I bought some new pizza screens for use in my conveyor oven, but pizza keeps sticking to them. What is the problem? Before using new pizza screens, you need to spray them (make sure it’s an oil-based spray) and run them through the conveyo...

What are the advantages of portion control, or is it best to freehand? The biggest advantage of portion control is definitely food cost control. This is an area that many foodservice workers miss out on. Over-portioning can account for a la...

I’m not sure what I should expect to pay for rent. What percentage of my sales should rent account for? You really can’t know what your sales will be projected at until you find an appropriate space that is suitable for your concept. ...

I prefer using fresh vegetables on my pizza, but they have more water content and create a soggy pizza. Is there a solution to this problem? A: Yes, there is. I like fresh veggies too, and I solved that problem by using a Japanese breadcrumb. I find ...

I’m opening my first pizzeria and am building a freestanding unit. My question is: is it worth the extra construction expense to add a lobby/waiting area? I’m going to have 32 four-top tables and eight six-person booths. With a resta...

One of my first assignments as a consultant was to implement a turnaround for a group of pizzerias. They were hanging on by a thread. They had cashed in all of their CDs, 401ks and charged their credit cards to the max. I had made seve...

Right behind food cost is your second most expensive controllable expense: labor. Labor cost, or L/C, is usually referred to as a percentage of gross sales. I stayed on top of hourly labor like a hawk. My point of sale system served as my time clock ...

Independent operators get a failing grade on a huge issue: they do not have readable financial statements. For the moment, I won’t even consider the problem of getting information too late to be of any real help. Some operators just rely on the...

History tends to repeat itself. Ten years ago, I wrote an article regarding my personal experiences dealing with soaring delivery costs and associated expenses. Big Dave’s Pizza had a sales mix that approximately half dine-in and half delivery....

Big Dave Ostrander Crunch Time Remedy Cross training covers all your bases By Big Dave Ostrander Its late afternoon Friday. Within an hour, the phones will be ringing off the wall. Your best crew is checking and double checking stock levels and ...

The more your crew can do, the better your operation will run. In baseball, triple threats — players who can hit, field and run brilliantly — are rare gems. Entertainers who can sing, dance and act are called triple threats. In our world,...

It was a hot summer night. I was cruising with my friends. We were a carload of young guys, fresh out of high school, approaching a college campus, looking for a good time. The driver pulled into a drive thru burger place. He said “these burger...