We are a pizza buffet, and because of the rain, we were busy like normal. Our business has shifted from slower weekdays to busier weekends.
We have many warehouses and factories that operate 24 hours. We do middle of the night and early morning orders quite a bit
normal. Seemed a little down. But was more drug out.
Nothing special. Our town does trick or treating in the downtown commercial district and most of the town turns out. This happens from 5PM-7PM and pretty much kills the night as virtually NO families are at home. It is certainly one of my personal favorite nights of the year in our town, but not great for my business.
Halloween at my original store was a top 5 day and a busy Thursday and Saturday led to my second best week ever. At my campus store we had the best night since I bought it three years ago by far and possibly the best night the store has ever done. The week was a large improvement over the best since we bought it. I brought in more flour, boxes and sauce than I ever had before and still had to shuffle more over from the other store.
For us in Montgomery County Maryland, this was the first time ever we have haloween on Friday and Public School was out(Professional Day For Teachers). All of our restaurants broke all company records.
I don’t understand why Halloween is so big for all you guys. Are you doing any special promotion? It has never been anything more than ho-hum for us. Often coming in below the average same day of the week for the time of year.
The only thing I did out of the ordinary was to post this on FaceBook.
[INDENT]We would like everyone to have a safe and happy Halloween. Since there will be hoards of ghosts, goblins, witches and what have you out on the streets, we will be asking our delivery drivers to slow down and be extra careful. For this reason we will not be quoting deliver times. We will get your order to you as quickly as we can SAFELY manage.[/INDENT]
Had a extremely busy Halloween, Almost 3x the business of last year. Ended up running out of dough but thankfully it was just before closing so that was fortunate
Glad to hear everyone was busy, halloween has always been the busiest day of the year for us.
Second being when the Seahawks play the 49ers and 3rd being new years eve and the day before turkey day
At my original store(half families, half students) we always get a very busy early dinner rush and stay busier than usual through dinner and well past the time that the dinner rush usually ends. The late night always rocks on Halloween as parties wind down. This year by 9PM we had more in sales that we usually close with on Fridays(we close at 4AM). From 9-4, we did another 50% of that. All this with only a couple extra staff members. We didn’t give our best service, but averaged 30 minute delivery times, compared to a normal friday of 24-25 minute times.
At my campus store(80% students, 20% families) our dinner rush was a little better than normal and our late night was nuts. On top of it all, it was the first day of a large punk rock festival held at multiple venues all around my store. We set up a tent and sold an extra 210 pizzas by the slice that night.
We are in a mostly residential area and nobody wants to cook prior to going out so it’s just easier to order a pizza.
Mine was a normal Friday night, nothing out of the ordinary.
Must be simple demographics. The rush hits about an hour earlier than normal and in mass quantity to get those kiddos off trick or treating.
That early rush used to be much more concentrated when daylight savings time changed before Halloween instead of the saturday after. I think that was changed in the late 2000’s. I remember being 40 tickets down hoping some of the five oclock staff would show up early.
You guys all rock!!
Now please explain why Halloween was such a huge flippin day for y’all.
The start of deer hunting, the week the snowmobile trails open, opening day for fishing, those are our days to get slaughtered… Halloween, not so much .
Pizza Pirate, all I can say is WOW!
We had a great Halloween! 200 orders at my take out only location and more at our locations with dining areas
Halloween has always been huge for any pizzeria I’ve ever been involved with, and when it lands on a Friday, you get that other crowd of people who were going to get pizza on Friday no matter what the day was. I don’t quite understand it, I never had pizza when I was a kid on Halloween. I’ll just echo what I read earlier in this thread, nobody wants to cook. Sort of like the day before Thanksgiving, which is pretty close to Halloween sales-wise except it will never land on a Friday so it’s a lot more predictable.
I remember a year at Domino’s when everyone on staff had to work Halloween - no questions asked - BECAUSE it’s typically the biggest night of the year. Being a teenager, I was bummed at first that I had to work that night but it turned out to be so much fun! Lots of the staff dressed up.
Did any of your staff come in costume? @jackaloo was rocking it.
I am just amazed. Halloween is so far from being the biggest day of the year for us. It is not even the biggest day in October and October is the second or third worst month of the year for us.