Do you know how to maximize your local marketing? Clayton Krueger has no shortage of opportunities to spend money. As the director of marketing for Farrelli’s Wood Fire Pizza, a 20-year-old, seven-store chain in the Tacoma, Washington, area, Kruege...

Relationships are invaluable to a restaurant’s success. It is a no-brainer that the relationships between management and staff, staff and customer and restaurant and supplier need to be strong in order for a restaurant to keep its doors open. And r...

Honing marketing efforts to a geographic radius reaps rewards Loyalty is not given, it is earned. You gain frequency with the quality and consistency of your product, your customer service and your overall dining experience. Your approach to marketin...

Do you have the right insurance coverage for your operation? Owning a business is an act of calculated risk. To make the most of your investment, proper insurance coverage is absolutely necessary. Without it, a customer who breaks a tooth or a fire i...

Do you know the law when it comes to hiring immigrants?   Hiring a worker who is not legally authorized to work in the U.S. is likely only to bring hassles for pizzeria owners. Those costly and time-consuming troubles could include an audit, whi...

Remote monitoring can reduce losses, heighten efficiencies and increase the bottom line Suspect an ongoing issue with internal theft, shrinkage or sweethearting? Curious if staff members are following store procedures around closing, food handling or...

Merchandising matters, so choose wisely   I realized last week while folding a load of laundry that at least 80 percent of my t-shirt collection is pizza-related. Some have catchy phrases or images and others are from pizzerias I’ve visited ov...

Don’t make these Department of Labor mistakes   In the May issue of Pizza Today we discussed how easy it is for pizzeria operators to run afoul of Department of Labor (DOL) regulations, despite all good intentions to the contrary. With DOL aud...

What restaurants need to know about EMV and the looming liability shift   Take notice, pizzerias, the EMV liability shift deadline looms. This October, restaurants must be equipped to accept EMV cards –– an acronym for Europay, MasterCard an...

How to avoid unwanted attention by the Department of Labor   There’s good attention and then there’s bad attention, and getting noticed by the Department of Labor falls under the latter category, which is why most smart pizzeria operators ta...

How will minimum-wage increases affect pizzeria operations?   On January 1, Rhode Island’s hourly minimum wage jumped from $8 to $9. The Ocean State’s third minimum wage increase in three years, the New Year’s Day mandate sparked a hefty s...

Hiring, scheduling and retaining a predominantly part-time staff Are your part-time employees as productive, reliable and loyal as your full-timers? With so many workers holding down multiple jobs, younger employees balancing work and school and the ...