Pie 4 Profit For Pizza Revenues, Some Bars Are Going Beyond the Slice
By Tad Wilkes
Whether an operation sells pizza at the bar just by the slice or by the
whole pie, it’s still baking whole pizzas. In an age where consumers
have grown to expect more than just the standard Pepperoni and Cheese
slices, many operators are discovering straight-from-the-oven profits
from whole pizzas with a variety of toppings and sauces.
In Crust We Trust
“We’ve got a really extensive menu,” says Chris Bing, bar manager at
Slice in Atlanta. “We’ve got five or six specialty pizzas ... or you
can build your own pizza. You can build 12 inches, 16 inches or by the
slice. During lunch we get a whole lot of college kids who are on a
budget, and they just get a couple of slices of Cheese or Pepperoni and
a water to go — just keeping it simple. But we also get a crowd from
the businesses around the city. They can shoot over here, sit down, get
some really good food, maybe a beer if they have time, and get back to
the office inside of 45 minutes or an hour.”
Slice staff use a thin crust, which, in addition to being tasty, offers
the additional bonus of enabling customers to order and eat more pizza
before they get full.
“You can blow through six slices of cheese pizza,” Bing says. “It all
comes down to what you put on it. It’s definitely good for business. We
try to keep our prices cheap, all around the board — our prices on
beer, liquor and everything. We try to do it a little bit cheaper than
anyone else, and that attracts people as well. You’ve got to work
really, really hard to spend $40 or $50 bucks, and that’s with a date.”
Beyond the Basics
At Cube Sports Bar & Pizzeria in Houston, standard pies such as
Pepperoni and Sausage certainly are popular, but so are gourmet choices
such as Veggie, Hawaiian, Manhattan, Mexican and the Whole Nine Yards
pie, which features all the store’s toppings.
“We don’t do it by the slice,” says Chef Mark Bontempo, whose last name
means good time in Italian. “That would be too much of a hassle. It’s
something that may come in a little bit, but right now we’re doing
pretty good on our medium and large pizzas, and also our smalls.”
Operators hesitant to go beyond the simplicity of offering only basics
such as Pepperoni pizza may find their fears to be unfounded. At Slice,
for example, training staff has not been a problem. “The guys we have
in the kitchen have been cooking pies for so long, you just have to
show them once how to do it,” Bing says. “Our general manager will show
everybody in the restaurant — servers, bartenders and all — and say,
‘This is how I want it to look every time.’ And the cooks know how to
do it.”
Menu prices range from $12.99 for a small (10-inch) to $14.99 for a
medium (12-inch) to $18.99 for a large (14-inch). Prices for the Whole
Nine Yards pie run a little higher. Monday nights, Cube’s hot promotion
is Half Price Pizza Night.
Pizza sales at the bar at Cube are great, Bontempo says.
Marinara and Martinis
When it comes to beverages to accompany pizza, beer’s not the only
drink finding a space next to the pan these days. Slice features a full
bar and sees patrons ordering a variety of cocktails with their pies.
“There’s a lot of everything,” Bing says. “We just got voted in this
past year’s Creative Loafing best-of awards. We were voted Best
Frou-Frou Martinis, and we also got Best Signature Cocktail, which was
one of my drinks. Actually I was voted best bartender.”
Martinis at Slice include Watermelon, Peach, Lemon Drop and Sour Apple.
“From there, you have your vodka and cranberry drinks, and there’s a
lot of beer. We have a wine selection that’s not super-duper huge, but
it’s a nice range.” NCB
