|
|
|
||
|
|||
From soups, salads, subs and paninis, all the way to pizza and homemade pickles, the Spicy Pickle has it covered. Opened in 1999 in Denver, Colorado, Spicy Pickle has taken steps to become one of the hottest concepts of the year. They have 12 stores currently servicing Denver, Portland, Oregon, and San Diego with plans to open 10 more by the end of this year in Austin, South Dakota, Reno, Sacramento, Cincinatti, and Virginia. They were awarded ‘Hot New Concept of 2006’ by Nation’s Restaurant News, the weekly foodservice publication.
Spice it up
Tony Walker, President and CEO of Spicy Pickle, said he first gained interest in cooking at a young age because he was an only child. “My dad traveled a lot, so I would always help my mom out in the kitchen. I worked in a pizza place through high school and college, then went to culinary school later on…so I’ve always been in and out of it my whole life.”
When throwing around ideas for his new ‘sub shop’, Tony and friends came up with some various names, but said something about Spicy Pickle stuck out the most. “We wanted something unique, and somebody said ‘the pickle’ because you usually get a pickle with a sandwich. We didn’t want to be Tony’s Subs or anything cliché like that,” he said. After coming up with a name, the next step was opening the first store.
The first store was opened on August 9, 1999, and Tony said the money wasn’t really an issue as much as providing good, fast, friendly service. “We didn’t have to deal with the bank because we had all saved up enough and just threw our money together. The hardest thing was technology—trying to get people through the line fast enough. We had the food down because we were all chefs. We also didn’t have too much of a concept for brand awareness or marketing at that time,” he said. Spicy Pickle specializes in paninis, which Tony described as “Flavors from around the world. If you walk into a Spicy Pickle, you understand by the meats we’re using, the breads we’re using, the sauces, the vegetables—everything about our food is top quality. Like they say, trash in, trash out. Great things in, great things out.”
This, among other things (their secret sauce), has helped them stay on top of such a saturated market, Tony said. “The secret sauce is our flavored mayonnaises. We’ve been doing this for seven years, long before the Heinz’s and the others that are out now. We do a basil mayo, roasted garlic, sundried tomato, horseradish, chipotle mayo—and it’s all made from fresh ingredients, not powdered.”
The Pizzette
Spicy Pickle just added another item to their menu—pizza! Their pizzas are thin crust, 11 inch pies called “pizzettes”. “It’s a high-end pizza with less dough and more flavor,” Tony said. “We’re using capers, chipotle pesto, fresh tomato sauce, smoked mesquite turkey, fresh mozzarella, green peppers—it’s higher end, but it’s a good price point at only $7.45 apiece.” Tony admitted that the pizzas were as good as or better than the paninis. “We wanted to separate ourselves from everybody else that’s doing lower end pizza and sandwiches,” he said.
Customer service rules
According to Joe Boyd, a Spicy Pickle franchisee, one of the things that attracted him to the restaurant was its high expectation from customer service. “I used to own a pizzeria, so I know from experience that it’s sometimes hard to please customers. The feedback we’ve received from our customers has been very positive,” Joe said. Tony said the customer service side of business has been one of the largest aspects of their success thus far. “We have a choice of either using a person’s name or calling out a number for orders,” he said. “We choose to use their name because we’re trying to build a relationship with the local people in the community so we have a one-on-one bond with them. It leaves them with something to remember and it makes them want to come back again.”
Marketing
“We have a firm belief against buy-one-get-one-free,” Tony said. He says Spicy Pickle would do better by simply giving food away than offering that kind of deal because bringing people into the restaurant is their main goal. “We want them to have the food there because it’s hot and it’s fresh right there. A lot of people wouldn’t understand. If they took the pizza home, it wouldn’t be as good because this isn’t Domino’s.” Tony said couponing brings the value and the quality down in the eye of the public, so they don’t do it. “It makes people expect another coupon. That’s not our clientale. We need the people to understand that there’s some type of value, whether it’s the brand or the value or the quality, they’re going to come back whether there’s a coupon out there or not,” he said.
Spicy Pickle stays very involved in the community also, sponsoring kids’ lacrosse teams and the Colorado Mammoths (an indoor lacrosse team that just won the national championships). “They host camps for kids. Everyday this summer we have delivered about 80 lunches to them. We sponsor their lacrosse sticks, the helmets, and their jerseys—it really drives people to the restaurant too.” Tony believes if you start positive trends at a young age, it leads to success. “Another event we sponsored, we took some boxers, wrapped them up in butcher paper, and threw out about 100 of them with a free lunch ticket for two people,” he said. He considers these types of sponsorships and giveaways as an investment in the future of Spicy Pickle. “After the kids go off for college and then they come back, they look for you and they just know you,” he said. “It’s a long process of brand building and preparation for the future.”
Advertising
Spicy Pickle didn’t have any advertisement in place until 2004. Tony said they relied strictly on word of mouth. “We just started doing direct mailers this year to bring awareness around the stores,” he said. In the direct mailers, Spicy Pickle offers “bring in a friend and get a free menu item of your choice.” “We feel that if people will come in and try it, eight out of 10 people will come back.” He said they track who’s already gotten free food through the POS system, and the offer’s only good the first time the customer comes in.
“It’s harder to track within a business,” Tony said. “If we’re trying to promote catering, we’ll say ‘order what you want and we’ll drop if off to you and nine other people,’ and that’s the way we get businesses hooked. We’ve had good success doing that—who’s going to turn down free food?” Tony said the return rate on their investment has been them seeing return customers on average 3 times a month.
Conclusion
Tony said one of the most important things in having a restaurant is making sure everything’s clean, you have great food and great service, and you have plenty of money to get started. “Buy everything used as much as possible because, in the beginning, people aren’t too caught up in it being hip.” Tony also says, “Just try to have as much fun as you can.”