Hey you fine foodies! I recently opened up a pizza/takeout shop in small town Ontario. I have been struggling to figure out how to make slices make sense.
Itās a very small town but weāre an artery to cottage country and the roads are busy af. The summer was quite good for us..but we often either end up with a lot of left over slices..or we donāt stock enough and we lose business with folks leaving looking disappointed.
I know itās always gone be a gamble but does anybody have any insight in to this balancing act? Especially moving in to the slower season we wanna get a handle on it to stay afloat!
by Substantial_Law6066
26 Comments
At the pizzeria I worked at, we had one cheese and one cheese and pepperoni ready for dishing out as slices during lunch hours. If one was half gone, we would make another one. After lunch was over, the slices were up for grabs for employees. We didn’t have slices available at dinner. I don’t know if this was helpful at all, but good luck!
Not a pizza shop owner, but I would be inclined to overbake for a couple of months to see when your busiest times are. Based on that, come up with a baking schedule. Leftovers can be donated to those who need it but can’t afford it. “RnD cost”
Someone from Ontario here, (albeit not that close to cottage country), where you at? I go up every few months would be interested in dropping by! Slice or not š
Is there a local āsoup kitchenā where you can donate leftovers?
Seems to me the move is to make undercooked plain pies and then top them to order. Once you have a firm idea of what you’re typically moving and when you could plan to make specific pies to minimize overage.
You can keep a par baked pie in reserve. The few minute wait is no big deal for customers and the quality may be better than something re-heated or left under a heat lamp. There will also probably be less waste that way too.
Not sure the legality of it everywhere but a place in Chicago sells 1-day old cold slices for a cheaper price than their usual slice and I think it’s great. I usually go that option just to reheat myself or eat cold
most pizza shops will have one or two pies on display. like one cheese and one pep for example. and under the counter/on the back rack, they will have one more cheese and one more pep waiting. is this not what you do? you shouldnt be making a large amount of pies in the morning then slowly using that inventory for the rest of the day. it wont be as fresh.
I don’t have any advice but where did you get the pizza serving rack?
I used to work in a pizza shop as a kid. We would only have slices on display during peak hours (lunch/dinner). During the off hours we had a sign that said Slices Available and we kept fully cooked/cut pies in the walk-in specifically for slices. Any that were left at the end of the night we sold 2 for 1 or the employees could have them after closing.
Sell the leftovers at the end of the day on Too Good To Go
where are u located in ontario?
I used to work at a pizza place in Miami, FL. We had big cheese pizzas that were almost fully cooked, and depending if the person ordered a cheese slice, or a slice with toppings, we would add the toppings at the moment with a bit more cheese and pop the slice back in the oven for a couple of minutes, to get it warm and crispy, and fully cooked. Everyone loved the lunch specials of 2 slices + a fountain drink.
Good luck on the business!
Have you leveraged Too Good To Go? Could help with leftover slices at the end of the night. Pizza looks great btw.
Also, we’re in Ontario, would love to check your place out if you feel comfortable sharing the name.
Are you selling the slices for more than the whole pie divided by 8? Because if youāre not, you need to be.
Just watched an IG reel the other day from the owner of State of Mind Slice House in Palo Alto about this exact thing:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOoLHGOD4Wh/?igsh=YmJjbmhyNXJva2c=
Keep tabs and do the math – itās just that
Have you tired considering custom slices? I have a few places near me that have pre-cut half-baked slices that they make and fully bake to order. Wouldnāt be as quick but waste would be less
I help manage a small town pizza shop, and we only do slices between 11-3pm, and typically we only do a half chz/Roni. Everytime I make a 2nd pie, even if it sell all my slices before 12, I end up throwing most of it away(or eat it lol). Most places around us do the same.
Signage Question: do you have a big ole sign that says “Slices $2” (or whatever) out there visible from the road? And when you’ve got extra, are you getting the counter to push for slices over whole pies?
Feels like a merchandising challenge, which is good, because they’re solvable.
Are you doing any type of special āslice for the nightā deal for any leftover slices – until itās gone. As others have said TGTG is a good option as well. A local shop in Ontario I go to (also cottage country but other end) does this and usually nothing is left an hour after the special goes into effect.
What if you were to start incorporating sicilian (square) slices? That dough is often par-baked and ready to be dressed and thrown in the oven on a moments notice. It also freezes very well, if necessary.
Do you make a profit?
So I’m in New Jersey so I’m giving this perspective…there’s a pizza place near me that discounts slices at the end of the night where cost is still covered but ensures that food isn’t going to waste. It used to be $1 slices for the final hour (9-10pm) but as food cost has gone up, it’s now $2.50. It’s common for those slice shops to have plain/cheese and pepperoni pies ready under the counter to replace the ones on the counter when they sell through and then they’ll make the specialty pies as they go.
Just an interested slice consumer here – but a variety of good-looking slice options, double crisped to perfection, is always what I’m looking for.
But it has to be part of the business model – do you have enough foot traffic to sell enough slices? Seems to me that slice joints and sit-down-and-order-a-whole-pizza shops are qualitatively different, dependent on the local market.
Nice curtains in the background
I managed a few shops that sold by the slice a little over 10 years ago in the US. In the mornings, we would make 1 of each of our pizzas to display in the case. If it was a specialty pizza that didnāt move as well, we would make half-n-halfs. At lower volumes stores, some of the pizzas we could get away with doing quarters. This also depended on the day of the week, which mostly came with experience.
If we were coming up on the time to throw away the pizzas, we would offer deals to customers to take the slices for cheap. Oh, you came in for a lunch special? Well I need to get ride of the pizzas in my case. Iāll give you all you see for $20 bucks. Feed the homeless, bring it back into the office, crawl into a hole and gorge yourself. Whatever pulls your RV. Or if we had someone order a whole pizza of something we had slices of, weād ask if theyād take the case slices for half the price and a fraction of the time. Usually the deals were taken.
We did the same thing in the evenings, but we usually made more whole pizzas for dinner rush. Sometimes we would have a few back ups waiting on the rack. Especially Fridays, etc. for cheese, pep, meat lovers
once you are out of a pizza, we would make another of that kind unless it was getting close to the time to make pies for the dinner crowd or closing.