By Michael P. LaMarca
Most pizzerias boast that they offer “Pizza, Pasta, Subs, Calzones, Salads, Wings and More!” I would bet your menu consists of most of these items as well. I would also bet that having all these options potentially limits your growth and profitability. I am not saying that having an extensive menu is bad. I’m just saying “less is more,” and you may not see that your menu might be holding you back from becoming a high- or higher-volume pizzeria.
Think about it this way: The more options you have on your menu, the more your customer will have to think about what they want. This can add time to your order taking process and jam up your phones on a busy night as customers ask your team questions about the difference between your Italian sub and your club sandwich. Your goal should be to ensure that your customer knows what they want before they order.
When you have a larger, more expansive menu, you will also have to carry a larger inventory on hand—which means more product to manage. This can increase the odds of your product spoiling due to mismanagement or simply sitting in a cooler and reaching its expiration date. This, in turn, could lead to unintended higher food costs.
One of the first benefits of a “less is more” mindset: The fewer items you have on your menu, the fewer things you have to teach your staff. Imagine having to teach a new team member how to make a certain number of appetizers, seven to 10 pasta dishes, 15 or more subs, 10 or more entree salads, and 25 or more different pizzas and calzones! Now imagine simply teaching your staff how to make one salad, two or three appetizers, and all of your different types and styles of pizzas.
If you are looking to open more locations, this would be the first step to optimizing potential growth and scalability. As the owner, your daily presence reduces with every location you have, and your operations must be tight to run multiple locations. With tighter operations should come more or better profitability. Look at McDonald’s, for instance: They serve a hamburger 10 different ways. That keeps operations tight and guarantees quick service to their customers. McDonald’s is not busy because it offers the best hamburger; it’s busy because it offers consistent food across all locations, ordering is easy, and the service is fast.
Reducing your menu down to your top-selling items can be easy to do. Start by running your numbers for each menu category and see what your customers are actually buying. Focus on what sells and sell it every day. Eliminate every low-selling, low-profit menu item in each category. Cut the losers and promote the winners. You decide what your customers should order. You might think that your customers will miss the items you are cutting out, but they will not. They will order something else that’s on your menu.
A smaller menu could mean smaller staff or fewer scheduled hours as well. Having less food to produce will reduce your operations, which makes it easier on your new and current staff. Your pizzeria needs to be the first choice when a customer thinks about ordering a pizza; if they want veal Parmesan, they will need to call someone else. It’s better to sell one item a million times than selling a million items once!
Michael LaMarca is owner/CEO of Master Pizza Franchise Group in Cleveland. To engage with him directly, follow him at @michaelplamarca on Instagram and Facebook.
