This may be a local phenomenon, but how many of you get call after call from customers who want to order a “Combination”?
I’m new, and so we’re still “teaching” people our menu - including,
our sizes are different
our pricing is different
I KNEW we’d be explaining that stuff over and over, but the request for a “Combination” was not expected. We’re putting a positive spin on the response, but I’m curious:
Is this something they’ve learned at Round Table or something?
What is expected on it (pep, saus, mush, onion, BP maybe?)?
Is it just my area?
Do you have something you call a “combination”?
Typically, that’s an “everything” pizza. Pepperoni, mushroom, green pepper, onion, ham, bacon, ground beef, and sausage. Obviously, you may have many more ingredients, but these are the “standards”. Olives, any type of pepper other than green pepper, anchovies, or other toppings that not EVERY SINGLE pizza joint has are left off. It’s like a “meats” meets “veggie” pizza. You can obviously experiment and take food costs into consideration. I think everyone expects at least pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and some sort of “pellet” whether it’s beef, sausage, or mystery meat.
One thing you might want to implement is “our combination comes with , would you like any changes?” or something like that so the customer KNOWS up front what they’re getting.
Yeah - we go a small step further and explain that once your there, toppings are unlimited - and that it’s not at all a “fixed” combination. We offer to let them pick, or to read through a bunch of toppings while they say “yes” or “no”. (Salami? Meatballs? Garlic? Jalapenos?..)
I did add a “Combination Starter” to the POS to help the staff on the phone provide a basic package as a starting point.
In eastern Canada a combination pizza is pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers. I also get requests for “the works” which is ham pepperoni green peppers mushrooms onions olives shrimp and bacon.
It just depends on where you are and what the chains are advertizing. I get requests for Meatza, Meat Lovers, Meaty, New York Deli, etc. which are all basicly loaded with any meat on the make line.
So like any Indy I say “Our ________ has ,, and ____ would you to add or remove toppings”
That’s funny - we have an “unlimited toppings” price - and when we get people ordering literally EVERYTHING (that includes jalapenos, pineapple, fresh garlic, all the meats, all the veggies, etc) - we (quietly) call it a “dumpster”…
Our shop has two “big topping” pies. One is ‘The Works’, that has 8 popular toppings (pepperoni, mush, gr oliv, bl oliv, onion, sausage, beef, bell pepper).
The ‘Train Wreck’, however, started off as an attempt to have a ‘novelty’ pizza on menu that had every topping we serve. Well, we put 21 of our 26 toppings on this beast, offer it in 12" and 16" sizes. We figured no one would pay $30 for a pizza, even with a nearly 5.5-pound pre-cook weight . . . well we were wrong. We don’t send 'em out back to back, but we get three or four orders a week, and some are dedicated fans who order nothing else.
We are a town the grew up on a major train line, and our shop could see the tracks. The 'Wreck is also an homage to a train wreck that happened in our downtown ni the 50’s or 60’s. The old-timers remember it. People think the pie is cool, when when they don’t buy it.
you could create a pie and call it the “derailment” where i went to college i worked in a place that was an old rail road station and they had a drink that was called that… the people lived the name and the drink 5 different liqours in it!..
Love the idea of a mixed drink (our town does not allow liquor by the drink, though . … only beer/wnie). “Derailed” or “Derailment” could be a fun concept. I’ll drop it on the guys in the shop and see what they create.