Eddie Cerino owns and operates Eddie’s Pizzeria Cerino in Ohio. Open greater than a yr, Cerino’s unconventional cooking and menu choices show there’s extra to pizzerias than pies and pasta.
Q: Your menu objects use costly components like San Marzano tomatoes, seafood and recent cheeses. How are you holding meals prices down?
A: We run a 29-percent meals price, which is excessive for a typical pizzeria and low for a full service restaurant. Controlling meals price all the time begins along with your menu and quantity of stock objects, particularly perishable stock. We restrict our seafood to 2 objects on the menu shrimp and clams. Each come out of the freezer and haven’t any or little or no waste. We run one recent fish particular at a time and watch over it like a hawk to take care of correct par ranges. Portion management is essential. We portion every part from all of our completely different pastas to sauces, proteins and breads. Lastly, we’ve a really detailed system for warm prep that enables us to make many objects from scratch and nonetheless preserve consistency in our taste profiles.
Q: Your weekly specials are ingenious! What’s your secret for duplicating these homestyle recipes in a business kitchen?
A: We’re an organization of methods and recipes. We alter our specials each two weeks. We restrict them to 2 lunches and two dinners. We have now make-cards for the road to make sure that everyone seems to be getting ready them the identical. We are also very cautious that the particular fi ts our sizzling line system. It can’t be too sophisticated, too many components or take too lengthy to get out of the kitchen. It is extremely essential that the standard of any particular be constant whether or not there are two checks hanging or 20 checks hanging. This takes cautious planning and monitoring.
Q: You make your personal desserts, and so they’re decadent like your Smores Cookie Pizzette and Chocolate Cassata Cake. Why not outsource these like so many different eating places?
A: I consider that appetizers and desserts are two nice methods to distinguish you from the competitors. If you’re shopping for desserts out of your purveyor or from an area supplier, the restaurant throughout the road could possibly be serving the identical merchandise. We do purchase a pair desserts from an area purveyor, however we make the remaining. We restrict the dessert menu and run month-to-month specials. This controls the quantity of prep and stock and permits us to benefit from seasonal objects.
Q: Your menu transcends pizza and spaghetti. How nicely do objects like cioppino & baked wild mushroom ravioli promote?
A: Promoting specials is all in regards to the buyer’s confidence in your kitchen. After we opened, it took about six months of aggressive in-house advertising and robust server suggestive promoting to get prospects to strive some unconventional specials. Unconventional for a pizzeria, that’s. Now our specials often outsell most menu objects. As soon as once more, it’s all about differentiating you from the competitors. Providing specials like cioppino or wild mushroom ravioli and getting ready them with high quality components persistently provides you a leg up on the competitors and permits you to construct the essential “common” buyer base.
Q: You’ve been open greater than a yr now. What’s the one factor that has stunned you essentially the most about this enterprise?
A: One of many adjustments I’ve observed during the last yr is buyer information of culinary components and preparation. The plethora of meals and cooking applications on tv are making for a extra educated and adventurous eating public. Extra so now than at any time in my 30 years within the restaurant enterprise. You’ll be able to’t brown some floor meat, add it to your marinara sauce and name it Bolognese. This does put stress on operators to be inventive and truthful of their menus and specials. In case you don’t, the eating places down the road will, and take a few of your prospects together with them.
Eddie Cerino owns and operates Eddie’s Pizzeria Cerino in Ohio. Open greater than a yr, Cerino’s unconventional cooking and menu choices show there’s extra to pizzerias than pies and pasta.
Q: Your menu objects use costly components like San Marzano tomatoes, seafood and recent cheeses. How are you holding meals prices down?
A: We run a 29-percent meals price, which is excessive for a typical pizzeria and low for a full service restaurant. Controlling meals price all the time begins along with your menu and quantity of stock objects, particularly perishable stock. We restrict our seafood to 2 objects on the menu shrimp and clams. Each come out of the freezer and haven’t any or little or no waste. We run one recent fish particular at a time and watch over it like a hawk to take care of correct par ranges. Portion management is essential. We portion every part from all of our completely different pastas to sauces, proteins and breads. Lastly, we’ve a really detailed system for warm prep that enables us to make many objects from scratch and nonetheless preserve consistency in our taste profiles.
Q: Your weekly specials are ingenious! What’s your secret for duplicating these homestyle recipes in a business kitchen?
A: We’re an organization of methods and recipes. We alter our specials each two weeks. We restrict them to 2 lunches and two dinners. We have now make-cards for the road to make sure that everyone seems to be getting ready them the identical. We are also very cautious that the particular fi ts our sizzling line system. It can’t be too sophisticated, too many components or take too lengthy to get out of the kitchen. It is extremely essential that the standard of any particular be constant whether or not there are two checks hanging or 20 checks hanging. This takes cautious planning and monitoring.
Q: You make your personal desserts, and so they’re decadent like your Smores Cookie Pizzette and Chocolate Cassata Cake. Why not outsource these like so many different eating places?
A: I consider that appetizers and desserts are two nice methods to distinguish you from the competitors. If you’re shopping for desserts out of your purveyor or from an area supplier, the restaurant throughout the road could possibly be serving the identical merchandise. We do purchase a pair desserts from an area purveyor, however we make the remaining. We restrict the dessert menu and run month-to-month specials. This controls the quantity of prep and stock and permits us to benefit from seasonal objects.
Q: Your menu transcends pizza and spaghetti. How nicely do objects like cioppino & baked wild mushroom ravioli promote?
A: Promoting specials is all in regards to the buyer’s confidence in your kitchen. After we opened, it took about six months of aggressive in-house advertising and robust server suggestive promoting to get prospects to strive some unconventional specials. Unconventional for a pizzeria, that’s. Now our specials often outsell most menu objects. As soon as once more, it’s all about differentiating you from the competitors. Providing specials like cioppino or wild mushroom ravioli and getting ready them with high quality components persistently provides you a leg up on the competitors and permits you to construct the essential “common” buyer base.
Q: You’ve been open greater than a yr now. What’s the one factor that has stunned you essentially the most about this enterprise?
A: One of many adjustments I’ve observed during the last yr is buyer information of culinary components and preparation. The plethora of meals and cooking applications on tv are making for a extra educated and adventurous eating public. Extra so now than at any time in my 30 years within the restaurant enterprise. You’ll be able to’t brown some floor meat, add it to your marinara sauce and name it Bolognese. This does put stress on operators to be inventive and truthful of their menus and specials. In case you don’t, the eating places down the road will, and take a few of your prospects together with them.
