Book Holiday Parties and Catering Now
While your competition is focusing all of its efforts on fall football, get a jump on your winter bookings. Pull out last year’s planners and assign a person to contact guests who ordered catering or booked an office party in the past. Early-bird discounts in exchange for securing a space now are a great motivator for locking in an early date. Your winter bank ledger will be in the black before you turn the calendar page over to November.
The Art of the Upsell
If you’d like to sell more beverages, appetizers and desserts, take a minute to assess how you and your staff are presenting your menu to guests. Are servers merely asking, “Would you like an appetizer?” or are they making relevant suggestions based on appetizers they personally enjoy? Suggestive selling makes a big difference. Do you offer wine and beer samples to entice purchases from the bar? And for dessert, if guests are too full, do you have to-go desserts, such as cookies and brownies, that are available to enjoy later?
​If you have a great company story to tell or a fantastic pizza recipe to share, or simply want to preview a weekly special, say it with video. Statistics show that people enjoy watching a video more than reading about a product, and new technology has made it easier than ever for you to visually transmit your message.
Borrow This Idea: Low-Carb Pizza Bowls
At Venezia’s New York Style Pizzeria, with five locations around Phoenix, president Domenick Montanile says he needed to figure out a way for locals on low-carb diets to still frequent the pizzeria. So about a year ago, Montanile created the Low-Carb Pizza Bowl, giving his customers all of the pizza toppings they love, without the carb-heavy crust.
There are four specialty Low-Carb Pizza Bowls on the menu, including the Veggie; the Combo, with pepperoni and sausage; the Pesto, with pesto chicken; and the spicy Diavolo bowl. Customers can also build their own bowls, choosing from an array of proteins and veggies. Each Low-Carb Pizza Bowl averages 20 net carbohydrates, which is about 75% less carbs than a two-slice meal, according to the Venezia’s menu.
“I looked up our sales numbers toward the end of last year, and we were selling an average of about 240 to 250 pizza bowls per week between our five locations, so just under 50 per week per location,” Montanile reports. “We’re now averaging around 300 to 320 per week across all locations, so that’s just over 60 per week per location.”
