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Paul and Kaci Knaysi had no prior experience in pizza or the restaurant industry until, after three years of research, they opened the doors to Pablo’s Pizza in Grand Junction, Colorado. Opened in October of 2000, Pablo’s is a concept named for Pablo Picasso and based around specialty pizzas and gourmet offerings. With 27 specialty pizzas on their current menu, 10 different sauces, nine cheeses, and over 30 toppings including roasted eggplant, smoked salmon, and Andouille sausage, they’ve got all their bases covered in the kitchen...and some great marketing and business ideas on their plates as well.
Getting Notice
Pablo’s Pizza was the 2005 winner of “Best of the West,” an award given by the readers of the Grand Junction Sentinel. “It’s a local thing, but it’s great because we’re in Grand Junction,” Paul said. “Usually the most popular places win, so we were actually kind of shocked that it wasn’t Pizza Hut, as usual.” Paul said the award indubitably helped increase business and that it’s been a great marketing tool for use on their website www.pablospizza.com and within the restaurant. “I think a lot of times, these things are fairly short-lived, but it definitely didn’t hurt.”
Both Paul and his wife Kaci were in the medical field and said three years of their life were devoted to taking business classes and developing their pizza recipes prior to opening Pablo’s. “We liked the idea of opening either a pizza place or a bakery, and pizza it was,” Paul said. “Marketing has been one of our challenges here, but I think we’ve created a marketing system that we follow pretty regularly now.” Pablo’s does a new residents mailing, an email club, and takes advantage of their website as a marketing tool. Also, the Knaysis have a mobile pizza restaurant they use at festivals and the local farmers market.
New Residents
Paul has utilized targeting people that are moving into his city, but in a different way. Each month, Pablo’s gets an updated list of addresses from a company called New Pros. They take the names and addresses and send postcards out. “We send out a free pizza postcard to everyone within a certain demographic, income bracket, etc. They send us mailing labels and we do the postcards. We tried [another company] but thought the coupon looked cheesy and didn’t really reflect the Pablo’s style.” But the new way works well, Paul said. And, they have been able to emulate their style in a more personable way. “The company we use is usually about three months behind, but the list is always very accurate. Out of 100 postcards, we only see about three or four returned addresses.” The Pablo’s postcard says in large letters ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ and has an offer for a free 12-inch gourmet pizza. Paul said it works well because they don’t have to open anything and they’ll see the offer immediately. “It costs us a couple bucks, but it gets them in our store.” The offer is only good for dine-in or carryout because adding on the extra drivers wouldn’t be worth it just for the free ones, Paul said.
Marketing through the Web
Many businesses have taken advantage of the Internet as a whole other marketing opportunity. Peter Koeppel, an expert in online marketing, said, “While people may have heard about your restaurant, many people review your menu, get your phone number for reservations and take out orders or get directions to your location through your website. It’s your electronic storefront and consumers frequently will make decisions about coming to your restaurant based on your website.”
Pablo’s has created a functional, practical, and attractive website that works well for them. “Our website has been up for about three years now, but we just recently did an overhaul and also added an email club online,” Paul said. The email club took about eight months to complete, but for Pablo’s bottom line, it’s already saving future dollars by not having to send direct mail. “Our database has become so big that it’s almost impossible to send out mass postcards, so now we can do the mass emails, which is basically free. We have close to 6,000 names in our database, but we have about 800 people who have signed up for our email club.” In only three weeks they had 800 fans sign up online to receive news about new menu items, discounts, and specials.
“After the email club was up and running smoothly, I sent out a mass postcard to everybody to let them know they could sign up online. That cost me about $1,000,” Paul said. Pablo’s original website design, which was created by a local company, cost around $3,000. Going back in to add the email club cost another $3,000, but Paul looks at it as saving for the future. “If I only do a couple mailings a year with postcards, I’ve already spent at least $2,000—also, since we’re franchising, we wanted them to be able to use this as well for a marketing tool. We can break down each area by zip code, birthday, or we can do a mass mailing, which is very effective for new product information.”
Pablo’s even got a story in the local newspaper about the email club. In the column Sarah Suggests, Sarah commends the pizzeria on its great pizza and also tells readers how to sign up for the email club, listing some of the offers she’s already received (and used).
Pizza on Wheels
Paul said summers are busiest for Pablo’s Pizza because of the farmers market. “We have this mobile pizza trailer we bring out for the farmers market. We sell it by the slice right there on the street, and it’s right next to our restaurant, so we’re kind of double dipping selling to them when they come into the restaurant and on the street.” The trailer has an old Baker’s Pride oven in it, two 100-pound propane tanks, and a freezer. “We keep it really simple. We do a cheese, pepperoni, and a pesto. We par bake the pizzas and throw them into the oven on the trailer to finish them off,” Paul said. The mobile pizza unit works well for them, and according to Paul, it’s already paid for itself 20 times over. “It depends on how much you got the oven for, but we did the whole trailer for about $3,000. It’s been a great marketing tool for us because some people that wouldn’t normally come into our restaurant for pizza, have tried our pizza at the festivals or the farmers market, and then they start coming to the restaurant.”
Conclusion
With hundreds of topping possibilities, 27 specialty pizzas on the menu, some great Internet marketing ideas, targeting new residents, and using a mobile pizzeria, it’s clear that Pablo’s has covered some good ground in their six years in Grand Junction, Colorado. With one franchise already open only 20 miles from the original location, their future is also looking bright in franchising, but Paul said next time they will not put another Pablo’s so close to other locations. As for Paul and Kaci, they firmly believe that if you think outside the box, the world is a much more interesting place.