Festrival/Faire Season: pricing slices

The cost of goods topic on slices renewed my finalizing pricing for a venture. Since it is festival and fair season all over the country, I thought I’d run a thread here.

Considering a 6-cut of cheese only 16" pizza that costs me $3.00 for whole pie and $.50 for slice . . . I am planning to set a festival at price of $3 each? Other thought is $2.50 each. At the lower price, I gotta keep a steady supply of quarters on hand . . . buy a box of them at the bank. I would also sell pepperoni slices at $3.00. Any input on this? Am I on the right track or leaving money on the table?

I expect to sell about 100 to 120 pizzas that weekend. So, 2.50 each gives me $15 per pie (gross) . . . and $3 per slice gives me $18 per pie. $3.50 would yield $21 total per. I just don’t know where the break will fall in making more money per slice, but costing me additional sales and dropping my final return. Arggh! They are advertising about 15,000 attendees . . . about 20 food vendors.

With no other input, I am going with 2.50 for cheese and 3.00 for pepperoni . . . . and 4.00 for 4 ounces of meatballs in sauce in a cardboard boat.

Nick,

Sell them both for $3.00

$3.00 pepperoni
$3.00 Extra Cheesy

That’s the sort of entrepreneurial insight I needed: 3-cheese slices and pepperoni & cheese slices. A little extra cheese on the cheese ones, and there you go. Marketability. Maximizes the profit and minimizes the point of sale logistics. Puts my food costs at about 19%, so I think I will be seen as a good festival value.

$3 might just work. $18.00 for a normally-priced $12 pizza is good ‘bonus’ return.

The advice you are getting is correct. $3 is the way to go (unless you want to go with $4) Festival fast food is about tasty and fast. When burgers and Giros are $8, a slice can sell for $4 no problem. Another possibility is $5 and slice the pie in 4 pieces. Raises the average sale overall and really speeds up the till.

I would certainly suggest that you also have a multi-topping pie for an extra dollar a slice. The upsell will increase your overall take nicely.

People will choose cheese or pepperoni according to what they like, not price.

Maybe you could package a drink into the deal and sell them both for $5. Have cans of pop and water on ice. People aren’t looking at price so much as what they want, and if you make it really simple the line will scoot through quickly.

Do you have a hot box to keep the pizzas warm? I’m curious about getting into the Fair/Festival game with little trouble.

I do have a great setup. We are within 4 feet of an outdoor 220V outlet . . . and we will be bringing our Alto Shaam warming/proofing cabinet to the festival. A pan of hot water on the bottom for a little bit of humidity to keep the cheese from skinning over so badly, and we should be in hog heaven. Top and bottom compartments will give plenty of room for pies, and also pans of meatballs. We’ll also have table top food warmer for serving the meatballs from.

We do have SOME flexibility to sell drinks. There are a few restrictions, but we will take as much advantage as we can of that drink/slice combo idea.

I just a festival and did $3.00 slices (Deep pan slices Cheese ,Sausage, or Pepperoni), $1.00 can sodas, and $2.00 water. I didnt want to mess with the quarters so we kept it even. Also the waters outsold the pop 2-1. We were the best value at the fest and it was lots of fun to meet many delivery customers that I never see.

Good luck,

I would also offer whole pizzas for $15 or so, as I’d much rather sell 6 slices at a time than handle each slice individually (but that’s just me).

I did a weekend last month at the mud races. We sold 14" cut in 6 for $4 a slice, canned pop was $1.50 and water $2. Sold 60 pies a day and could have sold more if it weren’t for that fact I had to drive the pies 5 miles. By the time the driver got back to the store they had to turn around and go back with the next load.

I sold cheese, pepperoni, pep and mushroom, and ham and pineapple. Pepperoni was most popular followed by pep and mushroom.

I took the display warmer from the store and used a generator for power to keep the pizzas in the safe zone. I got inspected by the health department too. I was the only vendor that did not have to make adjustments to the way things were done. The other places had to close for up to an hour to make the adjustments, so make sure you follow the health rules.

To really rock the house you need ovens. No driving around with pizza. No running out and waiting for the driver. If you really want to get in this business, go fully mobile.

My partner and I have talked about building a mobile kitchen down the road. Very expensive, but seems like a great marketing opportunity.

This could actually happen next year with the contract of a large propane tank and my blodgett oven coming off line from the kitchen. In this festival, 16 slice pies an hour should be plenty of capacity. That’s at least 96 slices and we can bake ahead for the rushes . . . use warming cabinet for the stockpile. I really want to see what we do this year and volume of sales we push through. That will give us our vision for upgrading next year.

The biggest value is, again, that we are being paid REAL money to market our business in a nearby community. It makes me laugh every time. Sure, we will work out butts off . . . but the exposure is almost priceless in this current market climate. ($75 booth fee each for pizza and meatballs)