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July-August,
2005 Idea Forum
INCREASE LUNCH SALES WITH CALZONES
Calzones are a great menu
option, but can be very labor-intensive with all the prep work they
require. You have to make the shell, fill it, fold it and crimp it.
PieMaster has a product that can help you speed the process of making
calzones and other folded dough products including empanadas,
pierogies, pasties or fruit pies. The PieMaster Table Top Calzone
Machine will fold a calzone in just a few seconds that is consistent in
appearance and weight. The MT-20E can produce up to 600 folded pies per
hour.
Basically, how it works is you place a piece of rolled or sheeted dough
on top of the open mold. Next, you place a measured amount of filling
onto the dough, and push the button. Using electricity, the counter-top
machine, which has a 15 by nine-inch footprint, folds, crimps, seals
and trims the calzone or other type of turnover.
With the ease of creating folded, portable meals like calzones and
empanadas, you will have a product most pizza places don't have.
"You can increase lunchtime business with an easy-to-handle,
grab-and-go food," Edward Downs, owner of Aaburco, Inc.
(manufacturer of PieMaster products), said. "You can also use
calzones smothered with a variety of toppings for a dinner item."
Since the machine has different-sized molds that vary from half an
ounce to one pound, you can offer several different sized calzones and
other types of turnovers on your menu. For instance, use the smallest
mold to make apple bites, by taking dough and apple pie filling and
baking or frying them. You can put three to five in a box and have a
nice sized dessert. Take the same concept with dough and small bits of
cheese, and you have a tasty appetizer.
Another menu idea is take the fixings for a hot hoagie and put it in a
calzone shell. You could take ham or turkey and cheese with your pizza
sauce and make a unique sandwich. This would also work with roast beef
and Swiss cheese. Put a side of au jus sauce and call it the French dip
calzone.
Thinking along the same lines of fillings, what about creating a
calzone gyro. If you don't want to offer lamb, you could use
chicken or beef, lettuce, tomato and cucumber sauce, to make a unique
menu item.
Edward says the machine speeds up prep time. "A skilled operator
can make a calzone in seconds," he says. "It's
impossible to achieve the same consistency by hand."
The calzone machine cleans up in an instant. All you have to do is wipe
the machine off with a damp cloth. The MT-20 has no chance of cross
contamination because it has no nooks and crannies. It is also USDA
certified for meat contact. There are no plastics; the MT-2E0 is made
of stainless steel and food-grade aluminum.
The machine has been redesigned recently, Edward says. "We
redesigned the machine with the intent to make it last a life
time," he says. "Drive shaft diameters were increased, and
castings were made thicker. Every part of the machine was
bolstered."
For more information on the PieMaster MT-20E electric turnover machine,
please go to www.piemaster.com.
You will find all the specifications there as well as a video
demonstrating the machine. To contact Aaburco by phone, inside the U.S.
call 1-800-533-7437.
THE MEMO BOARD WITH
INTELLIGENCE
When it comes to
marketing, the most important thing you should know is that your loyal
customers are always the first to respond to your promotions and
special offers. Your advertising naturally grabs their attention as
they are always interested to know what you've got going on. Strategy Strategy
Look carefully at the results of your past promotions. Have you noticed
that the majority of people who responded have purchased your products
in the past? In fact, very few people credit advertising as the reason
that they tried a new restaurant for the first time. They are much more
likely to say the location, brand familiarity or a friend's
referral was the cause of their first purchase.
Given that your restaurant's success depends on keeping your
customers happy, your business would grow very quickly if you employed
marketing strategies that got people to buy from you more often. The
question is how? The people at Smart Marketing Solutions have
introduced an innovative new product that has been proven to get
customers to buy more often and generate continued results for years.
Their exclusive SmartMemo® board products use the unique
combination of a magnetic erasable memo board for the refrigerator plus
up to ten detachable coupon offers to put your brand, products and
promotional offers in constant view for the entire family to see.
Virtually everyone uses their refrigerator to post important messages
and reminders. Talk about location, location, location. What better way
to entice your customers than to have them looking over your delectable
food items as they stand in front of their own refrigerator deciding
what they want to eat? So when the opportunity to get a SmartMemo®
board comes around, people jump at it because it saves them time and
money.
SmartMemo® boards outperform other coupon distribution methods
because of the universal appeal of the erasable memo board and the
high-visibility positioning of your brand and offers. The coupons are
attached directly to the board so they stay on the refrigerator for
everyone to see and where they won't get lost or
forgotten... even one year later. Clients like Brent Beal, who
owns a Pizza Delight® restaurant in Sackville Nova Scotia say:
"The memo boards are the most successful promotion I've
ever done. My customers just love them and the redemption rates are the
highest I've ever seen."
The latest innovation in SmartMemo® board designs is the new
SmartMenu® board for delivery and take-out restaurants.
SmartMenu® boards put your complete delivery menu, special meal
promotions and tear-away coupon offers right on the refrigerator where
the entire household will see them several times every day. Coupons
work. It seems consumers will gladly pay $2-$5 for a memo board with
over $25 in savings. In addition to the immediate profit made with
every sale, people who are willing to pay for value will go out of
their way to redeem your offers. The result is a self-financing
promotion that produces real sales increases that lasts for months.
For information about the complete line of SmartMemo® board
products please visit www.smartmemo.com or call 1-866-991-0995.
A MOBILE MESSAGE YOU
CAN'T MISS
One of the best
marketing techniques for any business is to study the competitive
landscape and see where you can offer improved services at a better
price. Most industries evolve through trial and error, experience and
good ole intuition. Good clear signage has long been the way to
advertise your business on-premise but what if you live in a city with
strict sign ordinances? Many municipalities are moving to adopt height
restrictions, size provisions and even color regulations. Some
operators even report that the lowly sandwich board has been outlawed
on some sidewalks.
Larger markets where there appears to be a pizzeria on every corner
have an even tougher time of breaking through the clutter and giving
their customers – and potential customers – a clear view of
their business and any special promotions.
One longtime method pizza operators have long used to get their logo
out into the community is through that old stand-by, car signs atop
delivery trucks. The pizza car sign is a familiar sight on this
country's thoroughfares, one that people expect to see and are
even happy to see in most quarters. However, that very ubiquity may in
fact be a hindrance: pizza car signs are so common, its possible people
don't even notice them anymore.
Is there any way to make automobile signage new?
Greg Gajdacs, of cartopsigns.com of Toronto, believes he has found a
way to offer a better car sign that "drives home" your
business's message; a new stationary car sign called a
"spring sign." Made of low-cost coroplast, the idea is to
use Airflow's new Spring Sign to anchor a large sign board to the roof
of a vehicle parked in front of your business (maximum 2' x 4'). For
operators located in a strip mall whose store is a long way from the
street, the car could be parked at the strip's turn in area
drawing maximum exposure from all the traffic.
The Air Flow sign allows any car to instantly become a billboard. The
message can be changed as often as necessary to highlight any
promotions or specials. The signs easily slide onto stainless steel
springs (hence the name) and are anchored to the car with powerful
neodymium magnets. The magnets are capable of withstanding 30 mph winds
and come with double scratch-proof protection for your vehicle's
finish. Soft rubber boots are placed on top and protect the magnets and
hold everything in place and are built to stay pliable even in cold
weather.
The result is a sign that moves in the wind, gently rocking back and
forth on the stainless steel springs. "Motion commands
attention," Gajdacs says. Also, he notes that most cities have no
laws regarding signage on stationary vehicles. Gajdacs says he
developed his stationary car signs after many requests from small
business owners. Air Flow uses the most advanced printing technology (4
color solvent ink jet) and as a result, can offer unlimited colors at
no extra charge. Gajdacs also notes since the Spring Sign sits on top
of a vehicle, the larger sign-boards can be seen from up to 300 feet
away through the clutter" of dense signage while not running
afoul of city ordinances.
The price of spring signs is extremely competitive and makes this
method of advertising your business one of the best "bang for
buck" options available.
For more information call Greg Gajdacs at 416-698-1599 or visit, airflowsigns.com.
DON'T BE AFRAID TO USE
YOUR MIXER'S VERSATILITY
When opening a
pizzeria operation, people talk about location and food quality. Behind
the scenes, before opening and during operation, there are other
considerations: equipment choices.
When it comes to a dough mixer, the operation and functions are very
simple. Dough mixing and cheese grating are standard uses for a dough
mixer. Did you know that your dough mixer can be a very versatile
kitchen tool? You can use a mixer to grind meat for sausage and
meatballs, mixing meatballs, grinding breadcrumbs (Unused pizza dough
baked off makes great free breadcrumbs.) and dressings. How do you
serve the best bleu cheese dressing? Make it yourself.
You can also stir your pizza and pasta sauces in your mixer. If you
have a dough sheeter, how about making homemade lasagna sheets? All you
need is semolina flour, water, and salt. You can use your mixer to make
Italian bread, canoli filling, piecrusts, coleslaw and sliced veggies
for pizza toppings or salads.
You may not have diversified the use of your mixer because you are
afraid something will happen to it, and the price of repair and
downtime is expensive.
Well, there's a company out there that wants to ease your
worries. Precision North America offers the HD-60 precision mixer. They
have simply, but strongly, constructed this versatile mixer. "They are
so easy to work on that almost anyone with a little mechanical
knowledge can repair it," Mark Altarac, president of Precision North
America, says. "Wherever possible, the parts on the mixer are available
at a local electrical supply store or an automotive supply store. All
parts are always in stock at Precision."
Precision offers an industry-leading seven-year warranty on all gears
and shafts in the planetary and transmission, which includes the
complete drive train from the motor to the attachment shaft where the
hook is. There is also a three-year parts warranty on the motor itself.
"Maybe pizzeria operators can start taking advantage of their
investment," Mark says. "It always upsets me when I buy a product that
costs, let's say, $1,000; it breaks, and the part, which is 10
percent of the product, costs me 30 to 60 percent of a new product. To
me, that is not customer service."
Precision Mixers are a not a new product. These mixers have a 25-year
track record with the same drive train as when they were first
manufactured. In the past five years, after NSF International and
electrical approvals, Precision Mixers have been made available in the
United States. "With a large portion of sales going into national and
retail supermarket chains, we saw a need for a lasting-built mixer for
food service," Mark says.
Precision's HD-60 mixer was developed to handle the toughest
pizzeria situations and to give operators a 60-quart mixer that saves
them money at the time of purchase and on costly repairs forever, Mark
says.
"I have an idea for you," Mark says. "If a product manufacturer
convinces you to buy their product, and it doesn't perform for
you, will they replace it for you dollar for dollar with any other
brand you choose? Precision HD-60 will.
To learn more about the Precision HD-60, please contact Mark Altarac at
518-462-3387 or by email at precisionmixers@aol.com. Visit them on the
web at www.precisionmixers.com.
THE KING OF WING SAUCES
Today, it seems
everyone has wings on their menu. Restaurants even specializing in
wings are popping up everywhere. Wings can be an easy add-on for
pizzerias. Factors that need to be considered when adding them are
whether to buy fresh, frozen, or precooked wings, along with how best
to prepare them. Next, decide how many different types of wings
to offer. With this decision comes sauce selection.
The most popular type of wings are Buffalo wings which originated in
Buffalo, New York. According to Mark Weiler, raised in Western New York
and owner and proprietor of Wy's Wings, there's a true
distinction in Buffalo wing sauces. "In Buffalo wing terms, cayenne
pepper sauce is tantamount to a base tomato sauce as a pizza sauce," he
says.
What makes one restaurant's Buffalo wings better than the rest?
Three factors contribute to this: the chicken itself, the method of
preparation, and the sauce used or applied to the wings. "But make no
mistake, it is the sauce, which adds the most value to any order of
wings and what will make or break a wing," Mark says.
Much as with pizza sauce yet even more so, what makes one wing sauce
different from another are the "other ingredients" which are added to a
typical cayenne pepper sauce. Fully prepared sauces also eliminate
time, labor, and inconsistency issues.
How you market your wings is as important as the ingredients you use to
make them. Use the name of your sauce brand on the menu and in
promotional materials. Let people know you use quality ingredients. If
you're using the best, boast the best in your promotional
materials and in your shop. "Many consumers that know what top wings
taste like will stop in to sample yours simply as a result of seeing a
self-promo in the window or in literature," says Mark. "When they see
that you're right, you'll have gained another customer."
Let's say you just decided to start offering wings. How are you
going to get people ordering them? Well, one way to do this is to put a
wing in the box with each pizza. Your customer will be surprised and
pleased that you thought to give them a sample. You can also send a
staff member out in your dining room offering samples to customers in
your dining room.
Package deals are a great way to get people ordering other items beside
pizza from your menu. There are several ways to package wings with your
pizzas. You can offer a large pizza, a dozen wings and a two-liter soda
for one price and call it a family meal deal, etc. You can also offer a
choose-two appetizer for one price when you purchase a large supreme
pizza. Put half a dozen wings and an order of cheese sticks together in
this one.
One fun way to get people interested in your wings is to have a wing
night. Price them per wing. Another is to have a hot wing eating
challenge with a T-shirt promoting your restaurant as a prize.
You also want to make sure you have different heat options on the menu.
Some people just can't handle very spicy food, so Wy's has
a Mild Sauce and a Sweet-N-Tangy Sauce. For the more adventurous wing
eaters, they have Medium, Hot, X-Hot and XXX-Hot. They also have a hot
version of the Sweet-N-Tangy with other flavors on the way.
Wy's Wings sauces have consistently placed in competitions and
have never taken a back seat to any authentic Buffalo Wing sauce. They
have been a crowd favorite at the National Buffalo Wing Festival as
well drawing rave reviews from attendees. To learn more about
Wy's Wings sauces, visit them at www.wyswings.com or
give them a call at 1-800-WYS-WINGs or at (540)-465-5355.