My place is a delco and I am evaluating add on items to my menu. Right now we have a slim menu of pizza, cheese bread, salad, and wings. Wings are bought pre-roasted and re-heated in the conveyor oven.
Conventional wisdom says to keep the menu slim to reduce spoilage, paper costs, and labor inefficiency. Conventional wisdom also says that when you have a repeat customer base, add items to increase check sizes.
Most of what I see as add-on items seems to make sense in a dine-in environment, but I don’t know if they translate to delco only format. I’m trying to ride the fine line of increasing check sizes without making my kitchen inefficient. What do you guys think?
EDIT: We are open 4pm-9pm Sun-Thurs and 4pm-10pm Fri-Sat
Sanwiches on hogie buns are also easy. We have a variety they are also easy to make. Our most popular is ham & salami or ham, salami, pepperoni. They are about 25% food cost.
I actually in general find subs easier to make then pizzas. We keep a bunch of sub buns stocked on top of the makeline so when an order comes we grab one down, grab a coupe tray and all the sub items are in our makelines. It takes me literally less than 30 seconds to make. Yes people do modify them quite a bit but its not that hard. Ok turkey club minus bacon add pepperoni, done. The profit on them is no where near what it is with pizzas and it definitely wouldn’t set the world on fire if you decide to start adding subs but I do think it is worth have a fairly decent variety of items to sell customers so you can satisfy those families that may want different things. Someone mentioned wings and them maybe not being worth it, I agree that wings are terrible for making money, but I also feel they are great add ons that customers generally want and expect to see, at least around here.
I went and looked at our sales breakdowns of things. As stated also a DELCO not open for lunch.
I used to sell breadsticks and they weren’t really selling that well. I swapped them out with Garlic Knots and now they are right behind mozzarella sticks in sales.
I love selling Garlic Knots! We typically use dough we would probably throw away. They take 15-20 minutes of prep time including parbaking them for a whole day. We put them in a foil container that costs $0.25 and sell them for $6 for a small and $9 for a large. As Steve Martin said in The Jerk, “It’s one of those profit deals.”
Subs are a big seller for us, but they are the worst.
Subs are 20% of sales
Sub or wrap?
Toasted or cold?
American, provolone, Swiss, Cheddar?
Which condiments?
What would you like for veggies there are over 10
At most we make about $4.50 on a sub sale. There are so many chances to make a mistake.
Everyone loves steak and cheese subs but even at 10oz of steak at over $5lb the sub still looks weak on our 12” roll, we cant go down in size, customers already think theyre are paying too much for a sub if its over $10
The customer thinks they’re getting robbed, I think im getting robbed. Sometimes I just want to say why bother and get rid of them.
What is your total sales and breakdown for the current menu? I’d say great add-ons are deserts that are pre made like brownies, cheesecake, or cannolis.
I think, in regards to your hoagies (subs), you just need to price it where you want it to be. If they want it, they’ll buy it. Subs aren’t an add on, they are a meal and should be priced accordingly. Mine will be 11.99 by year end
Soda: 1%
Breadstick and dips: 10%
Pizza (not including combos or slices) 57%
Combos: 11%
Salads: 6%
Subs: 5%
Wings: 4% (growing a bit)
Ribs: 4% (recently introduced after a pause due to costs)
