You've seen them in your favorite casual restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory, O'Charley's Steakhouse and Uno Chicago Grill. Well, now on-site guest pagers from Long Range Systems are also being used by many prominent fast casual concepts, too, like Panera Bread and Fuddruckers.
Since 1993, Long Range Systems has been the leader in providing on-site paging solutions to several industries, including auto dealerships, salons, hospitals, and especially casual restaurants. With a substantial growth over the past five years in the fast casual sector, more and more of those restaurants are using the pagers every day — and they are using them in a different way.
"In casual restaurants, our pagers have always been used to tell customers when their table is ready," said Jim Livingston, vice president of sales for Long Range Systems. "But, since fast casual locations take orders at the counter rather than the table, they're using our pagers to notify customers when their food is ready."
The pagers are simple to use. They sit on a charger that holds ten to 15 units. When a guest walks in and places an order, they are handed a pager, then find a table. Once their order is ready, they are paged to pick it up. That way they always get their food hot.
"In a fast casual environment, such as a pizzeria, we have transmitters that we call ‘basic manual transmitters,'" Jim said. "You simply write down the pager number, and when the food is ready, you hit the corresponding pager number on a transmitter and the pager begins flashing and vibrating for up to five minutes, depending on how you configure it."
LRS invented the innovative Coaster Pager many years ago. Recently, the company began creating pagers in unique shapes, including an ingenious Pizza Pager developed especially for pizzerias and Italian restaurants.
"About three years ago we went to a pizza show and discovered the need for certain shapes and sizes," said Jim. "The Pizza Pager has been one of the most popular."
According to LRS, the average restaurant location needs between 15 and 40 pagers depending on their specific needs. The systems — including pagers and transmitters — can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,600.
The range of the pagers is very versatile, so they work with almost any size restaurant. LRS also offers "repeaters"; units that help transmitters reach even farther in very large locations.
For any restaurant with a KDS (kitchen display system), the pagers can even be interfaced with their point of sale to make the paging even more efficient and automated. "We send them a serial-based transmitter that hooks to the back of their computer and works with their software," explained Jim. "With KDS, when the food is ready and it's cleared off the screen, our pager goes off automatically letting the customer know their order is ready."
Jim said that Long Range Systems is committed to helping fast casual restaurants streamline their service by providing the highest quality, most durable guest pagers available.
The phrase, "pizza wine," has long been a derisive term referring to cheap wine, dismissed as good enough only for cooking or having with pizza. That negative connotation is now changing following the introduction of a new wine designed specifically for pizza – but better tasting than your father's "pizza wine." The Australian Pizza Wine Company has launched Pizza Red, a non-traditional, non-intimidating beverage that is accessible to all current and potential wine consumers and makes drinking wine with pizza fun for everyone. It is also intended that this new beverage style will create a whole new ‘sub-category' that will enable retailers and restaurateurs to offer something unique that can add more value and margin to their pizza sales.
Instead of drinking beer, ‘traditional' wine or soft drink with their pizza, Pizza Red, seen as a new beverage category, complements pizza perfectly. Beer can make people feel bloated, a ‘traditional' red wine can be considered too heavy and a soft drink can be uninteresting. The tomato sauce on a pizza can be difficult to wash down. Tomato sauce has a lot of acidity and sugar, which is why beer works so well. A wine has to have reasonably low acidity and lots of fruit. It also has to be "heard" over the milky proteins of the cheese.
The following innovative features of Pizza Red will help find its niche in the pizza marketplace: Uncomplicated wine structure and soft in taste. It's approachable, light hearted and lots of fun. The wine exhibits up front primary and pronounced fruit flavors. Pizza Red possesses a light sweetness with a crisp dry finish that creates a fresher palate and encourages that all-important second glass. It has an easy drinking wine style that doesn't require years in the cellar. Pizza Red is slightly spritzy and meant to be served chilled. It is topped with a screw cap for convenience (no more corkscrews!) Pizza Red is available in two sizes: There is the 375ml – a convenient size (perfect over a meal) of three generous glasses, packed into three bottle packs and priced between $5.99 – $6.99 per bottle. Then there's the 750ml – an ideal size to share with friends while enjoying pizza and priced between $7.99 – $9.99 per bottle.
Three entrepreneurial Australian siblings, Eliza, Angela and Nicholas Brown, have developed The Pizza Wine Company. Angela is the Managing Partner of the business. The siblings are members of a family who have had a passionate interest in Australian wine since the mid 1800's. The vineyard, is within the famous North-East Victorian wine-growing region in Australia. The Pizza Wine Company launched the Pizza Red brand in January 2006 and has already established distribution across the USA with coverage in 30 states and growing.
For any pizzeria with delivery business, there's one thing both customers and pizza shop owners can agree upon—pizza should arrive hot, crisp, and like it was just pulled from the oven. But, until just recently, the only alternative to the problem was adding extra cardboard under the pie, which sometimes still left the pizzas a little soggy and tasting like cardboard. Finally, a foolproof solution for soggy crusts is here.
Crust Saver® is a plastic grid that lies on the bottom of your pizza box keeping oils and juices away from the crust by lifting it off the surface of the box. It's also cut resistant, so you can place it in the box and still slice your pizza right on top of it. When your pizza arrives at the door, it will be fresh, crisp, and delicious.
"So many times pizzeria owners spend good money on quality toppings, cheese, and dough to make the best pie they can make, and the worst thing would be for the pizza to get there soggy and oily," said Bruce Bowman, vice president of sales for the company. "Most of the pizzerias we've dealt with see their customers coming back because they see there's an improvement in the quality that they're getting. They're delighted with it because they're getting repeat customers more frequently."
One pizzeria owner who tried a sample of Crust Saver® told PMQ Pizza Magazine, "I sent a pizza with Crust Saver® out to a twice-a-week regular who raved about it. He went on and on about the difference. So, I put it to the test with an extra pepperoni and sausage pizza and brought it home. Next to the identical pizza without the Crust Saver®, MAN what a difference!" And customers really will appreciate the difference in the texture of the crust and the overall flavor as compared to the corrugated cardboard inserts often used by the large chains.
It's also a food-grade plastic that is reusable and recyclable. "The food-grade plastic will not melt when the pizza is on top of it," Bruce said. And, as for the cost, think of it as an extra topping. Crust Saver® is currently available in three different sizes: 14-inch, 12-inch, and nine-inch. There are 200 Crust Savers to a box, and $40 will get a box of the large ones, $32 will buy 200 12-inchers, and for $27 you can get a box of the small, nine-inch sized Crust Savers.
As you can see, the biggest advantage to Crust Saver® is that it's a better delivery system. If you're only seeing your repeat customers once or twice a month, try sending them a pizza with the Crust Saver® and see if that doesn't turn them into a weekly regular at your restaurant!
