Hi everyone,
Just looking for a little feedback. We are a mostly carry-out “pizza” shop that also sells paninis, various appetizers, coffee drinks, a full range of home-made gelatos and fresh-baked cookies (we bake’m fresh in under a minute).
I say “pizza” instead of pizza because through the first week, despite really encouraging reviews about the quality of our pizza, people seem far more enthralled with the gelato and cookies (hey, whatever sells, right?)
We are located in a strip mall with various small restaurants (Mexican, Chinese), a couple larger stores (Asian grocery, 99 cent store) and an array of this and that. We are removed from the busy street but have pretty good foot traffic. We’ve had people poking in for months asking us when we were going to be opening.
So we opened on Monday at 5pm (due to various snags) with no fanfare. We decided we were going to have a soft opening until everyone was trained up and felt comfortable with the job. We are figuring maybe 2-3 weeks should suffice. Our only form of advertising is facebook, where we have about 500 fans (probably 350 of which are various friends of owners/employees).
So after the smoke of the first week cleared, we had done a whopping $2500 in sales ($8 per ticket average). We started out pretty well on Monday and kept the average up Tuesday and Wednesday and then had a sharp drop-off on Thur/Fri/Sat before recovering to Tue/Wed levels on Sunday. Clearly, its too early to look for trends.
So here are a couple observations, issues and questions:
First, its clear that we are mostly foot-traffic driven due to lack of word-of-mouth and advertising. So our dinner sales are much lower than the rest of the day due to the center closing around 7pm.
Second, we would like to come up with a few high-yield way to increase traffic but in limited numbers. Right now, we have staff sitting around for 15-20 minutes between customers. That’s not helpful - but neither is having 10 people waiting to be served by a crew that can’t handle those numbers. So we want a way that we can control the flow a bit. We’ve done a bit of walking around the center with samples which has been well received. Any other suggestions? (Its a bit too early to start up with specials and true advertising … probably about 2 weeks away).
Third, we had our first issue with the neighborhood thugs (its not a bad area, but there are some projects nearby). Apparently one of our employees got into a beef with someone and then ducked into the store, promptly followed the … “undesirable” who of course started getting into it with the manager. Fortunately, it was quickly resolved without any problems but it became clear that this is something that could happen periodically. Also, we have, BY FAR, the nicest restaurant in the area (LCD menu boards, etc.) and it was obvious that our shiny toys were being “eyed.” We already have cameras up and a contract with a local protection service. We were also planning to put some very obvious signs on the front and back doors regarding the presence of cameras. Tomorrow, too, we are going to distribute fliers to the local police station (as well as fire houses) offering free coffee and 20% off any purchase (with the intention of throwing some free stuff to them as well when they come in). It was a bit disconcerting to be having these issues already … any further thoughts on how to dissuade the undesireables and keep the store as safe as possible for employees and customers?
Lastly, we need to come up with a better way of accounting for waste/freebies/etc. We have a nextgen POS (Point of Success) with their new inventory system. When we sell an item it automatically deducts from our inventory, which is great. Do you guys then just have a button for the non-sales usage or do you keep track of it another way?
Well, thats it for now. Long post. If you want to check us out on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vallejo-C … 515?ref=ts
We also have a website that needs lots of work, as well as a Yelp!, Urbanspoon and Twitter account which we haven’t really started pushing yet (really want to minimize the bad reviews to start!).
Sorry about the long post!!!
Just looking for a little feedback. We are a mostly carry-out “pizza” shop that also sells paninis, various appetizers, coffee drinks, a full range of home-made gelatos and fresh-baked cookies (we bake’m fresh in under a minute).
I say “pizza” instead of pizza because through the first week, despite really encouraging reviews about the quality of our pizza, people seem far more enthralled with the gelato and cookies (hey, whatever sells, right?)
We are located in a strip mall with various small restaurants (Mexican, Chinese), a couple larger stores (Asian grocery, 99 cent store) and an array of this and that. We are removed from the busy street but have pretty good foot traffic. We’ve had people poking in for months asking us when we were going to be opening.
So we opened on Monday at 5pm (due to various snags) with no fanfare. We decided we were going to have a soft opening until everyone was trained up and felt comfortable with the job. We are figuring maybe 2-3 weeks should suffice. Our only form of advertising is facebook, where we have about 500 fans (probably 350 of which are various friends of owners/employees).
So after the smoke of the first week cleared, we had done a whopping $2500 in sales ($8 per ticket average). We started out pretty well on Monday and kept the average up Tuesday and Wednesday and then had a sharp drop-off on Thur/Fri/Sat before recovering to Tue/Wed levels on Sunday. Clearly, its too early to look for trends.
So here are a couple observations, issues and questions:
First, its clear that we are mostly foot-traffic driven due to lack of word-of-mouth and advertising. So our dinner sales are much lower than the rest of the day due to the center closing around 7pm.
Second, we would like to come up with a few high-yield way to increase traffic but in limited numbers. Right now, we have staff sitting around for 15-20 minutes between customers. That’s not helpful - but neither is having 10 people waiting to be served by a crew that can’t handle those numbers. So we want a way that we can control the flow a bit. We’ve done a bit of walking around the center with samples which has been well received. Any other suggestions? (Its a bit too early to start up with specials and true advertising … probably about 2 weeks away).
Third, we had our first issue with the neighborhood thugs (its not a bad area, but there are some projects nearby). Apparently one of our employees got into a beef with someone and then ducked into the store, promptly followed the … “undesirable” who of course started getting into it with the manager. Fortunately, it was quickly resolved without any problems but it became clear that this is something that could happen periodically. Also, we have, BY FAR, the nicest restaurant in the area (LCD menu boards, etc.) and it was obvious that our shiny toys were being “eyed.” We already have cameras up and a contract with a local protection service. We were also planning to put some very obvious signs on the front and back doors regarding the presence of cameras. Tomorrow, too, we are going to distribute fliers to the local police station (as well as fire houses) offering free coffee and 20% off any purchase (with the intention of throwing some free stuff to them as well when they come in). It was a bit disconcerting to be having these issues already … any further thoughts on how to dissuade the undesireables and keep the store as safe as possible for employees and customers?
Lastly, we need to come up with a better way of accounting for waste/freebies/etc. We have a nextgen POS (Point of Success) with their new inventory system. When we sell an item it automatically deducts from our inventory, which is great. Do you guys then just have a button for the non-sales usage or do you keep track of it another way?
Well, thats it for now. Long post. If you want to check us out on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vallejo-C … 515?ref=ts
We also have a website that needs lots of work, as well as a Yelp!, Urbanspoon and Twitter account which we haven’t really started pushing yet (really want to minimize the bad reviews to start!).
Sorry about the long post!!!
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