When Dallas-based Pizza Patron opened its latest location in San Antonio in October 2008, the chain known as it its fast service pizza idea, or QSP. The restaurant has a drive-thru window and an out of doors menu board. Clients order by talking right into a microphone, then drive just a few extra ft to a window to choose up their pizza. Andrew Gamm, director of name improvement for the rising chain (which is approaching 100 items on the time of this writing), says the corporate needs to alter the way in which individuals purchase pizza. “Our aim is to ship drive-thru service that rivals the non-pizza QSR section,” he says.
Whereas drive-thrus are frequent amongst burger and different fast service eating places, few pizza operators supply prospects the comfort of ordering pizza, then not having to go away their automobiles to choose it up. Pizza takes quarter-hour or longer to prepare dinner, an period of time that drive-thru customers won’t tolerate. They’re accustomed to filling their orders in two or three minutes.
Pizza Patron dealt with the velocity of service challenge by working with an organization to develop an oven that bakes a pie in 4 minutes. The restaurant additionally narrowed the drive-thru decisions to about 5 menu gadgets. “Quickness and effectivity supersede customization,” Gamm says.
For many different pizza operators, drive-thru means the client orders by cellphone or on-line, then drives to the restaurant to choose up the meals at a window. That technique is one solution to encourage individuals to choose up their pizzas, as an alternative of getting the restaurant ship. “You’ll be able to cut back bills by placing in a window,” says Mark Ulrey, proprietor of the six-unit Flyer’s Pizza & Subs in Columbus, Ohio. The decreased bills come from hiring fewer supply drivers, and presumably having decrease insurance coverage prices and different prices related to supply. 4 of the Flyer’s areas supply drive-thru service, which accounts for about 35 % of these shops’ gross sales. “Most of that enterprise has been taken away from supply,” says Ulrey.
Moreover, he notes, there are bills related to drive-thru. The placement needs to be a standalone or an finish cap constructing. “These value a pair extra {dollars} per sq. foot,” he says. Two Flyer’s areas are finish cap and two are standalone. There are different constructing necessities. The window needs to be sufficiently big to accommodate an 18-inch pizza field. That’s bigger than a drive via window at a burger place. The work space close to the window must have its personal money register. The kitchen may should be redesigned to place the staging space or the holding space nearer to the window.
There’s additionally know-how to alert staff {that a} automotive has pulled into the drive via space. That might be a magnet system constructed into the pavement, just like sensors that set off a site visitors gentle, or an ultrasonic detector that sends a excessive frequency sound after which detects when the sound bounces off a automotive.
Daren Haas is vp of selling and new enterprise improvement for HM Electronics (HME), a Poway, California-based firm that makes ultrasonic detectors and different drive-thru associated know-how corresponding to headsets and timers. He says new know-how will make it simpler for eating places to develop their drive-thru processes. “You may get an embedded RFID tag in your bank card or cellular phone so you’ll be able to faucet and go for fee, and there’s additionally cellular phone and on-line ordering that shops your preferences,” he explains.
Haas provides that, on the whole, some areas usually tend to see expanded drive-thru than others. “In Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and different open areas, it’s big. It’s nearly non existent in California due to zoning legal guidelines and actual property may be very costly.”
Some drive-thru areas are low tech. Kim Trotta, whose husband opened Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Through in Cincinnati in 1996, says Trotta’s is in a constructing that was a automotive wash. “A number of the drive-thrus listed below are in outdated barns,” she says. “Ours may be very enticing.” The world has companies that promote donuts, quick meals, groceries, even beer and wine by way of drive-thru home windows.
Columbus, Ohio-based Donatos has 176 areas. Spokesperson Tom Santor says greater than 70 % have drive-thru home windows, and in these areas, drive-thru accounts for 15 to twenty % of gross sales. One problem is to coach prospects in regards to the drive-thru possibility. “The largest factor is simply the nomenclature of it,” he says. “On the again of our menu, we have now a phone icon and we consult with the call-ahead drive-thru window.” The knowledge is on the Donatos Web page too.
Ulrey says Flyer’s workers lets prospects know they will decide up orders at a window. “You educate them,” he says. “On the cellphone we are saying, ‘Is that this going to be pickup, supply or drive-thru?’ ” Unsolicited mail items additionally point out the drive-thru. Gamm says opening the QSP entailed altering the mindset of Pizza Patron staff. Many have been used to prospects calling, then ready for supply or arriving twenty minutes later. “Now an order is available in and the clock is working,” he says. “You’ve a couple of minutes to get it executed.”
The chain plans to open extra QSP areas. The subsequent one will probably be in a former Popeye’s Rooster location that has a drive-thru. Gamm says the brand new format offers the chain extra choices in web site choice. “We are able to get into actual property that wouldn’t work with our mannequin beforehand,” he says. “It’s solely going to get higher. We’re very optimistic about development.” ?
Speak to the Signal ”
Drive-thru prospects wish to communicate to somebody or one thing. That’s not as a result of they’ve a grievance, however as a result of they’re used to yelling right into a microphone to put an order. Sadly for these frequent customers of drive via quick meals, the pizza drive-thru is totally different. With pizza, “drive-thru” normally means “name or order on-line, then decide up at a window.” There isn’t a microphone outdoors.
“It’s a long run ongoing schooling,” says Tom Santor, spokesperson for Columbus, Ohio-based Donatos. “They drive up and ask, ‘Do I discuss into this signal?’ ”
Kim Trotta, of the household owned Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Through in Cincinnati, Ohio, says she has seen just a few individuals discuss to the signage outdoors the constructing, a former automotive wash. “Once you first proceed into the doorway of the drive-thru, there’s a small signal that claims our hours. It’s humorous … generally individuals discuss into it. We allow them to discuss into it, then we stroll over to them.”
Nora Caley is a contract author specializing in meals and enterprise subjects. She lives in Denver, Colorado
When Dallas-based Pizza Patron opened its latest location in San Antonio in October 2008, the chain known as it its fast service pizza idea, or QSP. The restaurant has a drive-thru window and an out of doors menu board. Clients order by talking right into a microphone, then drive just a few extra ft to a window to choose up their pizza. Andrew Gamm, director of name improvement for the rising chain (which is approaching 100 items on the time of this writing), says the corporate needs to alter the way in which individuals purchase pizza. “Our aim is to ship drive-thru service that rivals the non-pizza QSR section,” he says.
Whereas drive-thrus are frequent amongst burger and different fast service eating places, few pizza operators supply prospects the comfort of ordering pizza, then not having to go away their automobiles to choose it up. Pizza takes quarter-hour or longer to prepare dinner, an period of time that drive-thru customers won’t tolerate. They’re accustomed to filling their orders in two or three minutes.
Pizza Patron dealt with the velocity of service challenge by working with an organization to develop an oven that bakes a pie in 4 minutes. The restaurant additionally narrowed the drive-thru decisions to about 5 menu gadgets. “Quickness and effectivity supersede customization,” Gamm says.
For many different pizza operators, drive-thru means the client orders by cellphone or on-line, then drives to the restaurant to choose up the meals at a window. That technique is one solution to encourage individuals to choose up their pizzas, as an alternative of getting the restaurant ship. “You’ll be able to cut back bills by placing in a window,” says Mark Ulrey, proprietor of the six-unit Flyer’s Pizza & Subs in Columbus, Ohio. The decreased bills come from hiring fewer supply drivers, and presumably having decrease insurance coverage prices and different prices related to supply. 4 of the Flyer’s areas supply drive-thru service, which accounts for about 35 % of these shops’ gross sales. “Most of that enterprise has been taken away from supply,” says Ulrey.
Moreover, he notes, there are bills related to drive-thru. The placement needs to be a standalone or an finish cap constructing. “These value a pair extra {dollars} per sq. foot,” he says. Two Flyer’s areas are finish cap and two are standalone. There are different constructing necessities. The window needs to be sufficiently big to accommodate an 18-inch pizza field. That’s bigger than a drive via window at a burger place. The work space close to the window must have its personal money register. The kitchen may should be redesigned to place the staging space or the holding space nearer to the window.
There’s additionally know-how to alert staff {that a} automotive has pulled into the drive via space. That might be a magnet system constructed into the pavement, just like sensors that set off a site visitors gentle, or an ultrasonic detector that sends a excessive frequency sound after which detects when the sound bounces off a automotive.
Daren Haas is vp of selling and new enterprise improvement for HM Electronics (HME), a Poway, California-based firm that makes ultrasonic detectors and different drive-thru associated know-how corresponding to headsets and timers. He says new know-how will make it simpler for eating places to develop their drive-thru processes. “You may get an embedded RFID tag in your bank card or cellular phone so you’ll be able to faucet and go for fee, and there’s additionally cellular phone and on-line ordering that shops your preferences,” he explains.
Haas provides that, on the whole, some areas usually tend to see expanded drive-thru than others. “In Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and different open areas, it’s big. It’s nearly non existent in California due to zoning legal guidelines and actual property may be very costly.”
Some drive-thru areas are low tech. Kim Trotta, whose husband opened Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Through in Cincinnati in 1996, says Trotta’s is in a constructing that was a automotive wash. “A number of the drive-thrus listed below are in outdated barns,” she says. “Ours may be very enticing.” The world has companies that promote donuts, quick meals, groceries, even beer and wine by way of drive-thru home windows.
Columbus, Ohio-based Donatos has 176 areas. Spokesperson Tom Santor says greater than 70 % have drive-thru home windows, and in these areas, drive-thru accounts for 15 to twenty % of gross sales. One problem is to coach prospects in regards to the drive-thru possibility. “The largest factor is simply the nomenclature of it,” he says. “On the again of our menu, we have now a phone icon and we consult with the call-ahead drive-thru window.” The knowledge is on the Donatos Web page too.
Ulrey says Flyer’s workers lets prospects know they will decide up orders at a window. “You educate them,” he says. “On the cellphone we are saying, ‘Is that this going to be pickup, supply or drive-thru?’ ” Unsolicited mail items additionally point out the drive-thru. Gamm says opening the QSP entailed altering the mindset of Pizza Patron staff. Many have been used to prospects calling, then ready for supply or arriving twenty minutes later. “Now an order is available in and the clock is working,” he says. “You’ve a couple of minutes to get it executed.”
The chain plans to open extra QSP areas. The subsequent one will probably be in a former Popeye’s Rooster location that has a drive-thru. Gamm says the brand new format offers the chain extra choices in web site choice. “We are able to get into actual property that wouldn’t work with our mannequin beforehand,” he says. “It’s solely going to get higher. We’re very optimistic about development.” ?
Speak to the Signal ”
Drive-thru prospects wish to communicate to somebody or one thing. That’s not as a result of they’ve a grievance, however as a result of they’re used to yelling right into a microphone to put an order. Sadly for these frequent customers of drive via quick meals, the pizza drive-thru is totally different. With pizza, “drive-thru” normally means “name or order on-line, then decide up at a window.” There isn’t a microphone outdoors.
“It’s a long run ongoing schooling,” says Tom Santor, spokesperson for Columbus, Ohio-based Donatos. “They drive up and ask, ‘Do I discuss into this signal?’ ”
Kim Trotta, of the household owned Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Through in Cincinnati, Ohio, says she has seen just a few individuals discuss to the signage outdoors the constructing, a former automotive wash. “Once you first proceed into the doorway of the drive-thru, there’s a small signal that claims our hours. It’s humorous … generally individuals discuss into it. We allow them to discuss into it, then we stroll over to them.”
Nora Caley is a contract author specializing in meals and enterprise subjects. She lives in Denver, Colorado
