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Closing on Sundays

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Trok198

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Recently a good friend in the business told me starting in September that he is going to start closing on sundays permanently and that he has a few other friends in the business that have done the same already and within a month there weekly sales we’re back to where they were before closing on Sunday’s. To me this logically doesn’t make sense from a sales perspective but when I analyzed things further it might make sense for me to close at least 1 of my 3 stores. The store I’m thinking of closing does about 2k in sales on sundays and is in the same town as one of my other locations which does 4k plus on Sunday’s. I’d expect that store to see a bump in sales as well on sundays.
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My thinking on the matter is I free up 50 labor hours to spread out at my other 2 locations because 50% of my staff floats between the 3 stores anyways. Plus if I just get 40-50% of my Sunday sales back on my other days without increasing my payroll I’ll still come out ahead factoring in overtime on sundays. Like most of you I’m sure staffing on weekends isn’t the easiest and people tend to call out the most on sundays anyway.

I’m going to wait and see how it goes for him before pulling the trigger but I wanted to come on here and get some other peoples opinion on the matter. Closing all 3 stores on Sunday’s while keeping sales/profit roughly the same just seems too good to be true.
 
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But will your customers see a decline in service and higher wait times?

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Steve said:
But will your customers see a decline in service and higher wait times?

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I’m assuming your referring to my other location being busier on Sunday’s. I would adjust my staffing accordingly but I tend to slightly over staff and just send them home early. So to answer your question service wouldn’t decline and wait times would change much. What would change is I would have more managers at my disposal to deploy at my other locations so I’d have better staffing.
 
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bodegahwy said:
You allow employees to do that?
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I wouldn’t say allow but it does happen from time to time. Regardless that’s not the point of this thread I was mostly looking for insight on the idea of closing sundays and how it impacts sales.
 
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In 2016 I started closing on
Sundays. I loved it. As an owner operator it made me feel like I was part of the real world again I atleast had one weekend day off (the lousier one but hey) also it gave me a leg up attracting new employees. Also I didnt have to juggle as many days off for the employees bc I knew they would atleast have Sunday.
My sales never slid infact they blew up. My Friday and Saturday became crazy busy to the point I had to add people on Friday and Saturday.
 
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We close during the summer months. But during football season we are open 12-8. Those 8 hours are equivalent to a 12 hour Wednesday in sales.

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Interesting thread. Have never considered closing 1 day a week. Never thought that sales would increase to compensate for it on the other days. Let us know if you make the change and that it does, in fact happen for you.
 
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Trok198 said:
Recently a good friend in the business told me starting in September that he is going to start closing on sundays permanently and that he has a few other friends in the business that have done the same already and within a month there weekly sales we’re back to where they were before closing on Sunday’s. To me this logically doesn’t make sense from a sales perspective but when I analyzed things further it might make sense for me to close at least 1 of my 3 stores. The store I’m thinking of closing does about 2k in sales on sundays and is in the same town as one of my other locations which does 4k plus on Sunday’s. I’d expect that store to see a bump in sales as well on sundays.
Code: 
My thinking on the matter is I free up 50 labor hours to spread out at my other 2 locations because 50% of my staff floats between the 3 stores anyways. Plus if I just get 40-50% of my Sunday sales back on my other days without increasing my payroll I’ll still come out ahead factoring in overtime on sundays. Like most of you I’m sure staffing on weekends isn’t the easiest and people tend to call out the most on sundays anyway.

I’m going to wait and see how it goes for him before pulling the trigger but I wanted to come on here and get some other peoples opinion on the matter. Closing all 3 stores on Sunday’s while keeping sales/profit roughly the same just seems too good to be true.
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This would only be an option to me if I had nobody else to run the store when I wasn’t there, but it sounds like you have management in place. I feel being consistantly available is a big part of earning life long customers. The last thing I want to do is send one of my customers elsewhere when they want pizza.

Also, maybe it’s different elsewhere, but for us Sunday is typically our 3rd busiest day. If I were to close a day it would be Monday or Tuesday.
 
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Mondo said:
This would only be an option to me if I had nobody else to run the store when I wasn’t there, but it sounds like you have management in place. I feel being consistantly available is a big part of earning life long customers. The last thing I want to do is send one of my customers elsewhere when they want pizza.

Also, maybe it’s different elsewhere, but for us Sunday is typically our 3rd busiest day. If I were to close a day it would be Monday or Tuesday.
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I agree with you about Mondays instead of Sundays. Sundays tend to be busier than Mondays in most cases and at least equal to Tuesday’s sales if not more. (That depends on location of course but I’m referring to shops being out in the sticks!). I also agree that if I had to choose between closing for a day or replacing myself with a manager, I would go with the manager option just to keep the store open.

Either way, if my customers were going to competitors ONLY on the day I’m closed, I wouldn’t worry about it as long as they’re coming back when I’m open. The competitor should be worried instead that they can only serve my customers on the day I’m closed! Lol

But there are many factors to decide if you’re going to close shop for a day and which day will that be…
 
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December said:
In 2016 I started closing on
Sundays. I loved it. As an owner operator it made me feel like I was part of the real world again I atleast had one weekend day off (the lousier one but hey) also it gave me a leg up attracting new employees. Also I didnt have to juggle as many days off for the employees bc I knew they would atleast have Sunday.
My sales never slid infact they blew up. My Friday and Saturday became crazy busy to the point I had to add people on Friday and Saturday.
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I agree with you about Mondays instead of Sundays. Sundays tend to be busier than Mondays in most cases and at least equal to Tuesday’s sales if not more. (That depends on location of course but I’m referring to shops being out in the sticks!). I also agree that if I had to choose between closing for a day or replacing myself with a manager, I would go with the manager option just to keep the store open.

Either way, if my customers were going to competitors ONLY on the day I’m closed, I wouldn’t worry about it as long as they’re coming back when I’m open. The competitor should be worried instead that they can only serve my customers on the day I’m closed! Lol

But there are many factors to decide if you’re going to close shop for a day and which day will that be…
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Obviously Monday or Tuesday would makes the most sense from a sales perspective and logically I couldn’t agree more. Sundays are my most difficult day to staff and sales wise they’re about 10% slower than my Wednesday’s and Thursday’s. I do have the management in place currently but the enticing part is I would be able to improve my staff on the other days and rotate managers on Sunday’s at my busier store which is only 4 miles away and in the same town. Also if what I’m hearing is true at these other pizzerias that they closed Sunday and sales for the week stayed the same obviously I’m picking closing a weekend day over a Monday which everyone doesn’t mind working anyways.
 
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This has been on my mind the last few years. I’m afraid to pull the trigger.

Recently , my competitor started closing Sunday’s. My Sunday sales jumped 25% .
Months ago , another competitor closed on Monday’s. My Monday sales jumped 50%.

I’ve always had the mindset: If I close a day , there’s a good chance your customers will try elsewhere and leave for good , whatever the reason .

If I did close on Sunday, it would really solve my staffing issues.

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At the risk of oversimplification- you have to prioritize. Sales, staffing, cash flow, competitors…
 
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We started closing Sundays 18yrs ago…It has worked for us as owner operators, but I do think you have to offer a superior product & service in order for this to work otherwise you are just giving away sales. For us it has been a HUGE reason for our success. It allows us to keep a consistent staff the remaining 6 days and everyone has that “light at the end of the tunnel” each week, especially ME! Married with 3 young kids allows me to be somewhat normal on the day most families spend together is PRICELESS. There was a time about 10yrs ago when we got scared since there were a few new places opening at the same time which caused us to panic. We decided to open for dinner, but that last only for a few weeks since the feedback we received was negative that many of our regulars respected the fact that we chose to close on Sundays for family over profit. We also realized quickly that we in effect “trained” our customers over the approx those last 10yrs that we were not an option on Sundays and it would take a long time to reverse that thinking. My advice is to make your choice and DO NOT change whatever you decide to avoid confusion to your customers!
 
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