Table of Contents

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 3

Evaluate What’s Working and What Needs Fixing ………………… 4

Costs and Investments …………………………………………………………….. 6

Creating a Buzz for Your Pizzeria ……………………………………………10

Final Thoughts ………………………………………………………………………….13

Introduction
Whether your pizzeria has been handed down from generation to generation, or is a brand new concept, serving up pies is big busi-ness. In fact, it’s estimated that 350 slices are eaten every second! If your restaurant aims to take a bigger bite out of that number, take a look at Revel’s Guide to Pizza. We’ll offer you practical suggestions and review the hottest trends in the industry. Continue on for a com-prehensive resource to help you sell more pizzas.

The world pizza market was worth
$144.6 billion in 2018, and according to PMQ Pizza Magazine, it’s only growing from there.

Evaluate what’s working and What Needs Fixing
It is important to analyze your business to get a full picture of the areas in which you excel and those with room for improvement. Additionally, taking a look at your business will help you map out future goals. To get a full picture of your performance and opportunities, you should:
Look at the Data
To get a pulse on your business, start by looking at your data. From sales and inventory re-ports to employee information and customer data, your numbers will offer a clear snapshot of how you’re doing.

Review your sales information for trends. Identify your best selling pies, and take a look at those that are not performing well. With robust reporting tools, you can ana-lyze every item on your menu, see what sells and what doesn’t, and swap items in and out of your menu based on historical performance. Only selling one shrimp and pineapple pizza a week? It may be time to take the tropical pie off your menu.
If you don’t keep track of your data, it’s time to consider investing in technology that tells you a story.

Listen to your customers
Are you using social media and review sites to take comments from your customers? If not, you should be! These sites are valuable tools for feedback and gaining new customers. Check the sites regularly to compile comments and make adjust-ments as needed. You can gain valuable and actionable insights about your busi-ness. Diners can be your best advocates, and when there is room for improvement, a source for vocal criticism. Monitor your reviews and take action!

Talk to your team
Give your employees the opportunity to provide constructive feedback. Whether through one-on-one meetings, group con-versations, or written surveys – your team may have suggestions for your business or information on why they love coming in every day.

Customer and employee insights allow restaurateurs to make informed operational changes for better business and —ultimately—higher profits.

Costs and Investments
In section one we covered the importance of understanding your current performance. An-other critical area to review is your spend. From necessities to nice-to-haves, analyzing your spend will help you identify places for improvement.
Inventory
Keeping a close eye on your inventory is critical to reducing your kitchen waste and maximiz-ing profits.
Make sure you calculate your weekly waste. Do you consistently have inventory that gets thrown away or expires? An intimate understanding of your inventory offers you the following benefits:

✓ Track expected use of inventory
✓ Decrease food waste
✓ Prevent over-ordering

✓ Prevent theft
✓ Check your financial health

nventory tracking can also help you answer questions like:
“Do we use the same amount of pepperoni in the summer as we do in the winter?”
“Do we really need to order more garlic? I think we have enough for the next few days.”
An inventory management tool takes the guesswork out of the equation and replaces it with data. With Revel, you have the ability to track the sales of your pizza down to the ingredient level. With every pizza sold, you know exactly how much cheese or how much meat was removed from your inventory in real time. Advances in inventory management technology give operators the confidence to know that the kitchen will always be stocked with the right ingredients.

Labor Costs
Labor costs are typically among the high-est costs of owning a restaurant, leading the list with rent. Restaurateurs commonly aim to keep labor costs between 20% and 30% of gross revenue. However, a full-ser-vice pizzeria will likely have a higher labor cost percentage than a casual dining piz-zeria since they employ more staff to pro-vide a higher level of service. So how do you control pizzeria labor costs?
Reduced Employee Turnover
Hold on to your great employees because they are valuable, and because it costs far more to hire new employees than to keep your current ones. An important factor in creating happy employees is ongoing sup-port. Offer proper onboarding, ongoing training, and advancement opportunities for your team.

Optimised Schedules
Labor scheduling is a challenging area for many restaurants. Either you have too many employees scheduled, or not enough staff to support a busy restaurant. Both scenari-os can cost you big bucks.
To reduce the negative impact of over- and under-staffing your business, use data to better understand and forecast your labor needs. With detailed sales and scheduling reports, you can keep an eye on the rela-tionship between your sales and your em-ployee costs.
Revel’s intuitive point of sale (POS) platform incorporates labor percentages based on the data you’ve entered, and displays a color-coded report so you’ll always know where you are in relationship to your goals. Take this data and apply it to your sched-uling. Are your Fridays packed? Schedule additional employees so you can provide the best service possible. Are Tuesdays a little slow? Shift your schedule to reduce your headcount during the slowest hours

Self-Service Kiosks
Drive customer service with self-service. While this may sound counter-intuitive, many customers enjoy total control over their experience. This creates an oppor-tunity for bars to implement self-service kiosks. Let your customers create the per-fect pizza, and they’ll keep coming back for more. Not only do customers get more control of their orders, with kiosks, your overall speed of service will improve as well. Quick service will make for delighted customers and, likely, higher sales.

Front-of-house and back-of-house technology are important to your business. Understanding the right technologies—and their costs—is something to consider early. Make sure you under-stand how technology can enhance your business.
Your POS, for example, is an important technology decision. Your business needs a POS that can handle the unique needs of a pizzeria. It should be capable of custom pizza orders, split bills, and keeping accurate reports of every action. Revel allows you to customize orders, create half-and-half pizzas, and seamlessly track your ingredient levels through integrated, real-time inventory management.

Creating a Buzz for Your Pizzeria
If you take a look at the inner workings of your business and find that you need a little some-thing extra to turn things around, check out some of these branding and marketing sugges-tions to help make your pizzaria the talk of the town..
Get Social
We mentioned earlier that you should be tuned into your reviews on social media in today’s atmosphere, you should also leverage social and review sites as a tool to engage current customers and connect with new ones.
Consider which channels make sense for you to utilize, and establish a strategy for who on your team will post- and how often- to maintain an active brand presence on the platforms. Encourage customers to help by leaving reviews, posting photos, and checking into their favorite spots.
Improve Your Restaurants
Presence

• Build a consistent experience across your social platforms. By adding high-quality photos to your Facebook, Instagram, and Yelp pages, you can put your best foot for-ward. Often, imagery can be the deciding factor in a new customer’s restaurant se-lection. Fill your profiles with mouth-water-ing photos of your pizza.

Decorate to Delight
Ready to take your brand a bit further? An increasingly popular trend in the industry is an uber-branded ambiance. Tiki bars, French coffee shops, and backyard BBQ joints have de-ployed elaborate interiors to match their restaurant themes. Perfect for drawing in social me-dia obsessed customers, delightful decor may also help your pizzeria pump up its appeal.
Whether you evoke a classic feel with white and red checkered tablecloths, a jukebox, and mood lighting, or go for an industrial vibe that evokes Chicago – a cohesive brand story has become an increasingly important aspect of a restaurant’s popularity.
Know Your Neighborhood
As you hone in your brand, remember to consider your location and location demographics to ensure your concept will resonate with the neighborhood. Whether your shop is doing $5 take-and-bake pizzas or gourmet pies, whole pizzas or by-the-slice offerings, a failure to recognize area demographics often makes it hard to survive. Be sure to consider factors like average income, family size, and walkability as you brand your business.

A cohesive brand story has become an increasingly important aspect of a restaurant’s popularity.

Technology for the Future
Another way to set your restaurant apart is through the adoption of new technology. Custom-ers are immersed in technology, and everything from AI products to mobile phones and smart watches present an opportunity to reach customers and encourage them to engage with your restaurant.
Beyond online and mobile ordering, the technology landscape is changing. Pizzerias are lead-ing the way for restaurants!
For example, voice ordering is primed to become a big part of the customer experience. Ease of use is increasingly important for ordering, and with technologies like Alexa and Google Home gaining popularity, we will likely see the adoption of voice-activated ordering in pizze-rias to keep up with current technology.
Self-driving vehicles may make their way into the industry. A key partnership to watch is Domino’s and Ford. The companies are currently testing self-driving delivery vehicles. And if pizzas aren’t autonomously driven, they could be flown to your front door. Domino’s partnered with Flirtey drone delivery service to test out a drone delivery program, and in 2016 a couple in Auckland became the first people to enjoy pizza flown to their door.
Pizzerias are even taking technology on the road. California based Zume Pizza uses robotics and artificial intelligence to make pizza en route to delivery destinations. According to a report by Business Insider, Zume’s automated kitchen makes 370 pizzas an hour and can fill orders and deliver in 5 to 20 minutes.