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With Chuck E. Cheese a
top 25 pizzeria and current king of the hill of child-targeting pizzerias, you
might wonder who could ever dethrone them. There is actually a pizzeria that's
on the edge of taking Chuck E. Cheese by storm. With a combination of incredible
ideas and incredible fun, the Incredible Pizza Company just might have what it
takes to become king of the hill.
Through games, food and events,
Incredible Pizza uses birthday parties, prizes, "credit cards," lock-ins and
more for some incredible marketing.
Never heard of the Incredible Pizza
Company? Maybe you haven't heard of them yet, but they're coming. Incredible
Pizza Company is an all-inclusive, family-oriented pizzeria that incorporates
fun and games into its overall theme, all under one roof. Rick Barsness, owner
of Incredible Pizza Company said that with their selection of arcade games,
go-karts, miniature golf, bumper cars, simulators and bowling they're shooting
for an age group slightly older than Chuck E. Cheese. They renovate old
Wal-Marts, K-Marts and grocery stores because the square footage that's required
for the restaurant. "The weather actually helps us," Rick says, laughing. "If
it's cold or raining or someone just wants to escape the heat, being indoors
gives them a respite from the elements." Check them out online at
www.incrediblepizza.com.
Grand
Opening
Once the building is completely
renovated, they have a two-night grand opening where they invite members of the
community to come try the buffet for free along with free play on the games. On
the first night, they bring in construction workers, pastors and families to
test their system and work out glitches. On the second night, they invite
Chamber of Commerce members, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other non-profit
organizations to test the equipment again. "By the end of our opening, we have
8,500 people walking around the community and saying good things about our
business before we're even open to the public," Rick said.
Pizza and
Games
Incredible Pizza Company centers
around one central theme: 1950s fun. Everything in the restaurant is reminiscent
of the ‘50s, from the four themed dining areas to the clothes the employees
wear. The dining areas include a 1950s diner, a drive-in movie theater-themed
area, the kid-favorite gymnasium decorated for a sock hop and the adult-favorite
Leave-it-to-Beaver family room dining area. "The gym is a lot of fun, really
busy and noisy so the kids like it," Rick said. "The family room area is a lot
quieter. Parents and grandparents inevitably find their way back to that room to
sit in peace and quiet."
While the games may not be what
draws customers, they offer a great chance at additional revenue. Besides a wide
variety of arcade-type games and ticket games, Incredible Pizza also has a
sampling of family games, including miniature golf, go-karts, bumper cars and
even bowling alleys in some of the stores, all designed to add to the store's
revenues.
Rick said that they work closely
with their insurance company to cover their bases legally. They spend between
$200,000 and $300,000 annually on training and a lot of that training has to do
with safety. Insurance requires them to have daily inspections on a lot of the
riding games such as the go-karts and bumper cars. A log has to be kept on every
car for the maintenance done to each car. Birthday
parties
Birthday parties are big business at
Incredible Pizza. Depending on the locations, each restaurant has between five
and 12 private party rooms and hosts about 150 birthday parties a week. When a
child chooses Incredible Pizza as the place for their party, they're well
rewarded.
The party deals start at $8 per
child for a minimum of 10 children. That $8 includes the buffet, drinks and $5
on their Incredible Credit Card for fairground play. See below for more
information on the credit card. Each party also receives invitations, a helium
balloon bouquet, and the all-important "I'm Incredible"
sticker.
"With the party deal, the birthday
child gets a huge smiley face sticker that says "It's my birthday and I'm
Incredible," Rick said. "Our employees are trained so that when they see that
sticker, they recognize them. They wish them a happy birthday, they bring the
child to the front of the line and they get to pick out their own prizes—just
all kinds of special treats for that person, because it's their
birthday." Prizes and Incredible Credit
Cards
To play the games, customers
purchase an Incredible Credit Card when they walk in the door. Customers can put
any amount of money on the card. When you get ready to play a game, you scan
your card and the amount of the game is deducted. If the game awards tickets
redeemable for prizes, customers can store their tickets on the card. The card
has two barcodes on it. How much money a customer has is tracked on one; the
amount of tickets that have been won is tracked on the other.
Customers can choose to cash in
tickets immediately for smaller prizes, or store them for a bigger, better
prize. "We offer just about anything you could want as prizes," Rick said.
"Stereos, VCRs, CD players, toys, backpacks and iPods to name a few. You name
it, and we probably offer it as a prize." For more information on how games can
help your revenue, read Choo Choo Charlie's: Redemption Games Have A Powerful
Pull at www.pmq.com/mag/2002fall/games.shtml.
The games mainly come from Brady
Distributing out of
Community
events
IPC is very involved in the
community. Aside from sponsoring the regular little league teams, soccer teams and the local YMCA, they
also invite non-profit organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, foster
children and the women's shelter to come to the restaurant allowing those less
fortunate to have an incredible time.
Besides the charity events, they
also host different competitions throughout the week. They also have miniature
golf championships and karaoke nights.
"The kids are just great to watch
with the microphones," Rick said. "During karaoke, we give away free game play
or tickets to everyone that gets up to sing. They can sing anything they want as
long as it's kid friendly—the lyrics have to be clean." Lock-ins
The longer version of the lock-in
goes from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. and costs $20 per kid for one game of mini-golf, one
time in the bumper cars and one go-kart or simulator experience. For both
lengths, Incredible Pizza requires one counselor/chaperone for every 10 students
and a 100-person minimum. Outside of the lock-ins, they also regularly host
something called Project Graduation where parents and youth groups rent out the
entire building for the night to give kids a clean, safe place to go on their
graduation night. Other marketing
techniques
Incredible Speller: grades K-6.
Teachers receive free pencils for each student, stickers to place on their
graded papers and a chart to follow each student's progress. If the student gets
a perfect score on a spelling test, they're given five dollars in game play and
if they make perfect scores the entire year, they get 100 game tickets to be
redeemed for prizes.
Math Facts: grades 1-5. Teachers are
given a stack of five-dollar free game play certificates to be awarded when the
teacher feels that the student has mastered their math
facts.
Incredible Readers: all grades.
According to the number of books that students read, they receive an amount of
free game play. For example, if they read five books, they get two dollars in
game play, if they read 10 books, they get four dollars in game play and if they
finish 15 books, they get six dollars in game play.
Perfect Attendance: all grades. For
every grading period, each student with perfect attendance receives five dollars
of game play, while a student with perfect attendance for the entire school year
receives a $10 certificate for free game play plus a free buffet and
drinks.
Caught Being Good: all grades. The
teacher is given a stack of $3 game play certificates to hand out to students
once during the year when they are "caught being good."
Trades for Grades: all grades. Any
student that improves their report card is eligible for this one. The student
brings in their report card and receives free game time according to their
grades. For straight A's, the student gets four dollars of game play, for A's
and B's, the student gets two dollars of game play and for any grade improvement
at all, the student receives one dollar of game play.
Fundraisers: all grades. Incredible
Pizza will donate up to five hundred five dollar game cards to any school or
organization that requests help with raising money. They have to be sold for
face value during a two-month window. At the end of those two months, any
remaining cards have to be returned to Incredible Pizza. Also, tracking forms
are provided and must be returned with the remaining cards. Each school is
allowed only one fundraiser per school year and non-profit organizations are
allowed one fundraiser per calendar year.
Loyalty program and email marketing:
Using a punch card, Incredible Pizza tracks the number of times that someone
comes in. After they've eaten there five times, they get the sixth buffet free.
They also have an email-marketing program set up where they send out coupons and
announcements for what's going on in the store that weekend. "Our customers can
opt-in for the newsletter on our website," Rick says. "They can also sign up in
the store, but if they do that, they're still sent an email that asks them to
opt-in to the mailer."
Military, Fire and Police
Appreciation: To show their appreciation of men and women in service
organizations, Incredible Pizza offers a special to their families. With a
military ID, children can get a seven-dollar meal that includes the buffet, a
drink and a five-dollar game card while adults get the same thing for eight
dollars. Employee
benefits
To encourage his employees to
aggressively go after email addresses for the newsletter, Rick said that there
are weekly drawings for a $25 cash prize. Employees are entered into the drawing
every time they get a customer to sign up for the
newsletter.
Managers are on quite an effective
bonus program. The managers and shift leaders split 10 percent of the month's
profits among themselves: this has on occasion been as high as $10,000 going to
between 12 and 16 managers. Outside of managers, Incredible Pizza also starts
out paying employees 25 cents higher than the local wage, which is usually
minimum wage. "This practice coupled with our interview process usually allows
us to get the cream of the crop since they realize that they're getting paid
more, right from the start," Rick said.
Through a combination of marketing
techniques and old-fashioned fun, Incredible Pizza is attracting some incredible
profits. You can see that IPC is truly cruising down the main street to success.
So be on the lookout—they're headed to an old Wal-Mart building near
you!
– PMQ
– |
According to
Rick, the most unique thing about Incredible Pizza Company is that most of the
people that come in the restaurant are there for the food. While they're there,
the customers are likely to play the games, but half of the sales are in pizza.
In true buffet-style, the customer is offered every pizza imaginable. There's
also a bakery that offers deserts and pasta. The pizzas only stay on the buffet
about 12 minutes and if a customer wants a pizza that's not there, it will be
made for them and within six minutes, delivered to their table. The percentage
of revenues from food versus entertainment is about 50/50, with a food cost of
30 percent and a labor cost of 25 percent.
