This is my first superbowl any advice. What does everyone do to advertise and any ideas on specials promotions that have worked well for you
Last year was my first Superbowl, and I thought it was going to be huge. Worked for two days on prep and had double staff in place, it turned out to be only around a slight improvement over a normal Sunday. I was disappointed, until I thought about the fact that I have never ordered pizza for a superbowl party, we always grilled and made apps at home.
4 or 5 of my competitors had full page ads running in that weekends newspaper. I assume they will do the same thing this year and I’ll just let them fight it out. Really, how many discounted pizzas do you have to sell just to cover that $500 ad?
This will be my 10th Superbowl and it has always been my busiest day of the year. I don’t do any advertising or discounting besides my normal everyday specials. It’s hard to keep up with all of the orders as it is. If I did additional advertising for Superbowl, we would not be able to handle it and there would be a lot of unsatisfied customers. We normally do 6x the amount of sales of a normal Sunday. I don’t feel that there is a need to discount because everyone is ordering that day regardless and like I said, we are already pushed to the limits as far as how much business we can handle.
The hardest part about Superbowl is that everyone wants their food at pretty much the same time: The first 2 hours prior to kickoff and then again at halftime. My advice is to make sure all of the prep work is done ahead of time. I pre cook around 10 cases of chicken wings and then just throw them down for a few minutes when the orders come in. This is the only way that I’ve been able to keep up with them. Wings have always been the thing that has slowed us down in the past. We also sauce and cheese as many pizzas that we have room for ahead of time as well.
Another piece of advice would be to make sure you have enough employees and assign everyone a specific job. I have my drivers, order takers at the phone station, 2 people at the pizza station (one making pizzas, the other cutting, boxing, and labeling), 2 people at the wing station (1 cooking wings and the other saucing and packaging), and a person expediting and cashing out customers. When it starts to slow down I send employees home early.
Good luck and hopefully Superbowl goes smooth for you and brings you lots of sales!
This will be our 21st SuperBowl. Yes it is busy but its not anywhere near the the busiest day of the year. Its usually about the same as an average Friday. I am curious if the Super Bowl sales are different depending on what part of the country you are in. We are on the west coast where the game starts around 3:00pm. Our rush will start at 2:00 but we will be slow by 6:00. Normally our rush is from 4 to 8. How does this affect you East Coasters where the game starts at 6:00? The big chains always talk about Super Bowl Sunday being the busiest day of the year but its not even in our top 50.
Superbowl is a good day for me but not great. It is crazy busy before the game and then totally dead while the game is on. It kind of evens out if you know what I mean.
its a friday sales unless the colts play if so then wow
Its a regular sunday for me, just condensed into half the time. I could close up at kick-off, but I usually hang on till the start of the 3rd quarter, then call it a night.
We run package specials that serve 8-10 or 18-20. mostly wings, chicken parm 3 and 6 ft heros. Usually not that busy besides those orders.
In all of the different parts of PA and NY that I’ve lived in and worked during the Super Bowl I’ve never seen anything crazy.
Typically sales are 10%-15% higher than an average Sunday.
It’s really not as big a deal as I think it should/could be anymore for us. I think a few customers have figured out that it’s just not possible for everyone in town to get a pizza delivered right at kickoff. For us it’s a rush at kickoff, a mini rush at halftime and then it’s time to send everyone home.
For the past couple of years we’ve talked about running a Super Bowl special for Take & Bake pizzas. The thought is that we could encourage customers to purchase pizzas on Saturday or Sunday afternoon so that they could “have their pizza ready right at kickoff.” I doubt it would reduce the “kickoff crush,” but it may get some of the customers that order giant subs at Subway and supermarket-deli food (you know - people that plan ahead) to think pizza again.
Anyone thoughts on the take & bake idea?
Better get ready.
we are anticipating huge numbers