By Michael P. LaMarca
As your New Year’s resolutions start to fade away and feel more unattainable—like my goals of starting an exercise routine and putting more vegetables on my pizza—your focus should be on two important goals for your business. Accomplishing these goals could make 2026 a winning year and create a strong foundation to grow your business.
Keep in mind that it’s important to plan out your goals and give yourself a realistic timetable to accomplish them. Break down your overall objective into a few smaller steps to make continual progress and keep moving forward. It’s impossible to get everything done in one day, but having real deadlines and giving yourself enough time to work on your goals will give you the best odds of achieving them.
Goal 1: Analyze Your Menu in Depth
The first goal should be to start each year with an analysis of your menu. What’s been moving the most and selling the least over the last six or 12 months? You should take your bottom sellers off your menu. For example, evaluate your specialty pizzas and individual toppings and decide what you should not carry anymore. Replace those bottom sellers with a new specialty pizza and bring in some new toppings.
Using numbers and real data will open your eyes to your menu’s true winners and losers. It’s easy to hang on to every menu item because they’re your creations and you’re emotionally attached to them. But listen to your customers: If they’re not buying it, don’t sell it. This is a great time for new creativity!
It’s also important go over your menu and make sure images, prices and overall look are cohesive and up to date. Go through each item and/or recipe on your menu and make sure your costs of goods sold (COGS) are still in line. You should monitor your COGS regularly throughout the year, but the beginning and midpoint of the year are especially great times to dig deeper into them.
During this step, it’s crucial to nail down the exact weight of each ingredient and the amount of any disposables or packaging that goes into each menu item. Every ounce of every ingredient needs to be accounted for and measured correctly. For example, if you buy cheese for $2.50 a pound and you put six ounces of cheese on your pizza, your COGS for the cheese alone would be $0.94.
Follow the same procedure with your pizza sauce, dough and all of your toppings. Include the cost of the pizza box, box liner, gloves and anything else you send out the door with the pizza. Add up the total of each item and divide it by the menu price to get COGS percentage. Total COGS of 30% and lower is an acceptable percentage for most business models in pizza.
Goal 2: Strengthen (or Create) Your Employee Handbook
Your second goal should be to either update or create your employee handbook. This should be your guide for handling every situation—with specifics—that might come up in your restaurant. If you don’t already have a handbook, a great way to start one is to write out and distribute one new policy each week. At the end of the year, you’ll have 52 new and established policies. Rome wasn’t built in one day, and your business doesn’t need to be, either.
Usually, federal, state and local governments come out with new laws, policies and/or regulations for a new year. This gives you a great opportunity to go over your entire handbook while you’re making these updates. You need to stay on top of these policies. Keeping up with new government regulations could be a full-time job. Getting involved with your state restaurant association is a great way to save time and resources.
Comb through each section of your handbook and determine whether each policy still makes sense or needs to be updated. That being said, you don’t know what you don’t know. Everyday experiences will provide content for your handbook. The more situations, dilemmas, confrontations, accidents and issues you encounter, the more you’ll see that you need an answer for everything. It’s impossible to think of everything that needs to be in your handbook, so look at it as a living, breathing document that should be updated as needed.
The difference between of having a great idea and a great plan is that ideas are in your head and plans are written out on paper. Have a plan and stick to it. You’ll see results in your business if you plan out and work on these two goals each year. That habit will create more goals and plans. The stronger you build your restaurant’s foundation, the further you can launch.
Michael LaMarca is a veteran pizzeria owner/operator and owner/CEO of Master Pizza Franchise Group in Cleveland. To engage with him directly, follow him at @michaelplamarca on Instagram and Facebook. Follow him at @michaelplamarca on Instagram and Facebook to engage with him directly.
