By Rick Hynum
If you think your indie pizza shop can’t thrive without those pesky third-party delivery aggregators, Bill Zonios, owner of Glenside Pizza in Glenside, Pennsylvania, would like a word with you.
His DELCO-only shop, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, raked in nearly $2 million in sales last year without a single order via DoorDash, Uber Eats or any other third-party platform. And he wants other operators to know how he’s doing it.
Glenside is a bustling, picturesque Philadelphia suburb of about 8,000 people, and there’s no shortage of pizza in the region. Competitors abound, but Zonios offers something a little different—Greek-style pan pizza, boasting an airy, fluffy, focaccia-like crust with a crispy bottom, a traditional sauce and a mozzarella-cheddar blend. Zonios learned the style from his pizza-making dad, a veteran pizzeria operator who opened Glenside Pizza in 2001.
In fact, Zonios has spent most of his adult life in the pizzeria—that is, when he isn’t jetting off to visit his extended family in Greece during the summers. (He and his wife, Jamie, got married there in 2019.) And he has watched the rise of third-party delivery apps with growing alarm. “Back in the day, your competition was the pizza shop around the corner or the Chinese restaurant, because nobody else delivered,” he said. “Now we’re competing with Burger King, McDonald’s, you name it. Any kind of food you can imagine is available on third-party apps, and that really hurts mom-and-pop pizza shops like ours.”
And that, Zonios said, is why he will not work with aggregators, period. “They cut into your profit, and you keep having to raise your prices. I look at it as a tax….For me, it’s not worth it to raise my prices 30% or 40% and make my customers—who are the reason that I’ve made it for 25 years—pay more, just so I can get some new customers from the apps. It’s not worth it for me.”
“It’s a convenient thing for people who use third-party apps, but not for small business owners,” he added. “It puts them in a position where they have to say, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ But not me. I won’t do it. I’ll stay firm.”
Driving Loyalty
Mind you, Zonios has no qualms about using technology. He has developed an exemplary website with every feature a pizzeria’s website should have—online ordering, easy-to-find sign-ups for his GP Rewards program and SMS list, catering menu, and an “About Us” page with real substance. In fact, the first thing a customer sees is a pop-up that reads, “Subscribe for Deals,” and an agreement to accept up to four promotional SMS messages per month. Just enter your phone number, accept the terms and conditions, and you’re subscribed then and there.
Zonios works diligently to drive customers directly to his website to place their orders. That means direct-mail campaigns with flyers and menus that feature QR codes sending customers straight to the online ordering page. Zonios also recently hired a professional photographer who has been shooting images of every item listed on the digital menu “because I know a lot of people eat with their eyes.”
“For me,” he said, “the most important thing is to get them to your website. Get them there. Then the pictures and the content will do all work. And once they’ve ordered, you capture their email address and phone number, and you start remarketing to them.”
Zonios started his SMS and rewards programs just two months ago, and the SMS list already has 700 members. “Once a week, maybe twice a week, I’ll send out a coupon code for $10 off or 20% off, just to keep people engaged,” he said. “Our conversion rate with the SMS list is between 4% and 5%, so it’s really good.”
Meanwhile, the GP Rewards program has about 1,000 members thus far. “Email marketing is tied to our rewards, so every email alert our customers get has a little badge showing how many points they’ve earned and how much money. We send out bonuses every holiday. On their birthday, they’ll get 100 or 200 points, so that keeps them coming back too.”
Zonios believes he’s on track to hit a total of 10,000 loyalty program members by the end of 2026. That’s rock-solid marketing right there.
GLP-1s and the Micro Menu
Another marketing masterstroke is Glenside Pizza’s Micro Menu, aimed squarely at customers who are taking GLP-1 weight loss medications. Zonios and his wife Jamie came up with the idea in response to what they felt was a slower-than-usual year in 2025.
A Rand report released last August found that nearly 12% of Americans have used GLP-1 drugs to trim down, and 14% said they’re interested in using the drugs. The GLP-1 boom made Zonios pause and think. “Let’s just say 10% of people in Glenside are taking a GLP-1,” he mused. “That’s 10% of my customer base that doesn’t eat half of what they used to. So how do I deal with that?”
Enter the Micro Menu. “I thought, why don’t I just make a menu with smaller portions, give it a catchy name, and market it to these people? Instead of buying a whole cheeseburger that they know they’re not going to eat, they can buy a small one that they will eat.”
The Micro Menu appears right near the top of the website’s online menu, just under Side Orders and above the listings for pizzas, burgers, strombolis and calzones. It showcases 15 items, everything from mini cheesesteaks and mini chicken fingers to mini hoagies and mini onion rings.
A line of search engine-friendly text spells out the Micro Menu’s purpose clearly and succinctly:
“Smaller portions. Same great taste. Our Micro Menu provides options for GLP-1 customers, kids and anybody just looking for a lighter bite!”
Customer reaction, Zonios said, was “instant, right away. As soon as we put the menu out, within hours people started ordering the mini cheeseburgers and mini cheesesteaks. These are all just smaller portions—the burgers are sliders and, instead of a foot-long roll for the cheesesteaks, it’s just [half that size]. That’s all there is to it, but it’s all in the way you market it.”
Better yet, the smaller portions provide a nice little boost to the bottom line. “For me, it’s actually more profitable because we’re selling 50% of the amount of food and I’m charging 60% of the price. So I’m actually making 10% more on the smaller version than I make on the bigger version.”
‘Less Fear, More Action’
Zonios’ wife, Jamie, is a teacher, so it made sense that Glenside Pizza focused on giving back to local schools for its 25th anniversary. “Instead of just touting our accomplishments, I’d rather celebrate by saying thank you, and it’s genuine,” Zonios said. “I really enjoy giving back, and I love helping the schools and sending food to the students. I also know how under-appreciated and underpaid teachers are. My wife comes home exhausted every day, with all these crazy stories.”
In an online contest last month, Glenside Pizza asked social media followers to nominate a local school to receive 25 free pizzas. In the end, Zonios decided one school wasn’t enough; he ultimately gave away 25 pizzas to five different schools—a total of 125 pizzas. “I have some dates set for each school and will reach out to the local news stations here, probably the NBC and ABC stations, and invite them to come and cover it,” he said.
“It’s a happy community thing,” he added. “The kids will be so happy. And these kids and parents are the ones that have kept us going for all these years.”
But it also helps that Zonios hasn’t let Glenside Pizza fall into a rut. He might be choosy about the innovations he will embrace—yes to SMS marketing and loyalty programs, a resounding NO to third-party apps—but he uses them wisely and consistently.
“You just get stuck sometimes,” he said, “so I think it’s really important to tell pizza shop owners who are having a down month or feeling afraid or stagnant: less fear, more action. If you get stuck in fear, everything’s going to pass you by.”
“When business is slow, when things are quiet, that’s when you have to do your brainstorming,” Zonios advised. “You have to come up with new marketing ideas and strategies or collaborations with other local businesses. That’s my process…we’re trying a lot of new ideas and shaking things up.”
Rick Hynum is PMQ Pizza’s editor in chief.
