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Q.
I am interested in starting my own local pizza restaurant. Where can I obtain information on business related
rules of thumb for this industry such as: volume vs. population in a specific radius, delivery vs. sit down/take
out, POS systems, average cost per square foot on rental space, etc?
Q.
What is the best way to schedule and determine the best employees to keep on? Also, since it's not a sit down
restaurant, would a system like RapidFire be necessary right away while I'm learning the business since it is
already relatively successful?
Q.
We are also a party store. We deliver beer, cigarettes, pop, milk, chips, gum, candy, etc. Can RapidFire adapt
to our extensive services?
Q.
On the RapidFire system how do you go about editing an order without going to the void screen to void out the
original pizza order and then reordering the pizza?
Q.
Can I download my customer base onto a disk so I can take it home and put it on my office computer where I am
able to do customized mailings?
Q.
I have RapidFire and wanted to know how you keep your delivery drivers from highlighting another driver's record
for the night to see what they have done so far. How do you get your delivery drivers to work as a team when your
not there?
Q.
Can I use your system to control my Labor cost (calculation of hours worked)?
Q.
How do we compare all the different POS systems that are out there...which has the best reliability, options,
support, etc, for my money?
Q. I am interested in starting my own local pizza
restaurant. Where can I obtain information on business related rules
of thumb for this industry such as: volume vs. population in a
specific radius, delivery vs. sit down/take out, POS systems,
average cost per square foot on rental space,
etc? A. Hi James, These questions are pretty broad. As far as volume: I would analyze the competition. I would estimate how much sales they are doing by discreetly asking employees, suppliers and video taping incoming food orders and computing that info back to sales. I might also plant myself across the street on a Friday night with a clipboard and count cars, deliveries etc. This would give me a rough indicator of how successful they are and if I could and want to compete with them. As far as carry out, dine in and delivery: From personal experience the most profitable operations are "Delco's" acronym for delivery carry-out. This is the Papa Johns theory. Dining rooms are great if they are always used. They really raise the cost of operations because they are fairly non productive areas that you have to heat, cool, pay taxes on, clean and maintain. If you don't have to have one I wouldn't do it at this time. I had a Delco for 3 years and then expanded and added 60 seats, 15 years later I expanded and ended up with 120 seats, 5000 sq. feet. Big monster to manage. If I had to do it over again I'd find a building with 1300-1500 sq. ft. and do it lean and mean. The best POS system in my opinion is RapidFire. I had the system for 3 years. It ran flawlessly. Customer support is great, located in Alpharetta, GA. I consult for RapidFire. If you go to www.rapidfire.com find the ask the expert section. I've answered lots of operational questions there. Download your free copy of Big Bucks with Big Dave and consider ordering my audio series. 30 years of info in 3 hours. Rental space cost per foot is a local question. You must know a good realtor. They can pretty much advise you on the going rate. I've helped negotiate leases for clients and saved them thousands. Food service operation leases are tricky. Since I have been a commercial landlord I bring both sides of the table to the project. The areas that you will also need to be successful are operational. How do I make great pizza? How do I market it? Who will be my supplier. How do I coordinate with all of the governmental agencies? How do I hire, fire? What will I serve? How much should my food and labor expenses be in percentage of sales? How much can I earn and what is my breakeven point? The best accountant that specializes in restaurants is Jim Laube. He is a national speaker, like myself and can be contacted at 888.233.3555 or on the web http://www.restaurantowner.com/. I would also urge you to attend Pizza Expo 2001 in Las Vegas. This years convention will be March 20-22. Info at http://www.pizzatoday.com/. Another source of free info is Pizza Marketing Quarterly magazine, http://www.pmq.com/. If you are serious and still have the passion to do it and need expertise, contact me and I would be pleased to send you a proposal. Good Luck. Big Dave Ostrander
Q.
I just
took over a good business which could be a lot better. I have 11
part time employees carry out/delivery only. What is the best way to
schedule and determine the best employees to keep on? They are all
young and attend high school and college. I'm thinking older adults
might be more reliable and conscientious. Also, since it's not a sit
down restaurant, would a system like RapidFire be necessary right
away while I'm learning the business since it is already relatively
successful? A.
Hi Candace, RapidFire thoughts: If your gross sales are under $300,000 you're not big enough yet. If sales are between $300,000 and $500,000 you should really get a demonstration. You can afford the system and you'll experience an immediate ROI. If your sales exceed $500,000 it's a no brainer. You really must invest in technology. The savings will pay for the system many times over. If you are writing orders on common guest checks you are getting ripped off. The only question is how much. Your employees think that you are making 50% profit on every sale. Just ask them. They can justify a 5 here and a 10 there. I'd be happy to chat with you on the phone. Call me between 9-5 EST. 1-888-BIG DAVE. The first one is on the house. Good luck. Best wishes, BD
Q.
We are also a party store. We deliver beer, cigarettes, pop,
milk, chips, gum, candy, etc. Can RapidFire adapt to our extensive
services? RapidFire is found in diverse locations. Not only is it the best POS system for pizza shops it will work for your Party Store inventory. I think that the Inventory Control Report will be very useful to you to eliminate potential theft in your most critical areas (Cigarettes, Beer, Candy, etc.). The profit margins are so low and the temptation of inventory shrinkage is so great in these areas. Call for a free demonstration or join us at NE Pizza Expo in Atlantic City October 11 & 12. Take care of the old neighborhood.
Q.
Hey Dave here's one for you about the
RapidFire system. We take an order for a let's say large pepperoni,
sausage and pepper pizza, confirm the order and customer info then
proceed to hang-up the phone. But a minute later the customer calls
back to tell you they made a mistake and did not want sausage but
want bacon instead. How do you go about editing the order without
going to the void screen to void out the original pizza order and
then reordering the pizza as the customer now wants it
? A.
Hey George,
Q.
Can I download my customer base
onto a disk so I can take it home and put it on my office computer
where I am able to do customized mailings? Can we list customers by
street names? A. My initial answer was yes. I contacted RapidFire's product manager and system Guru. He advised that under marketing function the information could be downloaded in an ASCII File. Once at home you could load the data and convert to Excel. From that point Excel could sort by alpha or numeric. This should allow you to do strategic database marketing to selected addresses as well as names. This pinpoint marketing is fun and really wows the customer as long as the piece is not perceived as junk mail. Great Question!
Q.
I have RapidFire and wanted to
know how you keep your delivery drivers from highlighting another
driver's record for the night to see what they have done so far.
When I am not at my restaurant my drivers fight over who is going to
do which delivery. They only want the deliveries with the big
tips that won't take too much time. Is there a way to put a password
on what the drivers have done so far? How do you get your delivery
drivers to work as a team when your not there? A. I insisted that the first driver at the top of the screen took the next available delivery. Period. End of discussion. Playing games is counter productive to customer satisfaction. When it's all over and done at the end of the shift, tips usually even out. During peak times (when your jammin') 5-9 p.m., try using an expediter to route your drivers. They return from delivery and the asst. manager has everything ready for them to leave immediately. I turn my drivers in less than 30 seconds on weekends. They are too busy to snoop around the computer and have no say when and where they are going to. At this time there is no password to lock out drivers. As far as teamwork. I bonus all of my full time drivers $20 a week and my part timers $10 a week for flawless performance. This means if they play by the rules and have zero chargeable errors for the week they get $20 extra in their pay. For every chargeable error they occur they lose $5, down to no bonus. This is a measurable grade they receive. As a group (all drivers) for every week they have zero errors I toss in a $25 gift certificate at a local gas station. We then have a drawing for the winner. If the entire group has an entire month error free I buy every one of them a free fill up. They will become self policing and work as a team for the common good. I have some drivers that have gone 5 months error free. It really is a small price to pay for total customer satisfaction. I also have a similar incentive for my cooks. They really start paying attention to the small details and start reading the tickets. Remember, there is no I in TEAM. The really cool thing is that RapidFire's reports are so detailed that nothing slips through the cracks.
Q. Can I use your system to control my Labor
cost (calculation of hours worked)? A. Absolutely. It's so easy. RapidFire becomes your time clock. Every employee is assigned an identification number. When they come to work they clock in on the system. When they leave they clock out. RapidFire keeps a running total of all sales as well as all labor costs to the minute. At any time you, or your manager, can touch the screen and get an hour by hour breakdown of sales, labor cost in money as well as labor cost in percent. You will never again ask yourself the question, "What was my labor cost for the day?" At the end of the night when you print your reports you will get a hard copy of sales, labor, productivity, who took every order, how long it took them to process the order, ideal cash deposit as well as cash over/short. This is the short list. I also print a labor cost for the week as well as monthly. Since the only 2 variables my managers have under their direct immediate control is food and labor cost, (how much the staff puts on the pizza and how much money it took to fulfill the orders) this is how I bonus them. They monitor the labor cost like an eagle and send people home early when we're slow as well as call extra people in when we get busy. Labor cost is so hard to control you'll wonder how you did it before RapidFire. Personally, I guessed a lot and was surprised every month when I got my end of month financials.
Q. How do we compare all the different POS
systems that are out there...which has the best reliability,
options, support, etc, for my money? RapidFire? SpeedLine? PrOfitS?
I really believe a POS system can help my restaurant, but how do I
decide who to go with? A. This is my story. As you can probably tell I'm a little opinionated on the subject. I'll keep as neutral as I can. Here goes. Eight years ago I decided to invest in a great POS system. I requested information from all of the manufactures. I then set up a matrix, similar to a Consumer Report study. I listed all of the qualities I needed and wanted from a system. I attended Pizza Expo 93 and 94. I test drove all of the systems. I compared price and features. I chose a system that was not RapidFire. I paid the entire fee up front. I bought all of the recommended hardware as well as purchased the network software. Before the installers arrived I had spent close to $20,000. They arrived at my store and the three day install turned into a nightmare. They took over 20 days to install my system. They were incompetent. They also informed me that I was their first install, afterwards I became suspicious of their level of competence. I was personally paying for their lodging and expenses. Their motel bill was over $1000. I finally asked them to leave and called the inventor of the software. He told me that he was not responsible for the actions of the installers. He simply trained them and they were independent contractors. I didn't know what to do. If I had not pre paid for the entire system I would have had some recourse. I was sick of my decision and ashamed. I appealed to the inventor. Out of kindness he allowed my manager and myself to travel to his headquarters and undergo a weeks training. His reduced fee was $2000. We also paid for our own lodging and expenses. We traveled back home and finally got our system reinstalled by ourselves. Saying it was mediocre would be kind. It crashed weekly. Usually on a Friday or Saturday night in the middle of a rush. My manager went ballistic. He cursed the day we invested in the system from hell. The only time we could get tech support was Monday through Friday from 9 till 5. So whenever we crashed we were on the phone to our buddies the inventors, the following Monday morning. After a while we were treated as problem children and given the run around. They stopped taking our calls. "It must be a hardware problem. It can't be a software problem." We suffered for over two years and then my restaurant burned down. To make matters worse, I was $150,000 under insured and had neglected to get a rider on my policy for computers. I was SOL. Not being one to dwell on the past I found myself in Vegas for Pizza Expo 97. I knew I needed a new POS system and this was the place to see them all. I have to let you know that my second choice for my original purchase was RapidFire. I didn't choose them based on two factors. Their quote was $1500 higher than their competition and their headquarters was located in Oregon, 1500 miles from my shop. Now that I look at everything in retrospect, those were very stupid criteria to base a purchase decision on. I poured my heart out to the RapidFire reps in Vegas. I told them everything. I was very gun shy having been burned once before. They told me they had tech support available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I went for it. One of the smartest things I ever did. Every level of contact, every moment of truth was positive. I had to have been the world's hardest sell. They treated me like family, my installer was great. He finished a day early and set up individualized training for every one of my crew. We hated to see him go, not because we were nervous, we just liked him. For the last three years my system has operated as promised. Flawlessly. We've had to occasionally call tech support for tiny self inflicted glitches and to have a few dumb questions answered. Every single experience has been a positive one. The techs are sharp, never condescending and genuinely helpful. They have even called back to make sure every thing was ok after a coaching session. This is unheard of in today's tell lies and break promises society. And for that reason I am proud and honored to be associated with their organization in my small role as an end user consultant. My advice is to go to Pizza Expo 2000 in Vegas and compare all of the systems in person. Then seek out references. Compare costs. But don't go with the lowest price like I did the first time. Please don't compromise your sanity for a few thousand dollars that will be amortized over many, many years. Believe me, it's not worth it. Ask the tough questions about what happens after the sale. Once they have your money. RapidFire treats prospects and customers the same. And finally, don't underestimate the power of database marketing. That feature alone will pay for the cost of the system. Sorry I can't advise you on the other systems out there. I never had a reason to ever shop around again after RapidFire. Look me up. |
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