Anyone here close 1 day a week?

Was thinking after the football season about closing on Mondays to spend time with the wife and giving my main employee another day off.Everyone says to just hire more good employees,but we all know how easy that is.
Just looking for input and would it hurt the other days sales if people make the comment" oh,who knows when they will be open" Or if they will just get pizza the other 6 days?
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Derek

We were closed Tuesdays. Then I felt like I finally had enough people to open the 7th day…you know how that goes, now I have enough people so that I work open/close all 7 days. I am seriously thinking about going back to closing Tuesdays, just to have a day to catch up on everything. I just placed an ad for a manager (my previous one thought that his parents dog getting put to sleep was a good reason to get drunk and cry all day for 3 weeks and stop showing up for work!), so if I find a good one, I will stay open 7 days.

close sundays in both stores i spend that day with my family after all that is the reason i own my own business to take care of them but they also need my company as well i leave my cell phone home and we go out and do something

you need you time let the big guys handle it for opne day then your customers will appreciate you more

Only if you can afford to give up 10% of your sales and frustrate your customers.

im with you Fat Boy, but we are definitely in the minority. Whatever you do pick a day and STICK to it otherwise you will confuse everybody and it will come back to bite you. I would rather be busy 6 days a week and get a free day off then, have 7 average days…also employees really appreciate it also and helps retention.

So, is there a better day then not to close? About the time i think of a day like yesterday to close due to low sales, the following week we blow it out of the water.

Consistency is defiantely key, but for us Tuesdays seems to be the biggest fluctuator from $100 to $400 on that day. And it does that with no obvious reason. But not sure if that’s the logical choice or not.

My suggestion is don’t close. Hire another employee you can trust to run the shop.

Agreed. To stay competitive you almost have to be open 7 days.

Believe me, I get the need you have for time with your family. There’s nothing more important than family. If you’re looking to take a day off and spend it with them then you have to be willing to find someone to run it for you and make that investment money wise.

LOL…find a good employee? We just had a drunk guy come in and ask for an app because we have it on the sign out front.

I have a real difficult time finding someone that doesn’t want a ton of hours, or even that can walk straight and upright.

Not sure what we’re going to do yet.

I dissagree…we are closed on Mondays and still do quite well. Our regulars even enjoy the Tuesday update to see what my 2 year old daughter, wife and I did on our day off. Some days it is the zoo or the aquarium or just the park. that being said most of the population works 5 days a week, they will understand if we work ONLY six

In case it is not obvious, the number of days you are open does not have to equal the number of days you work.

We’re closed Tuesdays. Tried to open 7 days once, when we thought we had enough people, but it only lasted a few months. I don’t see us trying it again. It’s so much easier for us to get away for a few days, we just plan our “mini vacations” on Sunday thru Tuesday.

Tom R

Exodus 20:2 ~ 20:17 Spells out the Ten Commandments…

#3 if you remember is…
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath (Sunday) to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work ~ you, your son or your daughter, your make or female slave (employees), your livestock (ovens), or the alien residents in your towns (Tourist). For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

I am a Christian, and I have felt a guilty my whole life working, and making others work on Sundays. I have been really conflicted with the Idea of Closing on Sundays.

Closing one day a week, Well that reduces you year of sales by 52 days. Thats 7 and 1/2 weeks.

I don’t know about you, If I lose 52 Sundays that is about $40,000 in Sales.

I cant afford to do that…

However, I often wonder if I would lose it or if a certain percentage would just shift to another day of the week? I guess it just depends on how much of it is impulse purchasing or planned purchasing.

So then I say, I should close on Wednesday cause that is my slowest day of the week. But would GOD accept Wednesday over Sunday?

For me it is hard to find a good employee that can bake my pies as well as me and also trust with the register.I’ve actually been asking my regulars what they thought and most seem to think it’s ok.I won’t even make a decision until at least a few months into football season and think I should wait until the season is over.
I live in what is considered a ‘bedroom community’ and most everything is closed after 9 pm and the families in for the night.
Guess for the time being it will be a wait and see.
Derek

Hello Derek, Contrary to what everyone tells you,you have to make that major decision on your own.It is a Big decision,it will decifer how much $ you will lose over a year in sales.You’ll have to truly weigh it out.I would personally look hard for someone to run it for you for the one day a week you want off but thats just me.And like someone previously mentioned you pretty much have to open 7 days to compete these days.You don’t want the guy who comes to you all the time now have to try the 'other’guy up the street and now love his pizza. Good Luck,

                        Niccademo

GOD would want a good pizza any day of the week :slight_smile: All discussions about “church moving the sabbath to convert pagans” aside, it is a business decision we all have to make given our own values, marketplaces and business patterns.

I am closed TWO days a week . . Sunday and Monday. If I thought for one moment that I was losing 5 months of revenue over the year, I would change the policy. I’m not losing that sort of business. I currently capture nearly 60% of the available market with 5 days open only 5pm to 9pm or 10pm. Been that way for nearly 6 years for this shop (three owners). When we get sufficient staff trained to meet the current shifts, we may try to expand to lunches or some other day . . . to take our show on the road to a small neighboring community in a trailer for one night a week. Expand that market.

Sundays are weird days here since many, many people here leave town to go to church . . . they go to breakfast/brunch in the place they attend service.

Marketplace and personal values will help make the decision clearer for days open/closed.

You need that other person that can run the place whether you choose to close one day or not. What are you going to do when you are sick or hurt yourself? How are you going to take vacation?

Don’t kid yourself that you can work six days a week forever and stay creative and service oriented. Hire that other key person and split up the opening and closing shifts between you for the week. Your quality of life will improve significantly and you will have more time to work on menu, marketing, cost management, systems etc.

Take some of the hours you free up and get involved with community things, join your local rotary club, host the boy scouts for a “make your own pizza” night, visit your largest customers and the front desk of local hotels. You will be surprised.

Nick, you are not losing 5 months revenue. But, you are probably leaving at least 20% on the table (which amounts to probably a 25% increase) People eat every day and when they get the idea to have pizza they go to or order from somebody that is open.

For me, the two slowest days are Monday and Tuesday. With going on nine years of sale history, I can tell you that they average a little better than 10% of weekly sales each. I have 7 other places that deliver pizza in my market that somebody can call if I do not answer the phone. As pointed out above, giving your customers a reason to try a competitor is not something I am in a hurry to do.

As I said in previous post, right before I made that post, a guy came in off the street that was intoxicated and asking for an app. Am I going to even look at his app?..nope. And I get stuff like that all the time. I don’t get the good apps like most areas.

I am a small place where I would lose roughly $11,000 per year for that one day off on the average. If people didn’t ever call except for that particular day.

Since I am that small, and this is my primary way to make a living, I would rather lose 1 day a week then entrust employees for 1 day and possibly lose more sales if they don’t give the service my wife and I would. And it’s our reputation as a business on the line.

My motto is, I would rather give no service then bad service.

Jim

I truly encourage everyone to consider being open for as much of the market day as is realistic. Consider staffing, the marketplace, competition, and other market factors. Having apartments, a college, or hotels in your marketplace will certainly create more sales opportunities. Having one or more competitors will also create decision making pressures. Having an operating business park or office building within 5 miles would also create still more considerations. We gotta grab whatever dollar can be made without spending more than a dollar to get it. More sales days means better ratio of energy and rent costs, etc.

My market contains none of the above, and really does have a different dynamic than most people I have talked with in the industry. I am sure I could man-handle the market and drive more pizza deliveries for another day in the week, but it isn’t really part of our plan for the coming months. We are generating buzz to open our nicer dining room restaurant concept, which could slide over to Sunday nights at some point.