First, do not open until you have perfected the pizza. You can only do that once you settle on ingredients and practice in your own restaurant’s kitchen.
You need to know what dough you’ll use, which pepperoni, sausage, even fresh or canned mushrooms.
You should have a distributor lined up by now. Explain that you’re ready to get your toppings and sauce lined up. You need samples. Your rep can tell you what’s popular as well as what’s really good (to him). His version of “good” may not be driven by taste, but by profit, so expect a possible disconnect as you’re both trying to achieve different goals.
Honestly, by now you should have all of this figured out. If you need to go to the mfg and pay through the nose to have small quantities shipped to you, do it.
Be prepared to open the doors at least a week prior to being ready to start selling pizzas. Get in there and call your friends, your police station, your school, anyone you can. Explain that you’re getting prepared to open and you need some guinea pigs. In exchange for free pizza, you need their feedback. It’s very, very, VERY important that they understand that you’re using them for taste testing, and equally as important for you to leave them with a positive impression. So, during your testing day(s), you’re mostly a single-man operation. You put out different types of pizza and get their feedback. Explain that you will try to make what they want, but you need their flexibility. For instance, I am a canadian bacon and mushroom guy, but you can feed me anything that doesn’t have onions, peppers, or olives as I eat that stuff. I may not ORDER pepperoni pizza, but I know what tastes good.
Now, keep track of these folks that have helped you out. The night before you open, you invite every one of them back for a pre-opening party. This time, you have your full staff there, and you treat these people like kings. They get free food, exactly what they want, and they get to experience what your place WILL serve. You don’t want to leave them with the “it was okay, but the service was poor and I couldn’t get what I want” feeling. That was the testing phase. Now they’re going to experience what you WILL be selling. They may like a chewy crust and you may decide on a crispy crust, but when they’re talking to others about your place, they can tell them what you actually serve.
People love to feel important. You’ve used them to help you get your product quality under control and now you’ve thanked them with the final product. These people will be your advertising and will be happy to advertise for you, without you even asking.
Teachers are around students all day, cops are around the city all day, etc. These are people who come in contact with potential customers. The “buzz” of a new restaurant happens through advertising. If you hear a couple of people talking about “that new restaurant” and you’ve been there, do you not normally “excuse me” yourself right into the conversation?
On the party night, make sure you have menus available with prices. This lets the people know what your pricing structure is like. If you serve a $5 pizza and try to charge $15 for it, obviously your return on this “party” will be negative as “value” always has to come into play. You wouldn’t pay Outback prices at Golden Corral, would you?
