Twice in the last four Fridays we have had a young christian fellowship group come to our store around 10pm for pizzas. The first one I was away for the weekend and about 40 came in and spent nearly $450 They were lining up chatting until their order was taken while those who were served were singing along to one of them who had a guitar with him. Only daughter/manager and a driver were on duty at the time so it was pretty hectic for them.
This past Friday around the same time the group came in but this time there was close to 60 of them and spent close to $600 in a 40 minute period. This time it was my driver and me on duty - him taking the orders and me making and cutting. We made 30 odd pizzas and sold heaps of drinks and chocolate bars. The place was packed with them lining up out the door to be served and again singing to a guitar player. Every order was in their hand no later than 10 minutes after placing the order. From taking the first order to the last getting their pizzas was 35 minutes.
Talking with some of them I learnt their congregation is about 1600 people ( one of these new evangilistic type churches).
I am considering speaking with the pastor first to mention how the young ones came in and how well behaved and polite they were and secondly to seek his assistance to distribute a “specials” card to the congregation with a free drink offer with any large pizza ordered. I am looking a plastic credit card type card with our logo, phone number and waht ever we decide to name the card on the front with the special offer on the back with our address and web site details included. My son can get good print rates for me as he has started his own printing company (brokerage) so I am thinking of a couple of thousand cards which I can use with sporting or other organisations (hospital staff, nursing home staff, large buisnesses etc) as well.
It appears that these young people (17 - 20 year olds) will be coming in every 3rd Friday after the youth nights so we don’t need to give anything away, but the way I am looking at it is to keep them coming back and then to try and capture some of the congregation as well. With the young ones we are the only pizza place outside of Dominos that is open at this time of night and the only pizza place with a large enough area to hold the 60 or so who came in allbeit they were standing shoulder to shoulder. We are the only food outlet with heaps of parking in close proximity to the church and one of the only open.
Another plus with having them filling the shop is that they are in the shop as they last of the cinema crowd is leaving and walking past our shop to get to their cars. It shows the shop as being extremely popular and may entice non customers to try us so the benefit is their to entice the church youth to come more often.
I don’t see the need to offer anything big as a deal as the young ones will come in anyway but any other ideas would be appreciated.
Dave