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“I’m out here by myself,” Gregg says. “My biggest challenge has been to develop an identity, without having a draw.”
Take me in to the ballgame
That identity turned out to be great pizza and state-of-the-art entertainment.
“Sports is a big theme with Jersey’s,” Gregg says. “We have a state-of-the-art entertainment package, all the latest high tech technology is in here. We have two six-foot by 10 foot big screen TVs and 30, 42-inch plasma screens throughout the store and one giant 62-inch plasma, so the restaurant caters to entertainment, not just sports. We have a group on Wednesday nights when we have a “Lost” night, where people come in to watch “Lost.” We have a group of women who come in every Sunday for “Desperate Housewives” and we offer martini specials. We have groups who come in for “American Idol.” It’s a spot to come and take part in whatever event is going on in television. We do have more sports on than anything else, but again, we do pretty much anything.”
Open for only a year, Jersey’s has 16 employees, including anywhere from six and 10 delivery drivers. Gregg says he’s about to roll out a new menu but he won’t be dropping his biggest seller: “anything with our homemade Italian sausage, and don’t even ask, the recipe is a closely guarded secret.”
Sports and soap operas aren’t the only way Gregg promotes Jersey’s. He likes to incorporate specials and discounts in his advertising, though in time he wants to move away from discounts.
“We’re just starting a promotion for delivery or carry out only, we’ll have a dollar off on certain items,” he says. “We are doing some coupons now where you get a dollar off on our 9-inch, two dollars off our 12 and three off our 16-inch for deliveries. If you buy our ribs and fries for delivery or carry out, you can have a 9-inch cheese pizza for free. We’re not doing the generic pizza coupons where you call in a pizza for $9.99. I think it’s unfortunate that pizza has become so dependent on couponing. It has sort of started to cheapen what we can get for our product. Some places simply don’t believe in discounts, I don’t either at Jersey’s, but I’ll do some direct mail cards offering small discounts to target people for the first time and we’ll run them for four mailings. After that we’re done, we will not have another coupon. Build the brand and after that I’m done with the discounting.”
Maintain a Fairly Strict Ad Budget.
“We have a newspaper campaign to build the brand,” Gregg says.” and we have small color inserts in the local paper. People seem to respond. I spend nearly 5 percent of sales on advertising. That’s my budget pretty much forever. It’s an expense you have to have.”
King Kong marketing
Gregg believes in the rubber meeting the road. That’s why he employs someone to canvas apartment buildings.
“I have a local person that all they do is handle catering orders, handle promotions, handle guerilla marketing tactics, where she goes to apartment buildings with door hangers for every door,” Gregg says. “This is an expense on top of that 5 percent.”
The explosion of medication in the marketplace is another tapped resource.
“We have a mailing list of all the pharmaceutical reps that are in the area that we pulled from the phone book,” he relates. “We have a pharmaceutical rep package that offers discounts that they can bring into the offices when they buy food. They tell us how many people they’re buying for.
“I also believe the restaurant should be involved in the community so we sponsor little league teams, but we have an added twist. We go to the fields and film the teams, then cut and splice it and put highlights on our big screen. Imagine a six-year-old who plays t-ball seeing himself on the big screen when he’s in there eating dinner. We shoot parts of most games then we offer them to come in after the season to watch highlights of their games in our back room.”
Jersey’s offers a full menu (besides pizza, items include, wings, burgers, chicken sandwiches, salads, wraps, steaks, pork chops, ribs and shrimp) and Gregg still manages to keep food costs below 30 percent.
“Food cost with liquor, with a full menu, I’m running 28 percent,” he says. “I’m disappointed. Once we get everything firing and our mix goes up a little on the pizza side - because right now my burgers are out of this world and that’s become a big item - we should be running at 26 percent or less. Labor is running at 28 percent or less. Labor can get down more, but since we’re not even a year old, I won’t be cutting anything. We want to make sure the customer gets full service.”
Full service also means occasionally dealing with disgruntled and even dishonest customers.
“If the kitchen makes an honest mistake and gets an order wrong, we completely refund and buy the next meal,” Gregg declares. “We have a tracking sheet where we enter their name and address and the dollar amount they spent. That book is part of our order system and when they come in and say they’re owed a freebie, we look in the book. You’ve got to take care of your customers; the customer shouldn’t have to pay for your screw-up.
“We’ve had people just point blank lie, or ‘I get a free sandwich because this has mayo and I didn’t order mayo,’ it’s a fine line, and you know when people are lying. On these situations we say no problem, we’ll bring a new pizza or sandwich, whatever. We have to have proof so we ask for what the facts are.”
Turning tables on turnover
Operators across the nation often say finding and keeping good employees is their number one problem. Gregg bucks this trend.
“In my ten years in the industry, I’ve never had a problem finding staff and keeping staff. I have a turnover rate of under 10 percent per year in all my businesses combined, and I have over 500 employees. I’m still the largest Jimmy John’s franchisee in the country. My management turnover rate is under 4 percent. I believe in paying my people extremely well. The hardest thing for any operator to do is to train, and then to continue to retrain. It hurts your product, it hurts your consistency, and it hurts everything that you are. I have no desire to do it; I just pay my people, some of them up to 10 dollars an hour, and treat them with respect.
“I check in all the time. You can’t expect someone to work for minimum wage and expect them to stay. You can’t ask people to stay if you’re not willing to let them grow within your organization.”
Growing is definitely in the cards for Jersey’s Pizza. Gregg has studied expansion and the art of finding the right location. He vows not to get caught “out by himself” again. For his second location, Gregg knows just what he’s looking for.
“High density, lot of rooftops with a daytime population, we need a big box since I’m a 6,500 sq. ft restaurant. Any place with a big box and has a draw, I’m interested in. I’m also looking for a good lunch crowd, after that you’re looking for the families and the Little League teams.”
While it may be difficult to find such a perfect mix for a location, Gregg says locating near a large retail outlet, i.e. “the Big Box,” is key.
“The reason the big box is so important is, if you find the big box, more than likely, you’re going to have the other things around you,” Gregg points out. “Because my restaurant is not just a typical pizza restaurant where there’s one on every corner, my place is a draw where people drive miles to get to.”
Gregg is looking to create more “draw;” a second location is scheduled for February 2007, with another possible 50 envisioned by 2010.