closing for lunch

[twodadspizza]

closing at lunch??? how bad will it effect my biz…lunch is not very busy ben thee for 3 years.is it a waste of payroll and utilities? please need help thank you

 

[bodegahwy]

I am sure every business is different, but in my store, we need to have somebody in the shop doing prep anyway, so adding a driver and taking orders is just free money. During some parts of the year we have to add another person to get both the lunch business and the prep completed. At other times, the crew is doing crossword puzzles by 3PM. What value consistancy?

The other way to look at this issue is how to build the lunch business. We all know from the industry that the business is there. Why isn’t your shop getting it?

 

[Pizza_of_the_Month]

I don’t think closing for lunch will affect your dinner business if that is what you are asking. You need to decide if it is worth being open. If you want you should look over your hourly sales and see if you are making money. If you are not making that much than you should cut the hours.

 

[Piper]

bodegahwy:

The other way to look at this issue is how to build the lunch business. We all know from the industry that the business is there. Why isn’t your shop getting it?

He could, like me, be in a horrible location for lunch business. Getting to the main business district from my store is about a 5-7 minute drive. That’s a long way for a lunch customer to drive when they have 40 restaurants within walking distance.

But like you said, I would have somebody here prepping for dinner anyway… might as well throw on the open sign and try to make enough money to cover the labor. I only average about $200 for lunch on Mon-Fri, but it pays for all of the prep labor. Since those people would be there anyway, closing would cost me $1,000 per week! I don’t think I want a $52,000/yr reduction in pay.

 

[Wizzle_Wassell]

I’m with the guys above. Some days I wonder ‘why oh why’ we open for lunch then other days wonder why I only have one driver on. Its can be very hit and miss but over the week I’m at least 1,000 in sales for the week per shop.

It also means that:

a) we get the all prep done
b) we get loads of boxes done
c) we get loads of cleaning done (hoods, sometime we break the oven down) etc etc all jobs that have to be done at some point
d) we get the driver out door hanging or other marketing activities.

 

[Napoli_Pizza]

As a compromise, we deliver on 11-2 and 5-close, so I can get the driver off the clock in the middle.

We also were in a poor location for lunch, but by offering $6 lunch specials, over the years we have built a decent lunch crowd