Do a soft opening first, then after you feel comfortable in your shoes possibly consider an announced (grand) opening. Don’t try to awe people with a huge menu, do just a few things but do them very well and then add to the menu as you get more comfortable and your people become more proficient. Above all else, do not discount your pizzas, if you need to do a “special” bundle your pizza with something else like a soft drink or order of breadsticks/garlic knots, etc. Identify the slowest night of the week and offer a special only for that night, in this case I like to develop a different pizza that is only available on that one night. Sometimes it is just a deep-dish pizza, other times it can be more of a Nepolitan style pizza made with fresh tomato slices instead of the more common sauce flavored with sliced fresh garlic, fresh basil (not the dried stuff) and hand torn Mozzarella. I also do a seafood pizza on those slow nights too, just use Alfredo sauce, pieces of fresh, firm white flesh fish, popcorn shrimp, maybe a few clams, and gernish with fresh tomato, onion, and fresh dill weed. For cheese use just a little shredded Mozzarella and a little shredded Parmesan. These are down the road for you right now, but I just wanted to give you some ideas to play with a few months form now.
Good luck with your first store.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
