise? Can you become a doctor, attorney or CPA without studying? Of course not. So how can you ever expect to generate a better profit if you won’t take the time to develop a cost-tracking system for your restaurant?

You can make the time to get this done! You are reading this article during March Madness and are hopefully selling huge numbers of pies. You should be able to tell yourself, “Well, there goes another meat lovers pie, from which I realize a gross profit of $8.29 with a selling price of $10.50!” If you can’t make such precise calculations, you need a better system. And, while you’re at it, you may find your pies aren’t being prepared according to specs, that many of your pizzas—especially the more expensive ones—are being overportioned with costly meats and cheeses, and that you’re losing money due to waste from careless preparation, with too much food ending up on the floors or in the trash.

You can’t afford not to make the time for these problems!

Have a question for Mike? Send it to editor@pmq.com.

Michael J. Rasmussen is the owner of Rasmussen Tax Group in Conway, Arkansas. Visit rasmussentaxgroup.com for additional insight into restaurant-specific tax strategies and technology programs.

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MARKETING MAVEN LINDA DUKE

How to Score With March Madness Follow these six easy steps to build a profitable promotion around this month’s NCAA basketball tournament.

By Linda Duke

I

t happens this time every year: an outbreak of March Madness, a highly contagious fever that spreads across the country, with NCAA basketball fans caught in its grip for two full weeks. There is no known cure, but many sufferers treat their symptoms with heavy doses of pizza.

Pizza restaurants respond with various special promotions throughout the tournament period, and one of the most popular is the March Madness Bracket Busters Challenge.

According to a 2011 study by the National Restaurant Association, 20% of American adults will likely watch a college basketball game at a restaurant or bar. Out of those surveyed, 34% said they would choose to watch the game at a restaurant that offers special deals. In other words, March Madness, the biggest college tournament of the year, can drive traffic to your restaurant, build sales and promote awareness of your brand.

National chains such as Pizza Hut (pizzahut.com), Domino’s (dominos.com), Little Caesars (littlecaesars.com) and Papa John’s (papajohns.com) have run headline-grabbing promotions around the tournament in recent years. Little Caesars leveraged the fun of last year’s tournament, for example, with its “Crazy Happens” promotion, which offered a free order of Crazy Bread to any customer if a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed in the first round (this has never actually happened). One nonpizza brand, Hooters, even issued “hooky” coupons on its website—each coupon resembled a doctor’s “excuse note” allowing the user to miss work in order to catch the game and purchase appetizer specials at the restaurant. During the two-day Sweet Sixteen round of competition, every Hooters customer who bought an order of 10 chicken wings received a second order for free.

March Madness 2014 runs from March 18 through April 7, so there isn’t a lot of time left to develop a plan. However, if you get started early in the month, you can still pull off one simple but fun promotion: the March Madness Bracket Busters Challenge. Here’s how to do it: Step 1: Spread the word. Announce the promotion with social media posts, table tents, fliers and e-blasts to your entire mailing list. Contact local radio stations, including sports talk stations, and offer a trade-out; in exchange for on-air mentions 26 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

of your promotion, provide the station with free gift certificates to give to their listeners who call in. Urge your servers to invite their friends and family members to participate and to talk up the promotion to customers during their shifts. Always make sure to stress that this is not a gambling promotion and that it’s fun for the entire family.

Step 2: Collect the forms. Prior to the tournament, distribute blank Bracket Busters forms to all customers who want to participate. You can make them available on your website or, even better, encourage customers to pick them up at the pizzeria and receive a special discount on their food while they’re there.

(Keep in mind that many sports fans today may expect you to offer an online bracket.) All forms must be submitted no later than Monday, March 17.

Step 3: Promote every game. Host a Tip-Off Party for the tournament’s opening night on Tuesday, March 18. Offer discounted specials on every game night to Bracket Busters participants.

If you have flat-screen TVs in your pizzeria, encourage customers to come and watch the games with you. Set up a whiteboard in the restaurant to list all of the brackets and the winners. Host special parties for the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four.

Encourage guests to wear their favorite teams’ jerseys or other gear, offer specials to groups that support certain teams and award prizes to the winners at the end of each night.

Step 4: Give away great prizes. As the tournament proceeds, post the results in your pizzeria and on your social media platforms and give away prizes to each bracket winner. Lower bracket winners should receive smaller prizes, such as a free pizza, while higher bracket winners—for the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight, for example—would qualify for a larger prize, such as a $50 gift card. Final Four and overall winners should receive something truly special, such as a $200 gift card to your pizzeria or special giveaways that could be obtained through a beverage vendor (think iPods or TV sets). Winners in the lower brackets should be allowed to collect their prizes at any time during the promotion but no later than the Final Four games.

This will drive traffic to your pizzeria throughout the March Madness period. And keep in mind that the more lucrative

the prizes, the more people will want to play Bracket Busters in your pizzeria.

Step 5: Host a Championship Game Party. Cap off this promotion with one last big bash in celebration of the championship game on April 7. After the game, reward the top prize to your winner and thank everyone for participating—and pat yourself on the back for developing a promotion that can keep growing every year!

Linda Duke is the CEO of Duke Marketing and author of Recipes for Restaurateurs (marketing-cookbook.com), a “cookbook” of marketing ideas for restaurant owners, as well as The LSM Diet: Improve Your Bottom Line, Not Your Waistline (lsmdiet.com), a self-help guide to local store marketing. She publishes a quarterly industry resource, Restaurant Marketing Magazine, and an educational program, LSM-U, Local Store Marketing University. Find out more at dukemarketing.com.

March 2014

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PMQ PIZZA MAGAZINE

PIZZA BRAIN

PIE HOLE PIZZA

DANG BROTHERS PIZZA

PMQ PIZZA MAGAZINE

PIE HOLE PIZZA

DANG BROTHERS PIZZA

PMQ PIZZA MAGAZINE

PIE HOLE PIZZA

PIZZA BRAIN

DANG BROTHERS PIZZA

PIE HOLE PIZZA

The Instagram

EFFECT

By Melanie Addington

For pizzeria operators who use Instagram correctly, a picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words.

M

ost of us have experienced it: A meal with friends at a restaurant suddenly turns into a photo shoot, as someone inevitably pulls out his smartphone and starts snapping pictures of the food before taking a single bite. Another quick swipe of his finger, and the photos pop up on his Instagram account for all of his friends to admire. It seems that more and more people these days can’t simply sit down and enjoy their food—first, they have to show it off and share it with the world.

Fortunately, this is a good thing for pizzeria operators.

Instagram, an online photo-sharing and social networking application, offers an unmatched opportunity to engage with customers—and promote your restaurant—through eye-catching visuals that tell your story in a way that words can never express. Even better, your customers often do much of the work for you by posting their own photos of their favorite pizzas from your restaurant and sharing them with their friends.

Launched in 2010 and recently acquired by Facebook, Instagram lets people instantly share their life experiences on various social media platforms—from their own Instagram accounts to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr—using photographs and short videos shot on smartphones and tablets. Instagram currently boasts more than 150 million users, and many mediasavvy restaurant operators have integrated the service into their online marketing strategies as well.

“Instagram is a great way to not only build a rapport with loyalists, but to create those loyalists to begin with,” says Boston-based digital marketing strategist Bradford Hines Pizzerias such as Pie Hole Pizza Joint, Pizza Brain and Dang Brothers Pizza use Instagram to showcase their pizzas, their customers and their staff, helping to build a stronger rapport with their social media audience.

from BradfordHines.com. “A medium like Instagram is great because it’s visual, free to implement, and widely used amongst the age 18-to-30 segment. The most overlooked aspect in marketing is storytelling, and Instagram is a powerful tool for that.”

Pizza Brain (mypizzabrain.com), a combination pizzeria and pizza museum in Philadelphia, started using Instagram in late 2012 and quickly built up a healthy, active account that features photos of anything and everything involving pizza.

“Instagram has been helpful in the same way any social media platform is helpful: It allows your ideas and viewpoints to reach people far outside your neighborhood, city and state,” says Pizza Brain co-owner Brian Dwyer. “It’s universal if you know how to use it.”

Dwyer says he has gotten positive response from customers to Pizza Brain’s Instagram posts. But the platform works best, he believes, when it’s used to build relationships with customers rather than merely to sell more pies. “The trick is not to use it as a business tool,” he warns. “Use it as a medium to create something meaningful to you. That’s the only real way you can provide genuine content for your followers. If you go into it trying to figure out how to improve your business, it’ll fall flat and be stagnant in most cases, and you won’t enjoy maintaining it, either, so nobody wins.”

Photo Ops Instagram users eagerly share images of their friends, kids, pets and, of course, their food. The last category (jokingly called “food porn” by some) can now be seen all over social media.

When Instagram users post photos of pies at their favorite pizzerias, it’s free publicity for the pizzeria’s owner—and that’s usually a good thing. Unfortunately, the food, no matter how delicious it may be, doesn’t always look so appetizing,

March 2014

pmq.com 29

PIZZA BRAIN

Philadelphia’s Pizza Brain uses Instagram to share fun, zany photos that show off the pizzeria/museum’s offbeat personality.

depending on the quality of the mobile device’s camera and the photographer’s skills. Although Instagram offers various filters and other photo editing tools, a bad photo is still a bad photo. Therefore, many restaurateurs now operate their own Instagram accounts, giving them more control over lighting, plating and color in the food images. Restaurateurs also use Instagram to post photos of happy customers, staff members and behind-the-scenes action.

Dang Brother Pizza (dangbrotherpizza.com), a mobile unit caterer in San Diego, began using Instagram in late 2013. Specializing in wood-fired pizzas, owner Kevin Spenla roams the city in his yellow 1974 American La France fire truck, which creates various locales and events for his photographs. “We post all kinds of different images, from the sites that we are operating in to the pizzas that we are creating,” Spenla says.

“Our followers get a direct update whenever we post a picture.

Facebook does not allow every post to be visible to your followers, so, in this way, Instagram has a more direct connection to followers.”

Spenla said he prefers Instagram to Facebook because it takes less time to update and users can quickly scroll through the most recent images posted on the accounts that they follow.

“Instagram develops a visual connection to your customers that reminds them of the great product that you have to offer,” Spenla says. “A quick photo of the pizza that you just created can bring on a craving for your pizza and get customers in the door. Instagram is good for a daily update and a visual reminder—one post a day, max, is all that’s needed.”

Doug Brandt, owner of Chicago-based Pie Hole Pizza Joint (pieholepizzajoint), launched an Instagram account in April 2012. “I remember debating joining Instagram at all,” Brandt admits. “I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to artsy things, and I agreed with a couple of blog comments that Instagram would make people think they were good photographers. The filters are great, but they can’t fix a bad picture—they can only filter a bad picture.”

Brandt took the plunge anyway and now posts all types of photos, showcasing his pizzas, employees and customers, along 30 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

with shots of the neighborhood and special announcements.

Pie Hole has established a strong online presence with Brandt’s focus on personal interaction (he makes sure to respond to followers’ questions and comments), and the result has been increased loyalty from fans and followers.

“I’ve noticed two strategies that seem to be successful: either a consistent run of images or completely random,” Brandt says.

“I’m too ADD to be anything other than random. As with all social media, the point is not to go for the obvious hard sell with every post. Instead, the goal is to personify the business, make it relatable to the public, and humanize online interaction. Pictures say a thousand words, so I want to paint a picture of what Pie Hole is about. I want everyone who goes through our Instagram feed—whether they are existing or, ideally, new customers—to understand what we are like, what we do, what we stand for, what makes us laugh, what makes us hungry, and where we are headed.”

Enhancing Engagement Sue B. Zimmerman believes so strongly in the power of Instagram that she created Insta-Results, an online course, and published an e-book, Instagram Basics for Your Business. She found her way onto Instagram after she saw her twin teenage daughters using it and thought it would be perfect for her own boutique clothing and jewelry company. Along with other social media, she makes Instagram a requirement for all of her employees while working at the store. “I have used it for more than a year to attract customers and have seen a 40% increase,” Zimmerman says. “I think anybody with a pulse who owns a business should be on Instagram.”

To call attention to your photos on Instagram, Zimmerman recommends using hashtags—words or phrases preceded by the hash or pound sign (#), used to identify messages on a specific topic—and making sure the visuals are the best they can be. Common hashtags for pizza restaurants include #pizza, #pizzaporn, #pizzatime, #pizzanight, #pizzaparty and #food.

Operators can even create a hashtag for their own restaurant, such as #vitospizza. Zimmerman also recommends using geotags on your posts so that your location can be mapped and potential customers can find their way to your pizzeria.

Walter Blake Knoblock, a social media consultant in Detroit, says an Instagram presence makes sense for any restaurant because every single one of the platform’s 150 million users have something in common: They all eat. “If you go through most people’s feeds, you’ll find that one of the most prevalent and common aspects are that people love taking pictures and sharing pictures of their current meal,” Knoblock notes. “This interest alone is enough to bring any restaurant/pizzeria into the Instagram realm, but, beyond that, since 95% of food advertising is visually based, a photo-sharing platform like Instagram is the perfect place to invest in showing people how delicious your product looks.”

Since Instagram doesn’t offer links to product pages, marketers can’t test return in a typical ecommerce sense, Knoblock

“Rather than incessant posting of menus and specials, operators should use Instagram to highlight the brand and business itself—i.e., photos of staff, how the food is made, etc. Show the culture of the brand visually.”

—Bradford Hines, BradfordHines.com

says, but they can test engagement through contests, calls to action and followers. “For example, if you ran a contest telling people to take a picture of their pizza and tag it #BlakesPizza and then picked a random winner every month, you could gauge how many people were actively sharing your pizza by the number of posts. From that, you could deduce what your potential exposure actually is,” he explains. “If you had 500 people, each with their own 500 followers, post a photo for your contest, that’s a potential unique audience of 250,000 people—not bad for a simple app on your iPhone.”

Words of Warning Instagram works because your customers are already using it and food photos are popular, says Philadelphia-based social media expert Alexandra Golaszewska from AlexandraGo.com, but it can be used incorrectly. Examples include posting bad photos, making negative comments to customers, posting too many images and quitting over a low1follower ShePage also 1 PMQ_March_2014_PizzaExpo_Layout 1/27/14 count.

11:15 AM

recommends against spamming other users’ threads with promotions from your pizzeria.

Hines agrees that some posts can do more harm than good for a pizzeria’s reputation. “The biggest ways to get in trouble are typically copyright infringement, offensive content, posts that invite ridicule, or, in the case of many restaurant fiascos to date, employees posting on Instagram—unbeknownst to the company—with damning photos,” he says. “Rather than incessant posting of menus and specials, operators should use Instagram to highlight the brand and business itself—i.e., photos of staff, how the food is made, etc. Show the culture of the brand visually.”

Additionally, using too many filters on food photos can make it seem as if you are hiding what your pizza really looks like, notes Vernon Ross, owner of Ross Public Relations in St. Louis. Instead, Ross recommends starting out by posting photos of the most attractive items on the menu in about 10 pictures over a one-week period. “This shows consistency and

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“A restaurant is a local business, so its Instagram feed will mostly appeal to those who are nearby and can actually visit. It’s better to have fewer loyal followers than a huge number who aren’t really paying attention.”

—Alexandra Golaszewska, AlexandraGo.com can help build an audience,” Ross adds. “Also, follow customers that have followed you on your social media pages and reach out to them on Instagram.”

Getting Started Ready to start your own Instagram account? Obviously, the first thing you need is an audience. Some customers may find and follow you on their own, but don’t count on it. Make sure to promote your Instagram page on your website, Facebook and any other social media platform that you’re currently using.

Use your Facebook account to promote contests and giveaways on Instagram, and vice versa.

Vin Ferrer, a social media strategist with Graphic D-Signs in Washington, New Jersey, also recommends promoting your Instagram account on fliers and in print promotions. “Come up with a unique hashtag for your establishment and have customers use it when they take pictures at your place or with your food,” Ferrer says. “You can measure your effectiveness by searching the keywords for that hashtag. But remember to

32 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Adding a hashtag to a post helps relate it to a wide range of popular topics and draw attention to it. Popular pizza hashtags include #pizza, #pizzanight and #pizzatime.

SUE Z

IM M E

RMAN

be patient. This isn’t going to blow up overnight, unless, of course, you publicize a giveaway such as, ‘Get a free pie when you Instagram our storefront!’”

When it comes to building an Instagram following, says Golaszewska, quality is more important than quantity. “A restaurant is a local business, so its Instagram feed will mostly appeal to those who are nearby and can actually visit,” she says.

“It’s better to have fewer loyal followers than a huge number who aren’t really paying attention.”

Melanie Addington is PMQ’s social media manager. Sign up for Instagram by downloading the Instagram app on your phone or tablet and follow PMQ at instagram.com/pmqpizzamagazine.

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FEATURE STORY JOHN ARENA

DANIEL PEREA

John Arena is training the next generation of pizza makers in a unique course at UNLV.

THE The BREAKFAST CLUB

By Rick Hynum

J

Metro Pizza’s John Arena has transformed a long-dormant daypart—breakfast—into a moneymaker with Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast.

ohn Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza (metropizza.com) in Las Vegas, could hurt you if he wanted to. With 42 years of training in Japanese martial arts, he could take you down with a swift karate chop to the neck or shatter your wrist with a pair of nunchakus. And if one of his pizzerias ever moved into your neighborhood, you’d better put up your dukes, because you’d be in for a real fight. Metro Pizza makes new fans—and positive headlines—everywhere it goes.

Luckily, Arena doesn’t want to hurt anybody. Soft-spoken and friendly, he ambles through his day-to-day affairs with Zen-like composure and a curious, open mind. But don’t mistake his easygoing nature for laziness—the man knows how to get things done. With his longtime business partner and cousin Sam Facchini, Arena operates five highly successful Metro Pizza locations in and around Las Vegas. He also teaches the country’s only accredited, college-level course on the pizza restaurant business at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and leads monthly pizza making classes at his restaurants. He’s even made pizzas for three U.S. presidents (Carter, George W. Bush and Obama), a fact that he doesn’t even bother to mention in interviews until the cameras and recorders have been turned off.

That’s enough to keep any pizzaiolo busy, but Arena has recently set his sights on a new—yet ancient and pleasingly familiar—line of work: the bakery business. Arena believes that pizza making and bread baking go together like, well, flour, water, salt and yeast. And as the public’s demand for artisan, handcrafted foods continues to rise, his latest concept, Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast (lulusonthemove.com), is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the trend. A full-service bakery and breakfast/lunch eatery, Lulu’s features a smorgasbord of hearth-baked goods, unique sandwiches and delectable desserts, blending old-world baking traditions with modern marketing savvy. Offering a menu hailed by Las Vegas Weekly as “a collection of bliss-inducing, homey dishes that dance along the spectrum of brunch,” Lulu’s is helping to usher in a new era of culinary artisanship—not to mention a potential new revenue stream for pizzeria operators looking to expand their businesses.

From New York to Vegas A Brooklyn, New York, native who worked in his father’s pizzeria as a child, Arena likes to make money as much as the next guy, but what he really likes to make is pizza. While most of us fondly recall our first kiss, he waxes nostalgic about his first

March 2014

pmq.com 37

“Pizza makers talk about having great dough recipes. Bakers talk about formulas. A formula implies precision—you follow the formula exactly in terms of cooking times, ingredients, temperature. There may be a little intuitive knowledge, but the formula is critical.”

—John Arena, Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast

DANIEL PEREA

John Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza and Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast, makes a Chicken Marsala pie in PMQ’s new test kitchen.

pizza sale. “When my dad and I made our first pizza together, he guided me through it and helped a lot,” he says. “Then we cut the pizza, put it in a box, and it went to a customer. The first pizza I ever made got sold. That was magic. Someone was willing to spend money on something I made with my own two hands.”

In the early 1980s, Arena and Facchini moved to Las Vegas and took over a restaurant called Original New York Pizza, then opened the first Metro Pizza in 1986. A second location followed in 1988, and a third in 2000. Despite their backgrounds, the partners aren’t snobs about the New York pizza style or any other style. “I think we’re popular because we honor the great traditions of pizza making,” Arena says. “We’re in a community where everybody comes from somewhere else, with their own ideas of what pizza is supposed to be based on their backgrounds. Rather than try to fight that, we’ve tried to embrace it and honor it.”

Thus, Metro Pizza’s eclectic menu spans a range of styles, with many of the pies inspired by the owners’ favorite pizzerias in other cities. A map in the restaurant lists landmark pizza shops across the United States, as well as those recommended by customers. “We want people to walk in here for the first time and feel like they’ve been coming here forever, because something here reminds them of the pizza place they knew before,” Arena says.

Monetizing a Dormant Daypart Something about freshly baked bread brings back happy memories, too. Not to mention that most pizzerias are already fully 38 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

equipped to add baked goods to their repertoire. Even better, selling breads, croissants and other baked goods creates a moneymaking opportunity during an otherwise dormant daypart.

“We looked at when and where we were making our money,” Arena recalls. “We pay rent or mortgage on our buildings 24 hours a day, but we had this entire daypart where we weren’t making any money—breakfast. From 6 until 11 in the morning, people were eating, but they weren’t eating with us.”

Unfortunately, breakfast pizzas haven’t exactly sold like hotcakes for other would-be innovators. “People don’t usually go to a pizzeria for breakfast—it’s just not in their mind-set,” he notes. “To successfully launch a breakfast daypart, we knew we had to have a bakery/café that would feel more familiar to people as a breakfast place. We were already buying dessert items and bread, so we thought we could make those ourselves as signature items.”

To test the concept, Arena and Facchini started with a food truck, called Lulu’s On the Move, in 2010, serving breads and pastries at high-profile events around the city and participating in cooking competitions. Before long, Lulu’s (named for Arena’s mother, Lucy) had been featured on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel and in Gourmet. Along the way, they sought customer feedback, fine-tuned their recipes and built a loyal following.

DANIEL PEREA

Arena poses with his longtime Metro Pizza business partner and cousin Sam Facchini, who serves as the National Restaurant Association’s Convention Chair for 2014.

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the Black Friday Morning, an open-faced roast turkey sandwich with crumbled sausage, Havarti cheese, two eggs and a side of cranberry jalapeno relish.

“The menu evolved from the feedback we’d gotten on the food truck,” Arena adds. “We had seen what worked and what didn’t work, talking to our customers face-to-face every day.

We had two-and-a-half years of that kind of feedback before we opened, which was invaluable.”

Following the Formula

PICTOGLYPHS

Freshly baked cookies are a popular item on the menu at Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast, a new bakery concept attached to Metro Pizza in Las Vegas.

Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast opened last spring in a building connected to Metro Pizza’s Sky Pointe Drive location. It has its own separate entrance, but the bakery and pizzeria share an interior doorway. “We did that on purpose,” Arena says.

“Lulu’s closes at 3 in the afternoon, so we can then use it for private parties and catering events for the pizzeria.”

Lulu’s has its own kitchen, equipment and staff. It seats 40 customers, but when larger crowds pour in on weekend mornings, the pizzeria can accommodate the overflow. Arena and Facchini bought in expert consultants to help develop the menu, which includes breads, croissants, pastries, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, wraps, frittatas and salads, along with coffee, espresso and small-batch sodas. The menu changes every week, but certain types of bread are perennial favorites, including country French bread; Italian styles such as Toscano and Sesame Semolina; baguettes; brioche; walnut raisin; seasonal breads, such as Cranberry Pumpkin Seed for Halloween and Thanksgiving; and pretzel bread. “Brioche is probably our most popular one because people use it for hamburger buns,” Arena says. “Pretzel bread is also very popular, although it’s a challenge to make because the process involves dipping the bread in lye, so it’s dangerous to the baker.”

The rotating menu features other crowd-pleasers as well, including apple and cherry turnovers; peach French toast with fresh raspberries; bagels with carrot cake cream cheese; Buffalo chicken chowder; a grilled brie-and-cranberry sandwich; and 40 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Arena emphasizes that any pizzeria with standard pizza making equipment can add a baking component. “Everything’s already there in your kitchen,” he says. “Just like with pizza, it’s mixers and ovens, plus flour, water, salt and yeast, and you’re a bread maker.” But there’s a caveat: Pizza making and bread baking are very different disciplines, he warns.

“Pizza makers talk about having great dough recipes,” he says. “Bakers talk about formulas. A formula implies precision—you follow the formula exactly in terms of cooking times, ingredients, temperature. I know pizza makers who don’t measure anything—they go completely by feel. Bakers can’t do that. There may be a little intuitive knowledge, but the formula is critical.”

Baking some items can be complicated, time-consuming and carried out in several stages. “You’ve got some starters that have been developing for years,” Arena adds. “You’ve got slow fermentation, shaping, multiple stages of mixing at different speeds for different lengths of time. Once you start mixing a particular batch, there could be an 18-hour process before it actually goes in the oven.”

In other words, errors in the kitchen can be expensive in terms of money and precious time. That’s why bread bakers at Lulu’s go strictly by the book—literally. Every formula has been recorded in recipe books, and employees are not permitted to rely on memory alone. “If you have 14 different breads on the menu and you think you’ll have all of those formulas committed to memory, you’re wrong,” he says. “When I walk

DICK WATERMAN

All the great pizza makers express themselves through their pies, John Arena says. “I haven’t given out a business card in 20 years. You want to know who I am? Eat a pizza that I made myself.”

The Pizza Professor John Arena’s course in pizzeria management at UNLV is the only one of its kind in the country.

By Melanie Addington If earning college credit to learn about pizza wasn’t a good enough idea, Las Vegas pizzaiolo John Arena takes it a step further by serving pies and appetizers in every class. He teaches the University of Nevada Las Vegas course, The Culture of Pizza, at his Metro Pizza restaurants, where students gather weekly to hear lectures by Arena and spend time with guest speakers. “The class grew from a series of guest lectures delivered to hospitality students at UNLV,” he says. “Over time, it has evolved and now covers not only history, but also culinary skills, pizzeria concept development and management. I felt there was a need to educate and contribute to an improved perception of our industry with young people entering the hospitality field.”

DANIEL PEREA

Making good pizza requires an artisan’s touch, John Arena notes.

“Because of pizza’s simplicity, it’s deceptively difficult to do pizza well, because there’s no place to hide,” he says.

through the kitchen and they’re making a batch of dough, I look for that recipe book to be out.”

The final product isn’t cheap to make; Arena knows he has to price accordingly, and he is unapologetic about it. “That’s the biggest mistake people in our industry make,” Arena adds.

“They’re looking at their competition and saying, ‘I have to charge what they charge.’ I’m not interested in what the guy down the street is charging. I have to base what I charge on my expenses, the type of facility I provide, the type of atmosphere, the ingredients I use. I’m using the most expensive ingredients available, so it stands to reason that I’ll be higher-priced than the guy who’s not using those ingredients. You can’t be for everybody. Our customer is someone who’s willing to pay a little more for a particular level of quality.”

A Home Away From Home Metro Pizza is well-known for a marketing calendar that’s packed with promotions, events and specials, and Arena and Facchini strive to build a sense of community at Lulu’s as well.

The bakery’s Facebook page, which already boasts 1,547 likes, features positive, uplifting messages about compassion and kindness, plus tantalizing photos and descriptions of new menu items that give customers a reason to get out of bed in

Each class must create a new pizzeria concept, covering everything from financing and construction to menu development and marketing. One class designed a Vegas-style venue with artisanal pizza, flair-minded bartenders, servers who could sing and dance, and dough spinning acrobats. At the semester’s end, the class presented its concept to Chris Decker, a local restaurateur; Kathy Jacobi, president of the Nevada Restaurant Association; and Brad Brennan, whose family owns several landmark restaurants in New Orleans.

“We want people to understand that pizza is a legitimate profession,” Arena says. “What better way to do that than to teach it in a university setting and approach it in a methodical way with real standards? The students leave the course with a newfound respect for pizza and for everything that goes into creating a successful pizza concept. And that’s what we need.

We need people who aren’t looking at pizza as the illegitimate stepchild of the restaurant business. When people realize running a pizzeria takes a lot of skill and knowledge, that will start to elevate our profession. That’s how we’ll get respect.”

the mornings. Monday Morning Quarterback specials promise 25% discounts on bread, pastries and breakfast items, and every day brings new goodies, such as Fluffernutter cookie sandwiches and chocolate cherry bread.

The Lulu’s team celebrated Father’s Day last summer with an Elvis Presley theme, whipping up peanut butter-stuffed banana-bread French toast and inviting customers to “treat your dad like a king.” In late January, Lulu’s even created Super Bowl cake pops, tasty pastry confections shaped like footballs and designed for game-day parties.

But Arena doesn’t just want to fill his guests’ bellies with epicurean delights—he wants to get to know them personally and build a large, extended family that thinks of Lulu’s as a home

March 2014

pmq.com 41

“Just as there has been an artisan pizza movement, a return to handcrafted pizza, there is a renewed interest in handcrafted bread as well. There is a more receptive audience for it. So this is the right time for it.” —John Arena, Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast

away from home. That’s why he offers regular baking classes for adults and children, sharing his expertise in making bread, cookies and pies. “It’s all about community involvement— bringing little kids in and teaching them how to make their own chocolate chip cookies and building those relationships with the parents. That’s the fun part,” Arena says.

Each class is limited to 12 people, allowing for plenty of one-on-one interaction. Participants acquire a new skill that they can pass on to their loved ones, fostering the time-honored tradition of baking for generations to come. “I learned these things as a child and took it for granted that everyone grew up like that,” Arena says. “It hadn’t dawned on me that there was a whole generation that didn’t learn them from their parents and grandparents. And they missed it. So they’re coming to us now to learn these things. It’s very gratifying to teach people to do these things that have almost become forgotten in our country.”

The Time Is Right Above all, Arena treasures the spiritual experience of baking bread and sharing it with others. “Bread and life are synonymous,” he muses. “Don’t we all talk about breaking bread together? Obviously, there’s a religious element, too—bread in some ways is sacred, even in a secular sense. And there’s also an emotional connection—the fragrance of bread coming out of an oven can bring you back to an earlier, happier time of your life. I think that resonates with people.”

If there was ever a good time to get into the baking business, it’s now, Arena says. “People are much more food-savvy, thanks to what they see on food-focused TV shows, magazines and websites. And despite all of the vast technology at our disposal,

DICK WATERMAN

Both pizza and bread are communal foods, Arena says, made for sharing, and his goal with Metro Pizza and Lulu’s Bread & Breakfast is to create a community hub that’s “not just nutritionally restorative but spiritually restorative as well.”

they still feel connected to foods that are made by hand and show the hand of the person that made them. They’re starting to realize that this stuff that’s full of unpronounceable chemicals and comes in plastic bags isn’t really bread. Even these mass-produced breads being sold as artisan breads in grocery stores aren’t really artisan breads. Just because it comes in a brown paper bag doesn’t make it artisan bread.”

And the customers who appreciate these classic bread making traditions will reach a little deeper into their wallets to buy what they want. “Just as there has been an artisan pizza movement, a return to handcrafted pizza, there’s a renewed interest in handcrafted bread as well,” Arena says. “There is a more receptive audience for it. So this is the right time for it.”

Arena is certainly doing his part to spur a full-blown artisan bread movement with his baking classes. And he says he won’t mind a bit if one of his protégés one day opens a competing store in his area. “Some of them are aspiring bread bakers and want to open their own bakery, and that’s OK with me,” he says, exuding his trademark calm. “I don’t think of people who do the same thing I do as competitors. I think of them as colleagues.”

Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor-in-chief.

PICTOGLYPHS

One Las Vegas food writer described Lulu’s baked offerings, such as the bread pudding, as “bliss-inducing.”

42 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

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RECIPE OF THE MONTH PISTACHIO AND SAUSAGE PIZZA

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Pistachio and Sausage Pizza

The Pistachio and Sausage Pizza is from Neapolitan pizza legend Roberto Caporuscio’s Don Antonio by Starita (donantoniopizza.com) in New York.

Ingredients: Four 9-oz. Neapolitan dough balls ½ c. extra-virgin olive oil (plus more to taste) 1½ c. shelled pistachios, lightly toasted ½ c. Parmesan, grated 10½ oz. fresh Italian sausage, casings removed ¼ c. red wine 1 lb. fresh mozzarella, cut into ½” strips 1 oz. grated Pecorino Romano 16-20 fresh basil leaves

Instructions: Purée the pistachios, Parmesan cheese, oil and salt in a food processor to make a smooth sauce; set aside. Heat 2 tbsp. additional olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Add the sausage and cook, stirring and breaking up the pieces with a wooden spoon until browned but not completely cooked through, about 4 minutes. Add the wine and cook, scraping the bottom of the skillet, until reduced, about 2 minutes. Set aside and let cool slightly.

44 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Spread about ½ c. pistachio sauce evenly over the center of the dough, and distribute ¼ each of the sausage mixture, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, and basil leaves; sprinkle with Pecorino Romano and drizzle with oil. In the true Neapolitan tradition, bake pizza for approximately 90 seconds in a woodburning oven. Makes four 12” pizzas.

The Artisan Movement

The 99-cent slice still has its place, but the soaring popularity of artisan pizza is transforming our industry. Relying on high-end ingredients and the deft handiwork of highly trained pizzaioli, the “better pizza” trend takes inspiration from the Naples traditions of old while borrowing heavily from modern American fusion cuisine. Check out these artisan pizzas from around the United States and join the movement!

Coals Artisan Pizza (coalsartisanpizza.com) in Louisville, Kentucky, makes waves with the Waverly, featuring prosciutto, fig jam, Asiago, mozzarella and Gorgonzola cheeses, balsamic reduction and shaved Parmesan.

Chef Roberto Paciullo’s Zero Otto Nove (roberto089.com) in Manhattan offers the La Cirilo, made with butternut squash purée, smoked mozzarella, spicy pancetta and basil.

Olio Pizzeria & Cafe (oliopizzeria.com) is one of Los Angeles’ most celebrated pizzerias, thanks to fare like the Mare Chiaro, topped with calamari, shrimp, clams, mozzarella, garlic and parsley.

Cured salmon takes the spotlight on the Salmon Gravlax pie at Kitchen Zinc (kitchenzinc.com) in New Haven, Connecticut. Topped with arugula salad, this white pizza comes with housemade gravlax, lemon crème fraîche, capers and red onions.

FROM THE TEST KITCHEN NEAPOLITAN PIZZA DOUGH

PMQ’s Brian Hernandez walks you through the steps of making authentic Neapolitan dough.

From the Test Kitchen:

Neapolitan Pizza Dough Follow this detailed step-by-step process to make authentic Neapolitan pizza dough.

P

MQ’s test kitchen is now open and ready for business. In addition to a recent visit from Las Vegas-based Metro Pizza’s John Arena (see page 36), PMQ’s resident pizzaiolo Brian Hernandez gets things started this month with a special instructional video on making and stretching authentic Neapolitan pizza dough. Watch the video at PizzaTV.com/neapolitandough, or follow the recipe and instructions below and try it for yourself!

Pizza Dough Ingredients: 2.2 lb. “00” flour 20 oz. water 1 oz. salt 1 g. fresh yeast

Making the dough:

Stretching the dough:

Melt yeast into 1/2 of the water and pour into the mixer. Add flour into the mixer and begin mixing on slowest speed. Add the salt to the remaining water, then pour into the mixer. Mix for 15 minutes on slowest speed. Place the dough on the counter, wrap it with plastic and let it stand for 40 minutes. Cut into dough balls and let rest for 4 hours. (This resting period is essential to retard the formation of gluten, resulting in the chewy, puffed texture that is the signature of Neapolitan pizza.)

Place into cooler for use the next day.

Working with one dough ball at a time, dust heavily with semolina. Using your fingertips, press dough from the center out into a 10” circle, about ¼” thick and leaving a 1” thick crust around the edges. Hold dough straight up, and, with fingertips circling crust, let dough naturally fall. Slide your fingers around crust in a circular motion as you would turn a steering wheel until dough in the center is stretched to about ⅛” thick; transfer to a semolina-dusted pizza peel.

46 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

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FEATURE STORY BACON

Bacon According to research firm Technomic, bacon is the most frequently menued pork product, offered by 100% of chain operators.

NATIONAL PORK BOARD

48 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Boom!

Aromatic and irresistibly delicious on pizza, bacon is the fastest-growing protein in the industry, so give your customers what they want.

By Liz Barrett

T

here’s no good reason to fight the bacon boom that started a few years back, so you may as well start taking advantage of it. Over the past 10 years, bacon has graduated from a humble breakfast staple to something of a cultural icon, making an appearance in every menu category—including drinks and desserts—and boasting millions of fans with dedicated websites, books, T-shirts, toys, memorabilia and more.

“I’m a big fan of bacon. I think it’s the duct tape of the foodservice industry and the ultimate savory ingredient,” says Jason Casassa, a chef in research and development for Paris-based Sodexo Worldwide. “I pair it with sweeter items to bring out its smoky flavor, such as a salad with Vidalia onion or strawberry dressing; chocolate; or a pizza topped with goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and caramelized onions. I tend to stay away from pairing bacon with cheddar or Gouda, since they’re already smoky on their own.”

March 2014

pmq.com 49

SODEXO WORLDWIDE

Jason Casassa, a chef with Paris-based Sodexo Worldwide, calls bacon “the duct tape of the foodservice industry and the ultimate savory ingredient.”

Here in the United States, pork belly is typically used to produce bacon, but it can be made from just about any part of a pig. “Irish bacon comes from the loin; cottage bacon from the shoulder; guanciale from the jowl and cheeks; and Canadian bacon from the loin,” Casassa says.

And the pig is one popular ungulate. According to Technomic’s 2013 Volumetric Assessment of Pork in Foodservice, pork has been the fastest-growing protein over the past two years, with 62% of pork consumers likely to order pizza topped with pork for dinner. Bacon use grew 2.4% between 2011 and

NATIONAL PORK BOARD

Bacon Pesto Mac & Cheese Photo and recipe provided by the National Pork Board and picky-palate.com

“I pair bacon with sweeter items to bring out its smoky flavor, such as a salad with Vidalia onion or strawberry dressing, or a pizza topped with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes and caramelized onions.”

—Jason Casassa, Sodexo Worldwide 2013, with Technomic data naming it the most frequently menued pork product, offered by 100% of chain operators.

Of course, bacon works on nonpizza menu items, too.

According to Technomic’s 2013 Center of the Plate Trend Report, 51% of consumers agree that most sandwiches would be better with bacon, and 79% are willing to pay more for sandwiches topped with the savory protein.

Bakin’ With Bacon When it comes to pizza and bacon, there’s certainly no shortage of bacon-topped pizzas out there. At Salvatore’s Tomato Pies (salvatorestomatopies.com) in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, the fig and bacon pizza has become one of the pizzeria’s best sellers, winning contests and being written about in local papers, says chef and owner Pat DePula. “We’re known for the pizza regionally, and it was recently voted best specialty pizza in Madison— and we’re not even in Madison.”

The artisanal pairing has proven to be a strong combination, DePula notes. “The fig and bacon pizza includes locally pro50 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Ingredients: 1½ lb. bacon, cut crosswise into ¼” strips 1 lb. elbow macaroni 8 tbsp. unsalted butter ½ c. flour 1 tsp. salt, plus more to taste ¼ tsp. pepper, plus more to taste 3 c. whole milk, or more as needed 1 c. mild Cheddar cheese, shredded 1 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded 8 oz. pesto Directions: Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp (15 to 18 minutes).

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Set aside. While the bacon is cooking, in a large saucepan or small stockpot, cook the pasta according to package directions.

Drain and set aside. Wipe out the saucepan or small stockpot and return it to medium heat. Add the butter. When the butter is melted, sprinkle in the flour, salt and pepper and cook, whisking, for 2 minutes.

Slowly add the milk, whisking. Continue cooking and whisking until the mixture thickens, about 3 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low and stir in the cheeses. Stir in the pasta and pesto. Set aside 1 c. of bacon and stir in the remaining bacon. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately, garnished with the reserved bacon. (If mixture gets too thick as it cools, stir in additional milk.).

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Because bacon is cured with salt and smoke, it adds those flavors to the food that it accompanies and enhances the flavor of anything that you pair with it.” -Jason Boniface, Red Door Wine Market

duced Romano cheese, whole-milk mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Neuske’s applewood-smoked bacon, wine-poached mission figs, and a red-wine balsamic reduction.”

Steve Hoog, co-owner of Pizza Junction (pizzajunctionhillsboro.com) in Hillsboro, Missouri, says his pizzeria, which opened in July 2013, is selling more bacon than almost anything else. “We average four bacon-only pizzas per day, and offer several other bacon-topped pizzas, including bacon with crab on Alfredo sauce, the All-American Bacon Cheeseburger Express and our Stockyard, which is beef, pepperoni and a lot of bacon,” Hoog says.

In addition to several more bacon-topped selections, Pizza Junction serves a breakfast pizza with gravy, egg, sausage, peppers, mushrooms, mozzarella, cheddar and bacon. Then there’s the garlic cheese bread with bacon—it started as an employee favorite but will be added to the next menu update, Hoog notes.

Hoog purchases precooked Hormel bacon and uses it for the pizzeria’s salad bar, as well as listing it as one of Pizza Junction’s 35 or so topping choices. “We use ⅜”-thick cut pieces of bacon, which makes for a great covering of bacon without putting too much on the pie,” he says. “Every once in a while someone complains that there’s not enough bacon, but six ounces of ⅜” pieces on a 14” pie is ridiculous as it is. A few people order double bacon.”

At Flying Pig Pizza Co. (flyingpigpizza.com) in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, the Baconator—topped with cheese, bacon, macaroni and cheese, more bacon and three more cheeses—ended up on the menu as the result of a Facebook contest, according to owner Roy Dodds. “The Baconator is here to stay; it’s too popular to take off the menu,” Dodds says.

Jason Boniface, head chef of the Red Door Wine Market (reddoorwinemarket.com) in Lakeland, Florida, and a selfprofessed bacon fan (with a tattoo to prove it), says that bacon pairs well with everything. “Because bacon is cured with salt and smoke, it adds those flavors to the food that it accompanies and enhances the flavor of anything that you pair with it,” he says. The restaurant, which offers weekly pizza specials, also features a popular egg and bacon salad with fried poached egg, house bacon and warm bacon dressing.

Healthy Choices There have always been health concerns when it comes to the fat and sodium content in bacon. Some reduced-sodium versions have 40% less sodium, but most experts agree that moderation is key to enjoying bacon without the increased health 52 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

NATIONAL PORK BOARD

Bacon Jam Photo and recipe provided by the National Pork Board

Ingredients: 1 lb. bacon, cut into 1”-thick pieces 1 onion, large, halved, thinly sliced 1 shallot, minced 5 cloves garlic, minced ¾ c. brewed coffee (darker roast recommended) ½ c. water ¹/³ c. cider vinegar ¹/³ c. maple syrup 2 tbsp. dark brown sugar, packed 1 tbsp. honey 1 tsp. allspice, ground 1 tsp. chili powder Directions: In a Dutch oven, over medium-high heat, add bacon and cook until crisp, about 20 minutes. Stir as needed. With a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate, leaving the rendered fat in the pot. Return the pot to medium heat. Add onion, shallot and garlic. Cook until the onion is softened, about 10 minutes. Stir as needed. Return the bacon to the pot.

Add coffee, water, vinegar, maple syrup, sugar, honey, allspice and chili powder. Mix well to combine. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 1 to 1½ hours, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until the mixture thickens and a rubber spatula or wooden spoon leaves a distinct trail when dragged across the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat and let the bacon mixture cool for 15 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the mixture to a food processor, leaving excess fat behind. Pulse the bacon mixture until finely chopped—about 5 pulses—or until the mixture has reached desired consistency. Transfer jam to jars and refrigerate. Bring jam to room temperature prior to serving.

NATIONAL PORK BOARD

Even though consumers demand healthier fare from restaurants, 44% of consumers admit to giving in to cravings for less healthy options while dining out.

risks. “Low-sodium bacon is a little healthier, but not by much; you might not be taking in the salt, but you are eating a lot more nitrates that they use to help cure the bacon, and I think nitrates are way worse for you than salt will ever be,” Boniface says. “Bacon is a fatty piece of meat, which is delicious, but you’re ingesting a lot of fat and cholesterol, which I would be more concerned about than the sodium.”

Some health-conscious consumers have made the switch to meat-free bacon alternatives, with Mintel reporting that one in three Americans now enjoy meatless alternatives on occasion, even though only 7% of consumers claim to be vegetarian. Meanwhile, turkey bacon has become more popular in recent years. While regular bacon’s incidence in breakfast dishes has continued to grow—up 19.1% between 2009 and 2012—turkey bacon has seen an even more dramatic increase, rising by 233.3% during the same time period. This jump may reflect a desire to eat something healthier rather than giving up bacon entirely.

On the flip side, Mintel experts also note that, while consumers continue to clamor for healthier options, research

Menu Makers Whether topping a pizza, crumbled in a salad, sandwiched between a pile of cold cuts, or integrated into a dessert, bacon will always offer that perfect combination of salt and smoke with the unique ability to make everything taste just a little bit better. You can catch the attention of patrons who go straight for the bacon with these sample menu items: • • • • • • • • •

Warm bacon dressing Nutella and bacon dessert pizza The classic BLT Pasta or potato salad with bacon Cheesy bacon and garlic bread Loaded baked potato soup with bacon Bacon added to any pizza or calzone Bacon-wrapped mozzarella sticks Breakfast pizza with bacon

shows that 44% of consumers admit to giving in to cravings while dining out.

In other words, even the most health-conscious diner probably can’t resist bacon in some form or another if you’ve got it on your menu. In fact, the only disadvantage to bacon is the mess required to prepare it. While most pizzerias offer bacon, many struggle with whether or not to cook it in-house. Some say the splatter, grease and burn potential are not worth the trouble, opting for precooked bacon from foodservice suppliers. Others argue that nothing compares to fresh bacon, preferring to cook it on parchment paper in the oven rather than on the cooktop.

“I’ve never used precooked bacon,” Casassa says. “When you cook something fresh, there’s a difference in taste and quality.

It doesn’t take long to cook bacon on-site and have it taste its best. You can put three or four sheets of bacon in the oven at a time. The oven is a controlled environment with no crackling or popping, and you can save the grease for other applications.”

Do-It-Yourself Bacon Some operators, such as Boniface, prefer to cure and smoke their own bacon, but it’s a labor of love. The bacon making process involves taking pork belly, cutting it to size, adding a wet or dry cure of your choosing, curing it for several days, rinsing off the seasoning, smoking the resulting bacon, and cutting it into slices for baking or frying.

“Wet curing involves immersing a large cut of pork (i.e., pork belly) into a saltwater solution in a cold environment for a few days,” Boniface says. “This keeps the pork supple and tender and less salty. Dry curing is when you cover your piece of pork with salt and other spices, helping to preserve the bacon for longer. You can dry-cure it in any environment, hot or cold.

Dry curing it also gives the meat a saltier, more flavorful taste.”

If you’re going to go to so much trouble to make your own bacon, take every opportunity to brag about it to your guests.

Promote it on all of your marketing materials and menus— bacon enthusiasts will seek out chefs who love bacon as much as they do.

Liz Barrett is PMQ’s editor-at-large.

54 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

March 2014

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FEATURE ARTICLE NIGHTCLUB & BAR SHOW

56 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Hitting the Jackpot Pizzeria operators looking to boost their beverage sales will get discounted admission to the 2014 Nightclub & Bar Show in Las Vegas.

M

ore than 37,000 restaurant, bar, beverage and nightclub operators will flock to Las Vegas for this year’s Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show, to be held March 24 to 26 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Featuring 600-plus exhibitors, this year’s Nightclub & Bar Show also invites pizza restaurant operators to join in the action—PMQ Pizza Magazine subscribers can show their Pizza Expo badge onsite at the Nightclub & Bar Show and receive an Expo Pass for $40, a savings of more than $100, and enjoy access to the full exhibit hall as well as other notable events.

Pizzeria operators can also register at ncbshow.com and use the code PMQPIZZA to get the discounted rate. They will receive admission to the exhibit hall on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 25 to 26, as well as the three keynote events and the Welcome Kickoff Party. Operators who want to enjoy the full Nightclub & Bar experience—including 70-plus educational seminars, nightly parties at top nightclubs, the “Shake It Up” Bartender Competition and the International Bikini Model Search—can choose between a number of attendee registration packages at ncbshow.com.

“The Nightclub & Bar Show works tirelessly each year to offer new and exciting topics of discussion, workshops and platforms for networking opportunities during our convention,” says Jon Taffer, president of Nightclub & Bar Media Group and host and executive producer of Spike TV’s Bar Rescue. “I look forward to being in the middle of the action once again this year with attendees and sponsors.”

With this year’s theme—“New Potential. New Profits. New Thinking.”—the event will focus on discovering innovative ways to increase profits while allowing attendees to meet face-to-face

This year’s Craft Brewers Pavilion showcases both popular and emerging brands, such as Black Diamond, Sierra Nevada and Breckenridge.

with leading suppliers and learn about new products, equipment and moneymaking strategies to boost profits and grow their restaurants.

Pizzeria operators will be especially interested in the Craft Brewers Pavilion, which showcases superior offerings in the segment. Exhibitors include Boston Beer Company, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Breckenridge Brewery, Black Diamond Brewing Company and more. Meanwhile, the Emerging Brands Pavilion highlights unique boutique and emerging brands, including Ubon’s Sauce, Thunder Vodka and Kirk & Sweeney Rum. The Expo Pass also earns operators admission to the show’s three keynote addresses. The opening day’s keynote speaker, Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact, will discuss wordof-mouth in a social world, engagement marketing and how you can use that engagement to drive social visibility. Taffer will serve as the closing day’s keynote speaker and will share strategies for eliciting the right emotional reactions from employees and customers. Exciting developments are in the works for the Tuesday keynote, NCB organizers say.

Expo Pass holders can also attend the event’s Welcome Kickoff Party at the Bud Light Hotel, located at the Hard Rock Paradise Beach Pool. For complete details about the 2014 Nightclub & Bar Show, visit ncbshow.com.

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FEATURE STORY LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Maximizing Loyalty

By Tracy Morin

Repeat business means bigger sales, so implement these five expert tips to create your own moneymaking customer loyalty program.

L

oyalty programs are ubiquitous as today’s restaurants strive to compete for every consumer dollar. But many pizzerias have plenty of room to grow when it comes to encouraging loyalty in their customers through well-planned and -executed rewards programs. “It’s crucial to focus on increasing loyalty,” says Kara Walsh, chief marketing officer at Rewards Network in Chicago. “It’s interesting how many restaurant owners say they want a loyalty

58 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

program but also say they don’t need to reward loyal customers because they ‘come here anyway,’ focusing instead on acquiring new customers. A sustainable program will recognize the value in rewarding both behaviors.”

If you don’t have a loyalty program or if your existing program just isn’t paying off, we’ve got the answers you’re looking for. Follow these five tips from industry experts to make your program a resounding success:

1. Offer worthwhile rewards.

When creating a loyalty program, decide first whom you want to target for membership—and then give them what they want.

For example, Chicago-based Lou Malnati’s (loumalnatis.com) endeavors to reward only its most loyal fans. Customers who sign up in-store or online must pay a $20 deposit (refunded as soon as the card is registered), which helps weed out casual customers. “We truly want our program to reward loyal customers, to do special things for them and single them out, so this deters just anyone from signing up,” says Meggie Lindberg, marketing manager for the 36-location Lou Malnati’s. “We find our loyal customers don’t mind making the commitment.”

Once customers have signed up, Lou Malnati’s makes sure they don’t regret it. Members receive a point for every dollar spent and earn a $20 reward when they reach 250 points.

Points can be earned every day of the week but redeemed only Monday through Thursday. The best rewards, though, come in the form of special-event invitations—think wine tastings, beer-and-food pairings and even a shot at getting on national TV. “When Lou Malnati’s was featured on a Bobby Flay show on the Food Network, we needed customers to be in the store, so we invited our loyalty members, which made them feel special and included,” Lindberg recalls. “Afterward, we sent each member a copy of the DVD. Loyalty is about more than just earning points; it’s about making guests feel appreciated.”

At Minneapolis-based Solos Pizza Cafe (solospizza.com), the goal is to offer rewards that will get customers back in the pizzeria as quickly as possible. Customers joining Solos’ P.E.P. Club (an acronym for “People Enjoying Pizza”) receive 20 points just for signing up. Because the system awards a point for every dollar spent and 25 points earns a $2.50 certificate, when a customer signs up in-store and purchases lunch or

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Members of Lou Malnati’s loyalty program receive a point for every dollar spent and a $20 reward when they reach 250 points.

dinner, he has already won his first reward for use on a future order. “We want to create a habit and make that customer come back quickly, so we generate an automatic email of welcome and tell the customer he has earned his first reward,” explains Brian Banick, president of Solos, which has three locations and more than 29,000 P.E.P. members. Solos also allows its loyalty members access to special deals, like “kids eat free” months or double points on slower weekdays. Plus, club members receive information on new menu items before they’re released to the general public, making them feel like insiders. Banick is currently working on a way to reward the top 10% of customers with extra-special rewards.

2. Make signup (and usage) a snap.

In today’s busy world, few customers are going to take the time to wade through an overly complicated process when registering for a loyalty program. “Ease of signup is very important, and you can take advantage of technology that makes it easier for the customer,” says Shep Hyken, who goes by the title of “chief amazement officer” at Shepard Presentations in St. Louis. “For example, having a card requires that the customer carry it around, but apps can store everything for the customer on the go. The best programs are simply tied to a phone number so that a customer doesn’t have to remember to bring anything.”

Walsh agrees that it’s crucial to create a seamless reward earning process and minimize inconvenience. Plus, she adds, automatic rewards—without cards to show, vouchers to print or coupons to clip—cut down on staff training and system updates while appealing to your customers’ needs.

Solos makes signup a breeze by offering a variety of ways to enroll both in-store and online. A customer can fill out his phone number and email address on a form or tell the cashier at checkout. Additionally, table tents display a QR code the

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UNCLE MADDIO’S PIZZA JOINT

Uncle Maddio’s loyal customers can track their rewards online and through Facebook and redeem them at any location.

customer can scan with a mobile device, taking him to online signup. Then, after enrollment, the customer simply provides his phone number when paying for his meal. “Cashiers are trained to ask, ‘Are you a P.E.P. Club member?’ and ‘You’ve earned a reward! Would you like to use it now?’” says Banick.

“Meanwhile, customers have become trained to give us their phone numbers, and there are several pieces throughout the store—on our menu boards, at our make line—that tell or remind them about the program before they get to the register.”

At its 18 locations, Atlanta-based Uncle Maddio’s Pizza Joint (unclemaddios.com) integrates a customized loyalty program with its POS system, and a customer-facing screen at checkout prompts the guest to enter his phone number to track visits. Meanwhile, rewards earned are automatically tied

60 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

to the account so that they’re seen by staff in-store, thus eliminating the need for patrons to print out coupons or remember codes. Customers can track their rewards online and through Facebook. “The most successful aspect for us has been ease of use. There’s nothing for the customer to keep up with, and he can gain and redeem rewards at any location,” says Cindy Wahl, the self-described “marketing chick” at Uncle Maddio’s.

“That way, there are no negative experiences with guests. Tying it all in with our POS is a key component.”

3. Tailor your rewards.

At Solos, new P.E.P. members receive an email to complete their profile, filling in information such as physical address; birthday (when loyalty customers earn a free pizza); income

“Seventy-three percent of smartphone users are interested in interacting with loyalty programs through their mobile devices, and 91% of users are likely to download a loyalty application.”

—Phil Westrick, Innov8 Marketing Experts recommend reaching out to your customers through the channels that they prefer, such as mobile-optimized websites and mobile apps that offer quick, easy access and eliminate the need to carry a card or coupons.

range; number of children in the household; and whether the customer usually visits at lunch or dinner, prefers dine-in or takeout, or most often dines alone, with a guest or with family.

“We want to understand what type of customer is attracted to Solos and tailor messages to those customers,” Banick notes.

“The key is not to be intrusive but take a strategic approach to marketing. With so much competition, if we can target our messages, it’s a better deal—for us and the customer.”

Uncle Maddio’s uses a back-end dashboard to view customers’ spending habits and to set up mobile and email campaigns that target them. For example, if the customer hasn’t visited for a while, an automatic email is sent with a free dessert offer. “If we know that a customer’s pattern is to come in every 10 days and that customer deviates, we’ll send an email that says, ‘Are you on vacation? Did we do something wrong?’” says Wahl.

Walsh recommends talking to customers in a personalized way through the channels that are most convenient and relevant to them. “This means personalized and geo-targeted emails, user-friendly websites, mobile-optimized and tabletoptimized websites, and mobile apps that offer easy, immediate access,” she says. She also recommends engaging with customers, initiating a dialogue with them and being open and receptive to what they say—then using that information to improve upon the customer experience. “Restaurants can continue conversations after customers have left the restaurant, form relationships with them and create loyalty,” Walsh notes.

It’s also possible to work with a rewards company that allows you to offer more than just free food, such as gift cards for popular merchants or airline miles. “A successful loyalty program has to be focused on the customer—on their needs and wants, on their time, on their terms, and based on their behaviors,” Walsh adds. “This means providing customers with their preferred rewards currency based on their personal goals—a vacation, a new TV, a charitable cause or simply a percentage back in their pocket. One size does not fit all.”

step further with social media integration: When a customer enters his information in-store, a message will post on Facebook announcing that he just checked in at Uncle Maddio’s, which puts the business in front of that customer’s friends in an instant. “Even liking us on Facebook gets the customer points, and we offer referral points for sharing our company with friends,” Wahl says.

Walsh believes that social media should be a part of any successful loyalty program, boosting exposure and incentivizing members to participate and engage with your pizzeria and share feedback. “It’s not only about getting great data from your loyal customers, but making that data actionable,” she says. “And keep in mind that people on different devices are

4. Integrate social media.

Why not target customers where they already spend so much time—on social media sites? Solos customers can sign up for the P.E.P. Club on Facebook. Uncle Maddio’s also allows registration through its corporate Facebook page, but it goes a

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“Our most successful clients use a structure that combines instant rewards and milestones. For example, if you spend $10, you get an immediate $1 off your order.

Pair this with a milestone reward of a free pizza after 10 visits, and customers are engaged and motivated to come back.” —Michael Reinecker, PDQ POS

going to be looking for different things.” For example, those on desktop computers may be at work and looking for a lunch spot; those on tablets may be at home planning for a future dining experience; and those on smartphones are likely on the go and seeking a place to eat right now (or are sharing their experience online). “Make sure the user experience is geared toward what device they’re on, ensuring your mobile site and apps work really hard for your business,” Walsh advises.

5. Give back to the community.

Customers are increasingly interested in using rewards for charitable or community contributions, so make this option available to them. In the competitive restaurant industry, this helps

set you apart from the pack. Hyken recounts a story in which a local hardware store found itself competing with a brand-new Home Depot. Instead of spending more on advertising, the owner allocated 95% of his advertising budget to giving back to the local community, and his business flourished. “Having a loyalty program in which customers can choose to give their earned rewards to their choice of charities—you can offer them five to 10 choices—is a cool way of bonding with the customer and the community,” Hyken says. “It’s the law of reciprocity— when you’re loyal to your customers, they’ll be loyal to you.”

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s senior copy editor.

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FEATURE STORY DIRECT MAIL MARKETING

The

Direct Mail Solution

Integrate direct mail with Web-based strategies to expand your marketing reach and boost traffic to your pizzeria.

By Tom Feltenstein

D

irect mail is a highly flexible tool in any pizza restaurant’s marketing arsenal. Tangible and eyecatching, a well-designed direct mail piece promotes brand awareness and boosts your pizzeria’s credibility with your customers. Although email marketing may be less expensive, many marketing professionals still prefer to include direct mail in their marketing campaigns, saturating selected neighborhoods in specified ZIP codes with pieces ranging from simple coupons and special offers to full-color brochures, fliers and postcards.

A great deal of thought and planning needs to go into any direct mail marketing campaign. Let’s look at the three key components of a successful direct mail program:

64 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

1. Making an offer they won’t refuse. The first step in creating a successful direct mail campaign is to define the offer itself. It must be clear and compelling yet affordable. The goal is to incentivize a new customer to visit your pizzeria, and the more aggressive the offer is, the better it will work. Forget free drinks or measly 10% discounts—instead, focus on the “center of the plate,” such as a free pizza, a “buy one, get one free” offer or even a complete free meal.

2. Timing is everything. Your offer should be timed to drive business into the restaurant when customers are most likely to respond. Typically, that will be during your

Every printed promotional offer should have an expiration date to provide a sense of urgency, place a time limit on customers’ ability to redeem the offer, and prevent confusion and confrontation in your pizzeria.

RUSSO’S NE W

peak season, but that’s not always helpful, of course. If business is already brisk during peak season, additional incentives may be unnecessary and even inadvisable— your pizzeria may not be able to handle the added traffic, and the customer could end up having a bad experience. A second choice would be to promote your pizzeria as you’re heading into the “shoulder season”—that is, just prior to the peak season. (In our experience, attempting to extend the peak season rarely delivers an acceptable ROI.)

YO RK PIZ ZER IA

3. Defining your trade area. The trade area for most pizzerias should be a radius of about four miles from your location. For “destination” restaurants, a larger mailing radius may work, but most of the traffic With direct mail, it’s important to make recipients an offer they won’t want to refuse, with a will come from nearby neighborfocus on the center of the plate. The more aggressive the offer is, the better it will work. hoods. If you choose to test a wider mailing radius, it’s critical to map U.S. Postal Service is an excellent source of demographic inthe responses and verify that the outlying targets are, in fact, responding and that this formation; its Every Door Direct Mail program allows you to acquire demographic data, map out specific target areas and broader approach is cost-effective. choose mailing dates, all from your computer. Additionally, Saturation vs. Demographic Selection many private direct-mail companies offer demographic and Getting your direct mail piece into the right customers’ hands market information services. is a big challenge, and it will require research and careful planning. There are two ways to set up a successful mailing list: The Online Activation Strategy Getting a direct mail piece in the hands of potential customers saturation mailing and demographic selection.

With saturation mailing, you’ll mail out the same offer to is one thing. Getting them to actually use it is another matter every residence within a defined geographic mailing radius. entirely. The piece can simply convey a special offer without a That approach will cover all income levels and all types of hous- coupon, activation device or expiration date. However, I don’t ing. If the neighborhoods surrounding your restaurant reflect recommend this type of offer. There would be no way to track the demographics that you want to reach, this can be a very the redemption rate if you can’t determine whether or not cuscost-effective way to mail. Otherwise, you’ll want to consider tomers came to the restaurant because of the card. In fact, any printed promotional offer should have an expiration date to demographic selection as an alternative.

Demographic selection allows you to further refine your provide a sense of urgency, place a time limit on customers’ mailing list. You can establish selection parameters based on ability to redeem the offer, and prevent confusion and conhousing type, household income, presence of children and frontation in your pizzeria.

The most effective way to activate a targeted offer is with an other demographic factors. This approach allows you to rule out those areas of the city whose residents don’t fit your cus- attached coupon or a “Bring in This Card” requirement. This tomer profile and will improve your ROI significantly. The approach provides you with a method of tracking activation

March 2014

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“

When one direct mail recipient redeems your offer online, he can help you reach literally hundreds of additional prospects simply by “liking” your pizzeria on Facebook.

A birthday card mailer should congratulate the customer on his birthday and offer a special birthday pizza or meal “on the house” anytime during his birthday month.

and reduces the opportunity for customers to fraudulently copy or share the offer with others.

But there’s another approach that integrates direct mail and Web-based marketing for added benefits and exposure. In this case, the direct mail postcard offer should drive customers to go online to a special website created just for the promotion or to a designated section of your pizzeria’s existing website. Here, the customer can download the coupon using any Web-enabled computer or smartphone. First, though, the user should be asked to provide his name, address and cell phone number. Then, he can print out the coupon and take it to your pizzeria to redeem the offer. (In addition, he won’t be able to go back and claim a second coupon— once he has entered his data, he will be locked out of the coupon page.)

Data capture isn’t the only benefit of an online marketing strategy. During the process, the customer can also be asked to “like” your pizzeria on Facebook; the “like” will immediately be posted on his Facebook page and shared with his friends, thus greatly increasing your exposure. In turn, these other Facebook users can “like” your pizzeria, and the process continues.

Hence, when one direct mail recipient redeems your offer online, he can help you reach literally hundreds of additional prospects!

With online activation, customers also can be asked to opt in to receive future communications from your pizzeria. However, operators should always have a qualified attorney approve this opt-in language to prevent future legal actions related to privacy issues.

Finally, I recommend that all coupons be marked with a specific activation code that can be used at your pizzeria’s point-of-purchase to activate the discount offer and help track activations in your POS system. This will allow you to track the success of the promotion, determine how many coupons were activated and from what areas, how soon they were activated after the mail drop, and what additional purchases were made along with the promotional offer.

Special Offers Promotional mailings can be used to advertise a new menu roll-out, weekly specials, or new pizzas or appetizers that you’ve added to your existing menu. Meanwhile, there are several different types of specialty pieces to consider for your direct mail marketing strategy.

These include: 66 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

•

•

Birthday mailings. A birthday piece should be personalized for the recipient. The card should congratulate the customer on his birthday and offer a special birthday pizza or meal “on the house” anytime during his birthday month. Typically, the card—preferably a 6”-by-11” laser-printed piece—must be presented at your pizzeria to be redeemed, but, as previously mentioned, the card’s message can also encourage the recipient to print out a coupon from your website, thus allowing for online data capture, opt-in and coupon printing. Due to the special nature of a birthday card and the accompanying offer, redemption rates are usually very high. Since this is a monthly program and the number of customer birthdays may vary from month to month, quantities will vary, but a monthly average can be determined for budgeting purposes.

New resident mailings. A new resident mailing targets every new resident in your pizzeria’s defined trade area, preferably within a few weeks of the recipient’s move-in date. This laser-printed, customized 6”-by11” card should be personalized for the recipient and include a map of your restaurant’s location. Ideally, it should offer a free meal to the new resident with a short window of redemption to create urgency. Activation can be achieved by bringing the card to your

pizzeria or, again, the recipient can first be directed to your website for data capture, opt-in, Facebook promotion and coupon printing. As with birthday mailings, the actual number of new residents will vary each month, but estimates can be used for budgeting purposes.

Business-to-business mailings. This piece targets all of the businesses within a defined radius of your pizzeria’s location. You can restrict the recipient list according to the size and nature of the business to make sure it doesn’t land in a competitor’s mailbox.

You can mail to the entire list each month or break the list down into smaller portions for monthly mailings. This card, too, would be personalized and should feature multiple detachable coupons that can be used by several employees.

Direct mail is a time-tested strategy for increasing traffic and reinforcing brand awareness. Some operators may feel tempted to abandon the snail-mail approach these days and focus strictly on Web-based marketing, but it’s smarter to integrate both direct mail and Web marketing to expand your reach and increase your odds for success!

•

Tom Feltenstein is a restaurant marketing consultant and the CEO/Founder of Tom Feltenstein’s Power Marketing Academy.

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FEATURE STORY MENU ENGINEERING

MONEY Y MAKING MENUS Expert Gregg Rapp explains how to transform your menu into a power tool for sales, using food cost analyses, smart design techniques and vivid descriptions.

By Rick Hynum

68 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

our menu is much more than just a price list for your pizzas. According to restaurant consultant Gregg Rapp from Palm Springs, California-based Menu Technologies, it’s the ultimate power tool for sales, and a few simple tweaks can boost its profit making potential by 15% or more. The process is called menu engineering—the study of menu design based on the profitability and popularity of individual items and their placement on the menu—and it’s rooted in decades of research that began at Michigan State University in the early 1980s. Best of all, it can work for any restaurant, regardless of size or type, Rapp says. “Menu engineering takes time, but once you’ve done it, you feel like you’re on top of the mountain looking down,” he says.

Rapp counts many top chains as his clients, including California Pizza Kitchen (cpk.com), Chili’s, Applebee’s, Taco Bell and Subway. He says restaurant operators can increase their profits by making subtle but important changes on their menus, using a blend of basic psychology and insights into how the human eye naturally scans a page. And he must be doing something right—he has been featured on NBC’s Today show and hailed as “The Menu Magician” in Time magazine.

“Your menu is your most powerful tool,” Rapp says. “It needs to be strategically worded and designed in order to achieve your

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4 goals. With menu engineering, you come to understand each item’s profitability, its popularity and how it relates to the other items on the menu. By tracking each item’s profitability and popularity, we know the item’s profile and where it belongs on the menu.”

Counting the Costs Menu engineering begins with a comprehensive survey of food costs, breaking down every item to its individual ingredients and knowing exactly how much it costs to create each item.

If you don’t know how much your bacon cheeseburger pizza actually costs you to make, Rapp says, you can’t know how to price it for maximum profitability, and you can’t know where to position it on your menu. “Too many operators don’t take the time to figure out the costs on each menu item, so this is my biggest battle,” Rapp says. “I can and will help them with that, but I’d rather they do it themselves. I know there are 1,553 pickle chips in a five-gallon drum. How do I know that? Because I counted the pickle chips in a five-gallon drum once, and I’ll never forget that. If you do your own costing as a restaurant operator, you’ll remember those things. You’ll remember that each olive costs you, say, 11 cents, so when you see your servers eating olives while they’re waiting at the bar for

6

Menu Layout: How the eye travels By understanding how the human eye scans a menu, you can place your most profitable items in the areas where they are most likely to be seen.

a customer’s drink, you can actually count how much money they’re eating.”

Zeroing in on the smallest details of food costing will yield big dividends, Rapp believes. “Once operators get this and understand it, they love it,” he notes. “Now they know all of the answers to all of the questions—the numbers are right there in front of you. When you don’t do your costing, you’re just shooting in the dark. You’re just guessing.”

Setting prices, meanwhile, requires some finesse and insight into what makes your restaurant tick. It pays to know your clientele and why they eat at your restaurant. Are they largely price-conscious or trendy types? Are they looking for locally grown ingredients and willing to pay more for them? “Pricing your items is an art, not a science,” Rapp says. “It’s all about the most you can get for this pizza. What does your competitor charge? Why are your pizzas different and better than your competitors’? That’s how you come up with the price.”

Breaking It Down Rapp recommends dividing your menu into categories and breaking categories down into sections. For example, categories for a pizzeria may be pizzas, appetizers, sandwiches, drinks and desserts. In turn, the pizza category could be split into sections

March 2014

pmq.com 69

OLD BAY FRIES topped with the popular French-fry flavors intensify when Old Bay Seasoning. 2.99

E DAY WRAPS SOUP OF TH SALADS

CHOICE OF GREENS: & Romaine) Spring Mix or House (Iceberg CHOICE OF DRESSINGS: Ranch, House Vinaigrette, Creamy Italian, Italian, Thousand Island, French, Light or Honey Blue Cheese, Raspberry Vinaigrette 50¢ DRESSING EXTRA Mustard.

GARDEN red onion Mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, and roasted red pepper. 6.79 Small 3.49 GRILLED CHICKEN Garden salad.

Chicken breast served over our 8.99 CAESAR greater Fresh Romaine greens tossed with dressing.

Parmesan cheese & flavorful Caesar 7.59

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Provolone cheese on top of our 8.99

TUNA of our Garden Our creamy tuna salad on top salad. 8.99 GREEK over Garden Feta, Kalamata olives (with pits) salad. 8.99 HOT ’N SPICY CHICKEN in Buffalo Breaded chicken tenderloins coated 8.99 salad. hot sauce on top of our Garden CHICKEN CAPRESE & tomatoes Grilled chicken, fresh Mozzarella 8.99 served on a bed of Romaine lettuce.

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Blue cheese & our spicy Buffalo GRILLED CHICKEN CAESAR lettuce with Grilled chicken on fresh Romaine dressing. imported Romano cheese & Caesar

TUNA Our creamy Tuna salad on top of our Garden salad.

SOUTHWEST CHICKEN onion, Grilled spiced chicken with red black tomatoes, cheese, corn kernels, Tortilla beans, Romaine lettuce, crispy chips & Ranch dressing.

ROAST BEEF Served with Provolone, lettuce, tomatoes & roasted peppers.

TURKEY Served with Provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, roasted peppers & Honey Mustard.

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ROAST BEEF SHELLS STUFFED Pesto, roasted red peppers, tomatoes & cheese, Pasta shells stuffed with Ricotta Provolone cheese. delicious topped with melted cheese & a tomato sauce. 10.99 PORTOBELLO Roasted red peppers, tomatoes, Goat cheese PARMESAN VEAL drizzled with Balsamic vinaigrette. tomato Breaded veal cutlet topped with cheese. sauce & Mozzarella TURKEY over Spaghetti. 13.99 Honey mustard, Served roasted red peppers, tomatoes & Provolone cheese.

ITALIAN Olive oil, Capicola, ham, Genoa salami, roasted red peppers, tomatoes & Provolone cheese.CHICKEN PARMESAN topped Breaded boneless chicken breast with tomato sauce & melted cheese.

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such as chicken, pork, beef and vegetarian. Each section should include about five menu items with strong descriptions. “I teach operators to put no more than seven items in a single section,” Rapp says. “Five is optimal; seven is maximum.”

It’s also a good idea to offer special menu sections designed and priced for certain demographic groups—this strategy allows you to attract a wide range of customers with varying preferences. “If you have separate sections for specific audiences, it’s like a handshake to those groups that says, ‘Come on in.’ A vegetarian section is a handshake to our vegetarian friends, and they appreciate it. A seniors menu, a kids menu, a tour bus menu, a team menu—each is a handshake that says, ‘We want your business.’”

To fine-tune their offerings before finalizing the menu, Rapp encourages his clients to place each menu item into one of four quadrants: qq Stars—High profitability and high popularity. Your menu should highlight the Stars, of course, to maximize sales and boost your profit margin. qq Plow Horses—Low profitability and high popularity. These items pull in customers and are price-sensitive, Rapp explains, “so you don’t want to mess with them. But you may want to figure out ways to add another item to increase your profits by a few cents. If your soup and salad is a Plow Horse at $4.95, can you build a three-salad sampler at $5.95 and get these guests to take a step up?” qq Puzzles—High profitability and low popularity. Encourage servers to promote these items to guests and follow up for their reactions. Are the items unpopular because they’re just not very good? Are they too expensive? Or are they simply going unnoticed? qq Dogs—Low profitability and low popularity. Either ditch these items or, if you want to keep some of them, don’t feature them prominently on the menu. Tweaking the recipes could help, too.

70 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

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Perfect Positioning Every menu has a “sweet spot”—a section to which the human eye is naturally drawn as it scans across the page. Rapp identifies the upper right-hand area of a page as the sweet spot, and operators should think carefully about which item they want to feature there. Obviously, it should be one of your “Star” items, but that’s not the only consideration. “There may be four people ordering a large pizza, so you have to take the profitability of the pizza and divide it by four,” Rapp says. “But if each person ordered a lasagna, you could make twice as much profit as you’d make on the pizza. So do you want to put your pizza section or pasta section in that spot? This is something the operator needs to figure out.”

If you put a pizza in the sweet spot, make it a specialty pie with a high profit margin, Rapp adds. According to studies, the more time a group of customers spends deliberating on what to order, the less likely they are to purchase add-ons that could boost your bottom line. “Think about a build-your-own pizza versus a specialty pizza,” Rapp says. “If the customers spend a lot of time discussing the toppings they want, they won’t order those add-ons, such as salads, breadsticks and desserts.”

Additional Tips In addition to knowing each item’s profitability, the operator needs to understand—and be ready to explain—what makes each item unique and better than anything a competitor can offer. Every item should have a back story, even if it’s not detailed on the menu itself. “Why do you have this item on your menu?” Rapp says. “Why did it make the menu when a hundred other items didn’t? Where did your inspiration for it come from? Was it your grandmother’s recipe?” Share the back story with your servers so they can pass it on to customers. “When the servers know the back story, they have more confidence.

And I think a server that has more confidence will feel more comfortable helping the customers find the items they will like, thus bringing the customer back. It’s not always about

See you at the International Pizza Expo Booth 1313

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upselling—our main objective is to bring every customer back again and again.”

But Rapp is just getting warmed up. There are many other factors to consider, including: qq The name game. Don’t use a name that requires the guest to read the description. “Joe’s Favorite Chicken Parmesan” reveals what your customer needs to know about the dish whereas the more generic “Joe’s Favorite” says almost nothing. Also, if you’ve got a great item that customers haven’t discovered yet, give it a new, better name to call attention to it. qq Careful wording. Mouthwatering descriptions will drive sales, but most chefs aren’t copywriters. “If you sit your chef down at a keyboard and ask him to write a description, he’ll draw a blank,” Rapp says. “Instead, have him talk about the item into a tape recorder and then go back and edit it, adding words that illustrate how your item is better than similar items on the market.” Use vivid adjectives to describe flavor or texture, such as “savory,” “crispy,” “creamy,” “crunchy,” “buttery” and “zesty,” along with words that explain the cooking method, including “handcrafted,” “housemade,” “grilled” or “smoked.” But keep the descriptions short and simple; don’t make your guests work too hard to understand them, and avoid excessively florid language. qq Dollars and cents. Using dollar signs on menu prices merely reminds the customer that he’s shelling out his hardearned cash at your pizzeria. “I’ve been taking dollar signs

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72 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

off menus for 32 years now,” Rapp says. “Let’s say you have 150 items on the menu with 150 dollar signs. If you take those off, it will soften the pricing on that menu.”

As for listing cents—such as .95 or .00—that’s a judgment call and depends on the restaurant. “A .95 is nicer and friendlier, whereas the .00 has more attitude and is a little snobbier. Imagine the W Hotels pricing their items with .95. And .99 is even cheesier.” In short, a friendly neighborhood pizzeria should use .95, while an upscale, trendier operation should go with .00 pricing or no cents at all. qq Leader dots. Some menus feature a name and description of the item followed by leader dots………that guide the guest’s eye to the price. Bad idea, Rapp says. “That gives the customer a price list they can scan up and down, looking for the cheapest item first and then going over to read the description. Your price-sensitive customers will find the cheapest item on the menu anyway, but if you use this approach, you’re making a person who may not usually be price-sensitive look at the menu based on price.” qq Downsizing. A large menu with a lot of pictures can be too much to absorb. “When your customer is overwhelmed, he will default to the item he already knows,” Rapp says.

“The goal is to get customers into the menu and persuade them to order something they wouldn’t necessarily order.

If a guest finds three items on the menu that he likes, he’ll come back.”

Finally, operators can make use of attention-grabbing visuals to draw attention to their best moneymaking items. Just don’t get carried away, Rapp warns. Boxes, for example, grab the eye, but too many clutter up your menu. “The more boxes we use, the less effective they become,” he says. “A picture is another tool, but a picture, I believe, can take your concept down a few steps, making it more like a coffee shop. I don’t think that a lot of restaurants that use pictures should use pictures, even though they’re easier on the eye. I tell my clients that illustrations are better than pictures.”

Sound counterintuitive? Maybe so, but Rapp can back it up with scientific research on how the brain works. “Recent studies show that, when you see a picture of a food item, your brain ‘tastes’ that item. When you see 60 pictures of chocolate cake on Instagram and then I bring you a piece of chocolate cake, you almost don’t want it now because you’ve already had too much—your brain has, in a sense, already experienced it!”

Rick Hynum is PMQ’s editor-in-chief.

In this example, Rapp takes a poorly designed menu (right) and reimagines it with a stronger design, boxes to call out profitable items and the elimination of dollar signs, which simply remind customers that they’re spending money.

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FEATURE STORY IRS RULES

TAXING THE

TIPS

A controversial new ruling from the IRS means that automatic gratuities will be treated—and taxed—as service charges instead of tips. By Melanie Addington

T

he new year brought some clarification—and controversy—in regard to an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule on automatic gratuities that may change how pizzerias and other restaurants handle tips for large parties. According to Michael J. Rasmussen, owner of Rasmussen Tax Group, and Laura Hanlon from Hanlon & Associates, both in Conway, Arkansas, as of January 1, the IRS now classifies an automatic gratuity as a service charge, not a tip, and the charges must be included in employees’ FICA withholdings. This ruling brings the IRS’ stance in line with the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) longstanding position that such charges are wages, not tips, under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Essentially, an automatic gratuity can’t be called a tip because customers do not make the choice to pay it, since it’s automatically applied to their bill. Thus, the IRS will treat it as a service charge, Rasmussen explains. “Service charges are considered regular wages subject to payroll tax withholding,” he says. “The IRS ruling—Revenue Ruling 2012-18—on automatic gratuities isn’t actually new, having been issued in June 2012 as part of an effort to update earlier tax policies on tips, specifically Revenue Ruling 95-7.”

According to Hanlon, treating mandatory gratuities as tips has helped restaurants avoid paying FICA tax since 1994, 74 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Thanks to a new ruling by the IRS, pizzeria operators will have to decide if they want to continue placing automatic gratuities on large party checks.

leading to widespread use of the required tip. But in 2012 the Revenue Ruling 2012-18 closed the loophole. “The IRS applied its traditional test for determining whether a payment was a ‘tip,’ which includes looking at whether the customer decides the amount of the payment, who receives the payment, etc.,” Hanlon says. “In this case, because the payments are mandatory, the IRS will consider them to be wages.”

The Legal Ramifications In the restaurant industry, tips are defined by the DOL as an additional amount left by a customer above what is owed for meal and drink charges in recognition of service. Similarly, the IRS, in its 2012 Revenue Ruling that went into effect this month, states that, in order for the gratuity to be a tip, the additional payment must be free from compulsion—that is, the customer must have complete discretion to decide the amount, if any. Additionally, the payment can’t be subject to negotiation or dictated by restaurant policy, and the customer must decide who gets the payment. If any of these factors are missing, both the IRS and DOL may consider the additional amount as a service charge.

And if either the DOL or IRS finds the gratuity to be a service charge or a tip, the legal ramifications are significant, according to National Restaurant Association (NRA) officials.

If the money from an automatic gratuity is passed on to employees, the amount must be counted as part of the employees’ wages and reported on payroll under IRS rules.

If it’s considered a tip, the restaurant may be able to take a tip credit to meet its minimum wage obligation. If it’s deemed a service charge, no tip credit may be taken, even if the restaurant gives the money from the service charge to tipped employees. Also, service charges become part of the restaurant’s gross receipts, while tips do not. Service charges under federal law are the property of the restaurant, and, as such, the restaurant operator can choose to keep the money or pass it on to employees. If the operator gives any of the service charge to employees, the amount given must be counted as part of the employees’ wages and reported on payroll. Finally, service charges may not be taken as a FICA tax 45B tip credit.

So how should operators handle this thorny issue? The NRA offers no specific recommendations. “We don’t advocate that restaurants use the service charge or tip approach one way or the other,” says NRA counsel Peter Kilgore. “It is an operator-by-operator decision that needs to consider the likely impact either approach will have on customers in addition to the legal impact.”

Meanwhile, the ruling has reignited longstanding confusion over how to handle tips versus service charges. “The problem that really arises is where the restaurant decides to mandate the gratuity to the customer or if there’s some language that may appear to take away the customer’s complete discretion to leave the additional payment,” Kilgore says. “To the extent you remove customer discretion, then it becomes a service charge.”

It’s too early to tell exactly how the rules may impact pizzerias and their staff, but some operators have decided to stay away from automatic gratuities entirely.

John Arena, co-owner of Metro Pizza (metropizza.com), with five locations in Las Vegas, saw the problems coming and took action quickly. At the beginning of this year, he got rid of automatic gratuities from his checks because the legalities involved cause too many problems. “I never liked the gratuities anyway,” he says.

To learn more about the IRS ruling, check out the April issue of PMQ Pizza Magazine, where Michael J. Rasmussen and Laura Hanlon will cover the topic in detail.

Melanie Addington is PMQ’s social media director.

March 2014 pmq.com 75

FEATURE STORY INVENTORY CONTROL

I

t’s the question that turns nearly everyone into a liar: “What do you want on your pizza?” If you had a dollar for every time someone responded, “I don’t care—I’ll eat anything,” you’d be rich. The truth is, everybody cares, and this gets proven as soon as the pizza arrives and everyone starts picking off the toppings they don’t like.

Toppings really do matter. And it’s crucial to the continued success of your pizzeria that the correct toppings are placed on the pie in the correct portions—and that they are distributed evenly around the entire pizza, every single time.

We’ve talked about the need for consistency in past Pizza Skool articles. By now you’re starting to see a consistent message—we’re consistently making the point about consistency, constantly! Notice a theme?

Your dough, your sauce and your cheese make every pizza individually yours. That core recipe helps set you apart from your competition. When your customer adds his choice of toppings, it becomes his pizza. If you offer 10 topping choices, that gives your customers hundreds of thousands of possible combinations! With so many choices and several different pizza makers 76 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

working in your store, you need a plan for creating consistency that includes expectations, training, tools, tips and techniques to deliver the very best, most consistent pizza to your customers every time they order.

This plan needs to be all-inclusive, from initial expectations to execution, resulting in the perfect pizza for the customer. It should include: qq qq qq qq qq qq qq qq qq qq qq

Proper ordering and receiving Correct dating of all products Shelf life knowledge and tracking Proper and consistent prepping practices Fully stocked work stations Tools (portion guides, prep work sheets and scales) Preventing cross-contamination Consistent portions Itemization order Proper distribution Visual final inspection

ITEMIZING The Pizza Trainer:

From correct portions to even distribution, topping a pizza requires consistency and precision to maximize customer satisfaction.

By Dan Risner

Controlling Inventory Creating great pizzas begins when you place an order with your supplier. You should have a system in place that tracks your inventory so you can determine what to order. The next step is to properly forecast your business needs for the upcoming food delivery. And you or your manager should be at the restaurant when the order arrives, ready to check it in and ensure that you received everything you ordered (and nothing you didn’t order). As you check in the order, all of your items should be marked with a “received” date and then properly rotated after you put them away. To maintain the highest-quality product, it’s important to keep a current list of all ingredients and their usable shelf lives. You should make this list available to your staff, and everyone on your team should regularly check the shelf lives of all products.

Perfect Prepping Correctly prepping your products allows staff to handle those busy times more smoothly. Consistency in prepping will help you attain your goal of consistency to your customer. You’ll

want to implement standard operating procedures for everything you prep and place prep work sheets at all work stations to support your kitchen training regimen. Scales should also be utilized at the prep station to ensure consistency of product.

Additionally, we want to keep our customers safe. We’re food handlers, and that is a huge responsibility. Make sure you train your team members on proper prepping techniques that will prevent them from cross-contaminating any food items, especially if you offer gluten-free fare. All prepped products should be dated. And keep in mind that a product’s shelf life typically changes once it has been opened. Proper shelf life management will keep your product fresh and your customers safe and happy.

As rush time approaches, your work stations should be fully stocked and ready to go. They should be stocked not only with product but with scales, all of the necessary utensils, visual aids (such as portion charts and prep work sheets) and, of course, well-trained, energetic team members. As basic as all of this sounds, it won’t just happen on its own—it requires a carefully considered plan, execution and continuous follow-up.

As the owner of the store, it’s your job to set expectations

March 2014

pmq.com 77

for the perfect pizza and communicate those expectations to your staff. Proper training sets, calibrates and reinforces your expectations. Visual job aids, such as portion charts, support your expectations, as do posters that depict your vision of the “perfect pizza.” (Pizzaskool.com offers free customizable portion templates to its customers.)

Item by Item Now it’s time to get down to the nuts and bolts of itemization, so that each customer receives a pizza that is uniquely his own. Itemization requires consistent and proper portioning, consistent and proper distribution of toppings, and consistent order of itemization. Once the portions have been set and the team members trained, you should perform periodic checks to ensure that your standards for consistency are being met and to ensure proper cost management. Every pizza should be looked at before it goes in the oven and before you close the box. Too much food on the pizza means decreased margins; too little food on the pizza means decreased top-line sales!

In other words, consistent portioning is a driving factor in your continued success. To make sure you get it right, portioning should be done by counting flat meats (such as pepperoni and sliced ham), using a bowl and a scale to weigh every item.

No “guesstimating” should be allowed! Train your employees to take the time, utilize the tools and get a handle on portioning techniques.

Portion distribution is just as important as portioning. Center loading is a common error amongst pizza makers. Here, the employee distributes all of the toppings toward the center of the pizza, leaving the edges with nothing but dough, sauce and cheese. But most of us eat pizza from the center to the crust.

With proper edge-to-edge itemizing, that last memorable bite will still have all of the great-tasting toppings that the customer ordered, creating a satisfying pizza experience and ensuring his repeat business.

78 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

With proper edge-to-edge itemizing, that last memorable bite will still have all of the greattasting toppings that the customer ordered, creating a satisfying pizza experience and ensuring his repeat business.

Topping order makes a difference, too. To deliver consistent results, the pizza maker should always put the toppings on the pizza in the same order every time. Some of the best pizza makers in the business use this order as a general guideline: qq qq qq qq qq qq

Flat Meats Flat Vegetables Bulky Meats High-Moisture Vegetables Extra Cheese Raw meats

Following these guidelines provides a consistent look for every pie and ensures that all of the toppings are properly cooked.

To help out your pizza makers, set up your make table in that order and provide visual aids to jog their memories.

Practice makes perfect pizza makers, so here’s one more suggestion: Organize itemizing competitions for your crew during slow times. Place a clean sheet of parchment paper on a screen and see how fast your pizza makers can properly portion and distribute toppings. Make it fun, create a scoreboard, and award prizes. By emphasizing your expectations for quality and consistency and following up routinely to enforce your standards, you’ll instill the desire for quality and consistency in your pizza makers as well.

Dan Risner is president of PizzaSkool, a fully hosted e-learning solution for all pizzeria employees’ training needs. PizzaSkool’s video-based program provides training, testing, tracking and certification for driver, order taker, pizza maker and manager-in-training positions. Training courses cover customer service in the store and at the door, upselling and all aspects of pizza making and safe delivery. Visit traintogreatness.com for more information.

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PMQ ADVERTISERS HEAD TO VEGAS FOR PIZZA EXPO 2014, MARCH 25-27!

Booth# Allied Metal Spinning 1000 American Metalcraft 1847 AM Manufacturing 721 Antimo Caputo 2339 Armanino Foods 1805B Arrow POS 541 Bacio Cheese 1221 Bag Solutions 1469 Bay State Milling 1060 Bellissimo Foods 747 Burke Corporation 927 Caputo Cheese 920 Carla’s Pasta 1949 Check Corp 616 Cover Tex Corporation 2328 Crown Custom Metal 2227 Custom Foods Inc. 423 Deiorio’s Frozen Dough 1641 Doughmate 1827 DoughXpress 605 Earthstone Ovens 855 Escalon Premier Brands 661 Ferrero USA 1262 Fidelity Communications 532 Fish Oven & Equipment 1647 Fontanini Meats 1327 GI Metal USA Inc. 1367 Giochi Di Pizza 1769 Globe Food Equipment 639 Granbury 1305 Grande Cheese 705 HTH 902 iFranchise 1316 Innov8 Marketing 939 J and G Mills 516 Lactalis Foodservice 527 La Nova 727 Leprino Foods 1105 Liguria Foods 1313 Lindsey Olives 955 Lloyd Industries Inc. 1057 Magnetic Attractions 1928 Manzo Foods 1769 Marra Forni 2333 Mario Comacho Foods 1649

Booth# Marsal & Sons, Inc. 817 McClancy Seasoning 1035 Message On Hold 813 MF & B Restaurant Systems 741 MFG Tray 441 Microworks 526 Middleby Marshall 501 & 601 Moving Targets 801 Musgo Olive 1437 National Marketing (Mr. Peel) 1540 Neil Jones Food Company 627 New York Brick Oven 231 & 233 Northern Pizza Equipment, Inc. 1058 Off the Wall Magnetics 2151 Ovention Ovens 2105 Pacific Coast Producers 954 Peerless Ovens 735 Pendelton Flour Mills 805 Perfect Crust Pizza 246 Pizza Insurance 1551 Pierce Chicken 1619 Picard Ovens 241 Pizzaovens.com 613 Precision Mixers 1734 Quality By Liones 557 Rao’s Specialty Foods, Inc. 1301 Red Gold 1247 Red Shift Company 234 Restaurant Depot 2255 Rocktenn 1005 Saputo Cheese USA 1427 Signature Systems 1607 Smithfield Farmland 757 Somerset 1347 Stanislaus Food Products 905 & 1021 Sugar Creek 217 Tampa Maid Foods Inc. 2321 Thermal Bags by Ingrid 1243 Thunderbird Food Machinery 1751 Toscana Cheese 910 Univex Corporation 1117 WaverCostumes.com 1806 Woodstone Ovens 529 XLT Ovens 1169

While you’re in Vegas, stop by and see PMQ at Booth #120 at the Nightclub & Bar Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, March 24-26!

PMQ Pizza Magazine provides this list as a service to our readers. While we strive to maintain accuracy, errors can sometimes occur. PMQ Pizza Magazine accepts no liability for any factual inconsistencies in the above.

80 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

The Dick Waterman Collection A perfect décor solution for casual and fine dining restaurants, bars and lounges.

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Build Customer Loyalty and Increase Sales With a Custom-Branded Mobile App Where is your phone right now—in your pocket or sitting on the desk next to you? Ninety-one percent of adults have their mobile phone within arm’s reach 24/7. What if your customers had a logo on their phone reminding them of your pizza shop every time they swiped their screen? What would you have to pay to get that type of exposure with traditional media?

If you are looking to increase sales and improve customer engagement, a mobile app built for your company is a logical move in a world where there are five times as many cellphones as there are PCs and 25% of Americans use only mobile devices to access the Internet.

Innov8 Marketing is a full-service mobile and digital marketing company dedicated to the success of small business pizzeria owners. “We’re in business to give small business owners a chance to compete with larger chain brands,” says Phil Westrick, director of client success for Innov8 Marketing.

“The big boys have been improving their digital offerings over the past few years, and it’s becoming a particularly competitive advantage to have a mobile solution in place.”

Innov8 Marketing has a unique Five-in-One Mobile Marketing Platform, giving you a complete mobile solution. The

platform can increase your average order size with a Mobile Food Ordering system, improve customer loyalty with your own Mobile Loyalty system, and streamline your Dine-In service with your own Mobile Reservation system. Innov8 customers also benefit from the easy-to-use Mobile Content Management system and unlock impressive customer engagement with their built-in Mobile Messaging system.

The Innov8 Marketing platform was built to be managed easily by business owners. Your app will be set up for you, including your own branding and menu options. Any changes that are needed are easily made via the online Content Management system. “We’ve tried to make everything as easy as possible so that our clients can focus on servicing their customers and improving their business,” Westrick explains. Some changes can also be made via Innov8 Marketing’s iPad management app.

Attending the International Pizza Expo? Please visit Innov8 Marketing at booth 939 to view a live app demo and receive special show-only pricing. Readers can learn more about deploying a mobile app by going to innov8mktg.com or by calling 866-724-0505.

+ Improve Customer Loyalty + Increase Average Order Size + Boost User Experience + Raise Brand Awareness + Build Customer Engagement SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION TODAY

82 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

MEET THE TANK LIZ BARRETT

Meet the Tank: Nick Sasso

PMQ’s Think Tank (thinktank.pmq.com) is the only pizza industry forum on the Web, with 2,500 members who meet online regularly to discuss the pizza business.

In this new column, we’ll introduce you to some of the Tank’s seasoned members who can show you the ropes and lend insights into how the forum has benefited their businesses.

Think Tank username: NicksPizza Real Name: Nick Sasso Pizzeria: Nick’s Pizzeria, Grantville, GA (former owner) Date Joined: January 7, 2007 Number of Posts: 3,792 PMQ: How many years were you in the pizza business?

NicksPizza (Nick): I had my own restaurant for eight years.

After my restaurant closed, I consulted for four months with a property owner to prepare his space for a new pizzeria.

When did you first start using the Think Tank, and do you remember why you joined?

the stud frames, installed the ceilings and drywall, did floors, and placed all the equipment. I designed, built and installed the hanging light fixtures. It was an enormous task that was profoundly satisfying when it was finally all done. I would not have made it those last three to four weeks without this group of people.

I joined in January 2007. I had been a subscriber to PMQ for a couple of years and owned my pizzeria for three years. I found out there was an online forum, and I was looking for connections with other professionals living the life I was living.

I knew I needed encouragement and fresh ideas to keep my place growing. I thrive most when talking about the business with others who are walking the same road. I met up with a member named j_r0kk, who was quite the energetic poster at the time. We had several private message conversations that energized me to get more involved. The rest of the community at the time really encouraged and challenged each other. I was so immersed in the pizza business and soaking up as much as I possibly could. I was posting and reading in the early mornings and then late at night after we closed.

What do you use the Think Tank for most?

Why have you continued to return to the Think Tank over the years?

The No. 1 philosophy I learned from talking to the community here is: Decide who you are as a business. Write a formal business plan—actually write it down, and make all of your decisions based on your identity and goals. I blew past so many distractions living that way. If it turned out an idea was too good to pass up and had to be done, then we amended our goals or identity or target audience and continued on.

Decide who to be and be the best at it. Our marketing, print assets, charity work, community involvement, business relationships and more were all connected to what we wanted to accomplish in our business plan. If it didn’t advance our goals or brand, then we didn’t do it.

I always get new ideas or impressions from the people I’ve met here. They challenge what I think I know. I also wanted to give other new people the encouragement and insights I picked up over the years. I began to learn so much more by telling people what lessons I thought I had learned. Turns out I had to double-check and challenge myself every time one of the pizza people called me out or encouraged me.

When we relocated and had to physically build out our new space, the Tankers kept me going. I designed the place myself on my laptop. My driver and I framed the walls, hung

Now I use it to stay connected to the industry. I closed my restaurant in 2011 because the local economy crashed. I still think about getting back to the pizza life if the right situation comes along. I try to stay current with what people are talking about here. There is a wealth of ideas, wisdom and challenges here. I’ve learned a lot of basic lessons that could be useful to others looking to start up or kick-start their pizza place. Still, I have to keep learning myself and stay honest about what I really do know and what I just think I know.

Can you share an example of a business tip or tips you picked up in the Tank that helped your restaurant?

Connect with fellow operators in the Think Tank! Visit today at thinktank.pmq.com.

March 2014

pmq.com 83

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

Harvesting Success

Mad About Meatballs

Craft unique pizzas that keep customers coming back for more with Tampa Maid Fried Green Tomatoes, one of five new, freshly picked and lightly dipped vegetable and fruit products recently added to Tampa Maid’s Harvest Creations lineup. Order a free sample to learn how these creations can become your tools for success.

800-237-7637, tampamaid.com

The new Bonici meatballs from Tyson Food Service were created with versatility in mind. They’re perfect for pastas, subs, pizzas and more. To learn more about how the Bonici brand and Tyson provide quality, plus a variety of price points and menu options—all from one trusted place—visit booth 2155 at the Pizza Expo. 800-248-9766, bonici.com

Sweet and Simple

Achieving Baking Perfection Commercial bakers want to achieve baking perfection every time. FibraMent baking stones from AWMCO ensure the best pizzas and calzones, as well as a variety of other baked goods. Used in a variety of deck and countertop ovens, FibraMent baking stones are manufactured from a patented formula approved by NSF International for baking. 708-478-6032, bakingstone.com

With nine base mixes and more than 100 flavors, Nanci’s Frozen Yogurt is the perfect addition to a pizzeria menu and a potential new profit center. Mixes include creamy frozen yogurt, tart frozen yogurt, sorbet, nondairy soft serve, and stevia-sweetened, no-sugar-added frozen yogurt.

Nanci’s products are shelf-stable, low-calorie, low-cost, and easy to use. 800-788-0808, nancis.com

The Ideal Blend Bold and Balanced CHA! by Texas Pete offers bold and balanced sriracha flavor, fewer preservatives and a low cost. CHA! was developed to match the flavor, consistency and color of other popular sriracha sauces so that chefs could easily make the switch without altering their recipes. 336-231-6420, texaspetefoodservice.com 84 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

Family-owned and -operated since 1976, California Blending specializes in confidential custom blending and private labeling of herbs and spices. The company is committed to providing the best service with the best quality to any business, large or small. Specialties include pizza spices, dough mixes and steak salts. All orders are processed and shipped in seven days. 626-448-1918, calblending.com

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Merch 2014

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ADVERTISER INDEX MARCH 2014 Advertiser

Phone Website

Page

AM Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708-841-0959 . . . . . . ammfg.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Antimo Caputo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-368-9197 . . . . . . caputoflour.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Bacio Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855-222-4685 . . . . . . baciocheese.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 35 Bellissimo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-813-2974 . . . . . . . bellissimofoods.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Deiorios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-649-7612 . . . . . . . deiorios.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Delivery Bags USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888-501-2247 . . . . . . deliverybagsusa.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Dick Waterman Photography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-569-6478 . . . . . . dickwaterman.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 EZ Dine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877-853-1263 . . . . . . ezdinepos.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Fontanini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-331-6370 . . . . . . . fontanini.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Giochi Di Pizza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305-576-0002 . . . . . . . giochidipizza.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Grande Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-8-GRANDE . . . . . grandecheese.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Hoodmart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-715-1014 . . . . . . . hoodmart.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 HTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-321-1850 . . . . . . hthsigns.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Innov8 Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 866-724-0505 . . . . . . . innov8mktg.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Lactalis Foodservice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +44-1737-783-300 . . . lactalisfs.co.uk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 La Nova . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716-881-3366 . . . . . . lanova.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4 Le 5 Stagioni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-780-2280 . . . . . . . le5stagioni.it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Liguria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-765-1452 . . . . . . . liguriafoods.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Lloyd Pans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-748-6251 . . . . . . . lloydpans.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 MF&B Restaurant Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888-480-EDGE . . . . . edgeovens.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Marsal & Sons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631-226-6688 . . . . . . marsalsons.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Microworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-787-2068 . . . . . . . microworks.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Middleby Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877-34-OVENS . . . . . . wowoven.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Moving Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-926-2451 . . . . . . movingtargets.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 MPP Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 866-889-8745 . . . . . . . mppmarketinggroup.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Our Town America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-497-8360 . . . . . . ourtownamerica.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Ovention Ovens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855-298-OVEN . . . . . . oventionovens.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Overstreet Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-994-1150 . . . . . . overstreet1.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 PDQ Signature Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877-968-6430 . . . . . . . pdqpos.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Peerless Ovens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-548-4514 . . . . . . peerlessovens.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Pizza Ovens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877-367-6836 . . . . . . . pizzaovens.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Pizza Skool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517-395-4765 . . . . . . . traintogreatness.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Quality by Liones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610-269-6396 . . . . . . qualitybyliones.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Restaurant Depot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . restaurantdepot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 RockTenn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816-415-7359 . . . . . . . rocktenn.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3 Saputo Cheese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-824-3373 . . . . . . . saputousafoodservice.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Smithfield-Farmland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855-444-1580 . . . . . . carandopizzatoppings.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Stanislaus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-327-7201 . . . . . . . stanislaus.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5 State Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . st8.fm/bizinsurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Somerset Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 978-667-3355 . . . . . . . smrset.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Sunray Printing Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320-492-3017 . . . . . . sunrayprinting.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Tampa Maid (Harvest Creations) . . . . . . . . . . 800-237-7637 . . . . . . . tampamaid.com/harvestcreations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Tyson Foods, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-248-9766 . . . . . . . tysonfoodservice.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2 Univex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800-258-6358 . . . . . . univexcorp.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Pizza World Championship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +39-421-83148 . . . . . pizzaworldchampionship.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 XLT Ovens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888-443-2751 . . . . . . xltovens.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13 PMQ provides this information as a courtesy to our readers and will not be held responsible for errors or omissions. To report an error, call 662-234-5481 x127.

Merch 2014

pmq.com 91

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE Grab a direct weblink to every advertiser in this guide at PMQ.com

ADVERTISING

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Redshift Backpage Ad (Draft 1).pdf

1

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Self Serve Kiosk ordering Automated customer loyalty marketing

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE COMPUTER SYSTEMS: POINT OF SALE

CRUSTS

MOUNTAIN HARVEST PIZZA CRUST CO.......................................................................... Billings, MT Contact: Eric LeCaptain...........................800-342-6205......................................Fax: 406-248-7336 Sheeted Dough, Prebake Crusts, Dough Balls, Freezer to Oven, Self-Rising Crusts in Standard, Wheat and Nine Grain..................................................................... eric@mountainharvestpizza.com

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March 2014

pmq.com 93

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE DOUGH DIVIDERS/ROUNDERS

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94 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE FLOUR CONT.

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March 2014

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE MACHINERY/OVENS/EQUIPMENT

MIDDLEBY MARSHALL

OVENS MIXERS

RANDELL

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96 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

1-800-426-0323

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE MACHINERY/OVENS/EQUIPMENT CONT.

MARKETING IDEAS CONT.

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BURKE CORPORATION....................................................................................... www.BurkeCorp.com Italian, Mexican-Style and Specialty Fully Cooked Meats Contact: Liz Hertz.............................. sales_info@burkecorp.com.............................800-654-1152 SUGAR CREEK PACKING CO.,............................... Private Label Precooked Meat Topping Specialists www.sugarcreek.com.......................................800-848-8205............................sales@sugarcreek.com

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USED HOBART 60 QT. MIXER FOR SALE AT US $4980.00 PLUS SHIPPING. Call Lynn at 214-552-3218.............................................................................. or e-mail tbfm@tbfm.com

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March 2014

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE MOBILE CATERING TRUCKS/UNITS

ONLINE ORDERING

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98 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE PIZZA DELIVERY THERMAL BAGS

March 2014

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE PIZZA DELIVERY THERMAL BAGS

PIZZA OVENS MARSAL & SONS, INC.................................................. The new standard in the Pizza Industry Brick Lined Deck Ovens • Standard Deck Ovens • Prep Table Refrigeration 631-226-6688.......................... marsalsons.com ......................... rich@marsalsons.com ROTO-FLEX OVEN CO...............................................................................Contact Richard Dunfield 135 East Cevallos, San Antonio, TX 78204 PH 800-386-2279................... www.rotoflexoven.com.........................Fax 210-222-9007

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EARTHSTONE OVENS, INC. ................6717 San Fernando Rd....................Glendale, CA 91201 800-840-4915........................Fax: 818-553-1133........................... www.earthstoneovens.com All units UI listed.

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SPACE IS LIMITED! CALL TO RESERVE YOUR CARD NOW! Tom Boyles | tom@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x122 Linda Green | linda@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x121 Clifton Moody | clifton@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x138 Anna Zemek | anna@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x140

100 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

WOOD STONE CORPORATION.......................................Stone Hearth & Specialty Commercial Cooking Equipment..................................... 1801 W. Bakerview Rd.............Bellingham, WA 98226 TOLL Free 800-988-8103......................Fax: 360-650-1166............woodstone-corp.com

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE PIZZA OVENS CONT.

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P.A. PRODUCTS, Inc. BAKEWARE SPECIALISTS

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WWW.XLTOVENS.COM TO ORDER CALL (316) 943-2751 | TOLL-FREE: (888) 443-2751 | FAX: (316) 943-2769

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pmq.com/Recipe-Bank/

March 2014

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THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE PIZZA SUPPLIES

PRINTING

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SPACE IS LIMITED! CALL TO RESERVE YOUR CARD NOW! Tom Boyles | tom@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x122 Linda Green | linda@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x121 Clifton Moody | clifton@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x138 Anna Zemek | anna@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x140 102 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

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pmq.com 103

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE REFRIGERATION

SPECIALTY FOODS CASTELLA IMPORTS, INC. ................................................................................... www.castella.com 60 Davids Drive, Hauppauge, NY 11788.................................................................................866-Castella

SPICE FORMULATION, BLENDING & PACKAGING CASTELLA IMPORTS, INC. .................................................................................. www.castella.com 60 Davids Drive, Hauppauge, NY 11788.................................................................................866-Castella

SAUCE ARMANINO FOODS .....................................................................................................Fine Italian Sauces 30588 San Antonio Street, Haywood, CA...........................................................................866-553-5611 Email: customerservice@armaninofoods.com................................ www.armaninofoods.com

MCCLANCY SEASONING............................................................One Spice Road, Fort Mill, SC 29707 Contact: Dominic Damore..................................................................... dominic.damore@mcclancy.com 800-843-1968..........................................................................................................info@mcclancy.com

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104 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

THE PIZZA EXCHANGE PIZZA INDUSTRY RESOURCE GUIDE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT/SUPPLIES/SERVICE

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PIZZA BUSINESS CARD PACK

Get in on our Fall 2014 mailing!

Get your message into the hands of: • Every subscriber of PMQ Pizza Magazine (a BPA audited circulation) • Top officers of the 500 largest U.S. pizza chains • Pizza industry vendors and promoters View the pizza industry’s best deals online at www.pizzacardpack.com!

SPACE IS LIMITED! CALL TO RESERVE YOUR CARD NOW! Tom Boyles | tom@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x122 Linda Green | linda@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x121 Clifton Moody | clifton@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x138 Anna Zemek | anna@pmq.com | 662-234-5481 x140

March 2014

pmq.com 105

DEPARTMENT TIME CAPSULE

Vince the Pizza Prince Since 1955, this Scranton, Pennsylvania, pizzeria has succeeded with a formula that honors high quality, family ties and tradition.

Vince Cianfichi Sr. worked in his first wife’s family’s pizzeria in the early 1950s, but after his wife passed away, he struck out on his own in 1955, relying on an established local following for his handcrafted pies. Since customers nicknamed him “The Pizza Prince,” he called his Scranton, Pennsylvania, shop Vince the Pizza Prince (vincethepizzaprince.net).

In 1977 his second wife, Mary, wisely spurred him on to move his business to its current location a few blocks away, where he could own the building and benefit from more parking space. “The place was an old gas station that was retrofitted and redone as a pizzeria,” says Vince Cianfichi Jr., son of Vince and Mary and owner (since 1994) with his wife, Rhea. “We’ve always been a traditional momand-pop store.”

Rhea notes that the 1,000-square-foot pizzeria’s humble beginnings are still very much evident today—no delivery and (until recently) a single phone line and cash only. All employees greet regulars by name and remember their usual orders. Pizza (available in only one size, 14”) is thin-crust, hand-stretched and baked in a round pan—an American-Neapolitan hybrid, says Vince Jr., that features a twocheese blend and Pecorino-Romano for garnish, plus a spicy sauce and a well-baked, light-but-crunchy crust. (One of the pizzeria’s tag lines is “Love the bubble,” referring to the bubbles that form on the crust during baking.) “What really differentiates us is the quality we put into our food—we hand-cut peppers, make our own meatballs and use buns from a local supplier,” Rhea explains. “If we wouldn’t eat it, we wouldn’t give it to customers!”

Today, the Cianfichis’ family affair continues: Vince and Rhea’s sons, at 10 and 13 years old, often run the front counter (and, says Rhea, work the POS faster than their parents). Once or twice each month, the family operates the pizzeria without other employees’ help during “family night.” However, Rhea says, employees have also become family—especially the 83-year-old who has worked the ovens for decades.

“The customer is always No. 1—we say we’re the prince, but they’re the king,” laughs Vince Jr. “We always want to make people feel warm and good about coming here. We’re blessed to keep this going to honor my mom and dad and our customers and employees over the years. It takes effort, but it’s a fun business to run. I look forward to getting up and going to work every day!” —Tracy Morin

106 PMQ Pizza Magazine The Pizza Industry’s Business Monthly

(Clockwise from top) At 1,000 square feet, Vince the Pizza Prince is a small powerhouse; a move in 1977 paved the way for building ownership and more parking; Vince Cianfichi Jr., Mary Cianfichi and Vince Cianfichi Sr. (second, third and fifth from left) attend the current location’s ribbon cutting in the ’70s; Cianfichi Sr. mans Vince the Pizza Prince in the ’80s.

Has your pizzeria been in business for 50 or more years?

If so, contact us at tracy@pmq.com.

Protect.

Promote.

Deliver.

• • • • • •

17 state-of-the-art manufacturing plants Flexible order quantities Best graphics in the industry AIB certified for direct food contact Made in the U.S.A. Full line of food service packaging

Contact us at 816.415.7359 for more information or…

America’s Leading Pizza Box Maker

Visit us in Booth #1005 at International Pizza Expo Las Vegas, Nevada – March 25-27, 2014 © 2014 Rock-Tenn Shared Services, LLC. All rights reserved. ROCKTENN and the stylized R are trademarks of Rock-Tenn Company and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

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Links to Extra Content

Featured Video: John Arena

Featured Video: PMQ Extra: Behind the Scenes at PMQ

Featured Video: Pizza 360: Marketing guru Tom Feltenstein talks about recruiting great employees

Featured Video: Pasquale’s Deli & Pizza