Promise Times

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

Hello,

Seeking feedback from those using deck ovens and opening by hand. What is your quoted promise/wait time for Pies on a Fri/Sat night?

Also… We currently do not offer delivery. Our focus has been on building our new brand around providing local families their local go to dine in Pizzeria. We are luckily now at dine-in/turn capacity on Thur-Sun.
We serve 18" thin crust Pies and by the slice. We have a lot of requests for delivery, but don’t want to jeapordize quality. Could be way off with my thinking, but I know our Pie simply does not deliver well. Am I wrong for not wanting to offer delivery due to quality concerns?

2

Do you not offer pizza to go as well? With the use of delivery bags, you should be able to get your pizza into someones house hotter, fresher and better than it would be if the customer picked it up at your store to bring home.

3

We quote 45 minutes on average during peak hours. There are days when it’s well over an hour; holidays and what not. We’ve quoted as high as 3 1/2 hours, but that wasn’t a normal day at all… surprising how many people are willing to wait that long.

As far as delivery, this is my opinion…

Are you happy with where your business is? Are you making enough money (some say there is never enough) to be financially stable? Have you pushed the limits of stress yet to where you’ll probably die early? These are just a few things that I ask myself when I take on new things that are decent sized changes.

I have one location that I kick myself for adding delivery. Worked perfectly fine without it. Everyone was picking their own food up just fine. Sure, we added the convenience to some of these customers and some of them started getting it delivered but we’ve added the overhead and stresses of delivering.

When you add delivery you then have things to worry about that are out of your hands. Car accidents (in$urance), drivers doing shit they aren’t suppose to be doing (another delivery driver caught selling drugs last week I think?) etc.

Also, drivers, for me at least, also seem to be the most problematic staff members out of my entire crew. They never seem to be happy even on days where they make 500 in tips. “Why should I have to take this back to the customer when the kitchen screwed up the order? Is the company going to double my commission for me going back?”… This is the mentality these guys get after time. They feel they are owed everything. User mileage may vary as far as the above go, but I have a feeling it’s not just me with these troubles.

That said, delivery works. Obviously no doubt about that, or else it wouldn’t exist. It can potentially add more profit as well, but this isn’t always guaranteed true, especially for the first (month, year, etc) of implementing it. It can take time and/or major advertising for people to even know you deliver.

Jeez looking back, everything I said seems negative. It really isn’t. I mean, we deliver and our locations… I guess my main point is pretty simple:

You don’t have to deliver to make it, especially if you’re making it without delivery.

PS

After I submitted this I realized that anyone reading should understand that what I said is for guys like us who are dine-in establishments. Not offering delivery at your delco concept is most likely a terrible idea.

4

I would be very rare for us to go over 30 minutes as a pickup time. During our busiest weeks in the crush we might hit 40 minutes. Most of the time we are around 20 minutes. We are a delco operation with conveyor ovens.

5

We give 30min pick up times often, at least 3 nights a week. It really doesnt do much, most of the time someone else is picking up the food. They stroll in 5 minutes after the order was placed not knowing what was ordered or the name given, they say ‘Hi im picking up the order for either Mark, Mary, or it could be John.’ So im trying to find their order in the choas, come to find the order was just placed and it was put under the name Smith.

6

Would there be Neo by chance ? :smiley:

7

We get this often, this is one area that speedline is very good in. We simply go under “tickets” and start searching any item they ordered and it narrows down your field. Also, it shows their phone number so you can say “is it the number ending in 9876?” But I guess this is off topic from the original post.

I can’t imagine not having delivery. It’s typically a higher average ticket, however there are costs that you factor in and some you don’t as @noreason pointed out (delivery insurance). You may need to get a quote on what delivery insurance may cost and factor in labor to find your monthly/weekly/daily breakeven point to see if adding is worth it now, in the future, or never

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

8

I am not an advocate of delivery. If it can be avoided in any way I recommend doing so. I’ve yet to see a decent pizza that was delivered further away than across the street from the pizzeria, and even then I wouldn’t take any bets on it. You will save on space and insurance hassles by avoiding it if you can. Instead, do a “will call / curbside pick up” . This is what has been done at AJ’s here in Manhattan, Kansas and they have garnered several “best pizza” awards (in contention for another one this year) and also opening third store, so it can’t be all that bad for business. Yes, there was initially some push back because they didn’t provide delivery but now the customers accept it and believe it or not, AJ’s is developing something of a cult following based on the outstanding quality of their pizzas…why detract from the quality of a great pizza with delivery?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

9

So a customer that picks up their pizza and puts it on their seat will receive a better product than one that gets a pizza delivered in a hot bag by a driver? Especially customers that show up 30 minutes after ordering when we quote them 15? I don’t buy that. Of course, a pizza placed down at your table is going to be better than a pizza put in a box and picked up / delivered any day. But not everyone wants to / has time to / can afford to dine in.

10

Ha Ha… that is my life! Or was.
At one point I wanted to offer a discount if people could just use the same name (or at least KNEW the name when asked) the order was placed under.! Jeez!
Opening a new place right now… delivery is not in the plan but might be added in a year or so for a TINY downtown radius- like 1/2 mile… MAX.
Hoping to avoid it altogether, though.