Wow, I didn’t think your prices were too out of line until I realized that your “large” is a 16". I’m at $14.99 for a 16" cheese. Now, I’m in a very high rent “wealthy” area, but there’s still a long way between our prices.
Pjcampbell pointed out that there’s $1.50 missing from your cost on your cheese pizza (and that was without a box), but I’m sure you’re not selling 100% cheese pizzas. Setting your prices based on the cost of a cheese pizza could leave you in a lot of trouble. Not sure about you, but I know we have toppings that run an 80% food cost. Those are of course offset by the cheap ones, but the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Your base prices are too low, but I think there are a lot of problems with your specialty pizza prices. You use some rather expensive toppings on those babies! With all of your specialty pizzas priced exactly the same, I don’t think you’ve sat down to really explore what the costs are on those things.
Look at your Cheeseburger pizza. I’m estimating here, let me know if I’m way off:
Dough - .50
Cheese - 1.39
Sauce - .20
Beef - .66 (at $2.00/lb… that’s what I pay for 80/20. When you say “lean”, I’m guessing you pay more than that)
Bacon - .50
Extra Cheese - .42 (at 30% extra)
Box - .55
$4.22 in total cost… that’s 30.16%. That assumes no waste and no discounting. Throw in those plus the rest of your paper costs and there’s your 35%.
Now take a look at your Steak pizza. I bet you’re over 40% for that pizza. Those two should not have the same price.
There’s probably lots of places you can save on some food cost (such as chopping your own veggies, shredding your own cheese, etc) but the first place you need to look is your pricing. If you calculate your price per square inch, you’re not much higher than Little Caesars, and probably cheaper than Domino’s, Godfather’s, et al. Judging from your website you’re offering a more “gourmet” pizza; your pricing should not be in line with the “cheap” chains.
I remember a guy posting on the old TT three or four years ago with profit problems. He was doing $6,000 per week and was bleeding cash. The consensus solution was that he would be better off mailing $1.00 to each of his customers every month to not order. After food and labor he was losing more than $1.00 on every order. He apparently had never sat down to look at his food costs. I’m not saying that you’re anywhere near that, but the problem was the same: he wasn’t charging enough.
I know it’s scary to raise prices, but you have to take the plunge. I can almost guarantee you won’t hear more than 1 or 2 comments about it. Now is a great time, because rising food costs are all over the media and people will understand.