Evaluating delivery operations an essential step to a more efficient, productive delivery program When it comes to pizza delivery, Andy Hooper isn’t messing around. The president of the 41-unit fast casual & pizza chain, Hooper watched his Wash...

OK, new restaurant owners, if you’ve been following along, you made the right deal, opened your doors and designed a creative and delicious new menu. Now, you’re left with a bigger challenge — how to get people to walk in, and how to make the p...

Marketing makes your grand opening great Last month in this column, we discussed pulling off a “turnkey” — opening your recently purchased restaurant immediately. The location will be a work in progress for a little while, but at least the cash...

How customer data helps fuel results With New York on lockdown amid COVID-19, Brad Barnes ordered from his local pizza place every Thursday. Though Barnes had previously shared his e-mail and mobile number with the pizzeria, the shop never once used ...

  Limited-time offers take on a new face We’ve entered uncharted territory in marketing during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Bill Vivian at Regents Pizzeria in La Jolla, California, has stated in a recent Checking In With video, “it’s like throwi...

Strike the Right Tone In the face of dwindling revenue and potentially debilitating circumstances, it’s hard to stay upbeat. Nonetheless, striking the right tone with your customer is vital. The time a customer will spend viewing your message is pr...

Of all the ideas to come out of the COVID-19 madness, my favorite by far has been the home pizza-making kit. With such severe restrictions on restaurant service, it’s become a powerful solution for staying connected to customers. Maybe you think it...

Now, more than ever, you need to set the standard When we first opened Andolini’s, developing our brand took time. We completely redid our logo six years after opening. We had to re-look at what our demo was and refocus our brand. Through all the c...

On March 20, Totonno’s, a nearly century-old pizzeria on New York’s Coney Island shut its doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic, its 1,800-square foot space consumed by darkness. “We’ll come back,” Totonno’s co-owner Antoinette Balzano continu...

Getting the word out about DELCO only As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded and restaurants closed their dining rooms to comply with state and local mandates, many turned to a delivery and carryout (DELCO) model only. Pizzerias had a head start in this tra...

Bottle It Up The start of the COVID-19 pandemic brought more than an abrupt halt to dine-in eating at many places; it also stirred a desire among pie lovers to help their local eatery and shop in new ways. For several weeks in March and April 2020, m...

What does a customer see when they view your brand online? When you walk through the front door to your restaurant, you get a glimpse of what the customer experiences. You see the debris, the grass growing out of the sidewalk, the neon light not turn...