Last week, my post was about the model for our pizza subscription. There were some questions about my cost per pie, so I broke down the cost for the various elements. In it, I’ve amortized the equipment cost, labor and ingredients, without sharing our actual recipe. That cost was $2.67 this week, adjusting for supplies cost. I’m pretty sure I can drive the cost down another 20 cents by adjusting the cheese coverage, which I’ll test this week. I could also tweak the pepperoni coverage but that only nets me 2 cents a pepperoni in savings. It wouldn’t be possible to do this without the PicnicPizza Station, because I can be very granular with precise coverage, give or take a gram. No sound, no cheesy soundtrack on the video; just a breakdown of the cost as I make a few pizzas for testing. This week I also installed me&u QR codes for fast casual dining. We’re not a big dine-in venue so having full-time servers is an unnecessary expense. Not to say I didn’t try it; it just didn’t pan out. Our daily dine-in revenue has remained the same as when we had servers, but without the corresponding labor associated with it. The ordering experience has had great reviews from diners and the ease at opening an order is fewer steps than with Toast and Pay. They also provided beautiful product photography and captured our food over the course of two photo shoots. The QR codes are printed on raised aluminum and mounted with beacons atop them. Very stylish and obvious to what their use is. I’ll drop a photo in the comments of the print on the table. If you’re looking for an upgrade to Toast and Pay, this is it. The Botrista Technology, Inc. DrinkBot is coming next week. I have to do some prep work on the wall to connect to the floor drain, but my staff is excited for this new addition! Smoothies, lattes, lemonade, energy drinks, all at the push of a button. I’ll add it to the menu after I get back from the Pizza Expo; it’ll populate to 95+ menu sites with Marqii within hours. It’s still the greatest menu updating service I’ve found yet. Last, I’m looking for space to open a new unit with another Picnic pizza station configuration. If anyone in San Diego has a lead on space under 500 SF, please reach out. Checking out CloudKitchens later this week to see if that will work…
