As more customers take their pies to-go, pizzerias develop streamlined processes
The popularity of takeout and delivery has exploded in recent years. As consumers continue to stay in and order out for many of their meals, pizzerias have adapted. Many are doing more than setting up a table or counter space with a handwritten “Pickup Here” sign and are developing systems that make it easier than ever for customers to pick up their pies.
Third-party delivery services have made carryout convenient for customers and more complicated for restaurants. These services have also helped other non-pizza restaurants offer their food for at-home consumption, making the environment even more competitive. Pizzerias are challenged with perfecting their carryout and delivery processes, and making sure they get every order right.
Be visible
The pickup area must be easy to find inside the pizzeria, and should have an employee there for those orders. “Have an area that is easily accessible to customers the moment they come to your establishment,” says Anthony Scardino, owner of Professor Pizza, with two locations in Chicago.
At one location of Professor Pizza, the carryout area is at the front of the restaurant, next to the host stand. Most days, the stand is busy enough that one crew member is dedicated to working that station. The hot box cabinet is under the desk, so people are not able to walk up and help themselves to the finished orders. The POS system prints out tickets with adhesive on the back. “We just adhere it to the orders and refer back to those tickets when it comes time to hand out the pizzas,” Scardino says.
The adhesive tickets are one way to ensure the orders go to the right customer or delivery driver. In the event that someone gets the wrong order, Professor Pizza is quick to communicate with the person who picked up the food. Sometimes they are willing to come back and wait for the correct order. Other times the customer lets the pizzeria know that they received the wrong order, or part of the order, and the damage control begins. “Take responsibility even if it’s not your fault,” Scardino says. “At the end of the day they decided to spend their money on your pizzeria, and they could have spent money on literally any pizzeria in town.”
Prevent errors
Having systems in place can help staff assemble the carryout orders quickly and without errors. “The thing that makes the biggest difference is the prep side of it,” says Finley Hunt, who with his wife Amy owns Feral Pizza in Austin. “There almost isn’t too much preparation you can take.”
The pizza trailer does almost exclusively takeout business, and most of that is through online orders. When an order comes in, the crew bags the non-pizza items and sets those aside. When the pizza is ready, it’s easy to hand everything to the customer. “We also call back the order to the customer when we’re handing it to them,” Hunt says, “‘We have a pepperoni pizza, two ranches and a cookie,’ just to hopefully catch anything they bought and we missed.”
One way to prevent mistakes is to offer a limited menu. Although there are several options for build-your-own pizzas, additions and substitutions are not allowed on the specialty, or Feral Pies. Besides the pizza, the only other menu items are sides, which are small cups of Ranch dressing, red sauce or hot honey, and there are a few desserts.
In the early days Feral Pizza made mistakes and occasionally gave the wrong orders to people. “In the beginning we were taking phone numbers with orders, we misremembered who had which order,” Hunt says. “That was one pivot, that we make sure to take the name as well as the number to go with it.”
It helps to have the first and last name of the customer, as there are often duplicates. There was one day, Hunt says, that Feral Pizza had six different orders for people whose first or last name was Ryan, and another day with four Owens.
Embrace the technology
Third-party delivery services can help a pizzeria expand their reach without having to hire drivers, but the drivers can make the carryout area of the restaurant more crowded. That could cause confusion around which order belongs to which customer, and could lead to people picking up food that does not belong to them.
A simple way to prevent theft and confusion is not to leave the prepared orders within reach of drivers and customers. “You have to talk to the host to get your order,” says Mike Friedman, chef/owner of All-Purpose Pizzeria, with three locations in the Washington, D.C. area. “They have to show us the order on their phone. We don’t give an opportunity for them to grab the pizza.”
If a third-party driver delivers the wrong order and the customer calls All-Purpose Pizzeria, the pizzeria contacts the delivery company. “We call the support line and we make a new order, and we say, hey we need a credit. They know who the driver is. We are not responsible for that.”
To maintain good relations with the delivery company, Friedman recommends having someone in the restaurant who is responsible for learning the technology related to the third-party app. This tech-savvy worker should meet with the rep, and get to know the back end to the system such as how to add photos, how to incorporate the system with the pizzeria’s POS and other tasks.
The goal should be to make the ordering seamless for the customer and mistake-proof for the pizzeria. There is much work on the technology side to make sure the order comes in, the ticket goes to the kitchen and to the host stand, and the number on the ticket matches. “Then there is training,” Friedman says. “How do we greet the drivers, how does the product go from our hand to their driver, to the guest.”
Still, if there is a mistake, it doesn’t hurt to extend some goodwill to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty. “If they send a picture that looks like this pizza was dropped or turned over, maybe something slipped through the cracks,” Friedman says. “To make sure we keep that guest, make sure we provide hospitality, we give a gift card. A $25 gift card goes a long way.”
Nora Caley is a freelance writer who covers small business, finance and lifestyle topics.