When Dallas-based Pizza Patron opened its latest location in San Antonio in October 2008, the chain referred to as it its fast service pizza idea, or QSP. The restaurant has a drive-thru window and an out of doors menu board. Prospects order by talking right into a microphone, then drive just a few extra toes to a window to select up their pizza. Andrew Gamm, director of brand name growth for the rising chain (which is approaching 100 items on the time of this writing), says the corporate desires to vary the way in which folks purchase pizza. “Our objective 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 vehicles to select it up. Pizza takes quarter-hour or longer to prepare dinner, an period of time that drive-thru shoppers may not tolerate. They’re accustomed to filling their orders in two or three minutes.
Pizza Patron dealt with the velocity of service difficulty by working with an organization to develop an oven that bakes a pie in 4 minutes. The restaurant additionally narrowed the drive-thru selections to about 5 menu gadgets. “Quickness and effectivity supersede customization,” Gamm says.
For many different pizza operators, drive-thru means the client orders by telephone or on-line, then drives to the restaurant to select up the meals at a window. That methodology is one technique to encourage folks to select up their pizzas, as a substitute of getting the restaurant ship. “You may 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 probably having decrease insurance coverage prices and different prices related to supply. 4 of the Flyer’s places supply drive-thru service, which accounts for about 35 p.c 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 must be a standalone or an finish cap constructing. “These value a pair extra {dollars} per sq. foot,” he says. Two Flyer’s places are finish cap and two are standalone. There are different constructing necessities. The window must be large enough 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 have to be redesigned to place the staging space or the holding space nearer to the window.
There’s additionally expertise to alert employees {that a} automobile has pulled into the drive via space. That could possibly be a magnet system constructed into the pavement, just like sensors that set off a site visitors mild, or an ultrasonic detector that sends a excessive frequency sound after which detects when the sound bounces off a automobile.
Daren Haas is vp of selling and new enterprise growth for HM Electronics (HME), a Poway, California-based firm that makes ultrasonic detectors and different drive-thru associated expertise resembling headsets and timers. He says new expertise will make it simpler for eating places to broaden their drive-thru processes. “You will get an embedded RFID tag in your bank card or mobile phone so you possibly can faucet and go for cost, and there’s additionally mobile phone and on-line ordering that shops your preferences,” he explains.
Haas provides that, typically, 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 could be very costly.”
Some drive-thru places are low tech. Kim Trotta, whose husband opened Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Via in Cincinnati in 1996, says Trotta’s is in a constructing that was a automobile wash. “A few of the drive-thrus listed below are in previous barns,” she says. “Ours could be very engaging.” The world has companies that promote donuts, quick meals, groceries, even beer and wine via drive-thru home windows.
Columbus, Ohio-based Donatos has 176 places. Spokesperson Tom Santor says greater than 70 p.c have drive-thru home windows, and in these places, drive-thru accounts for 15 to twenty p.c of gross sales. One problem is to coach prospects in regards to the drive-thru choice. “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 seek advice from the call-ahead drive-thru window.” The knowledge is on the Donatos Site too.
Ulrey says Flyer’s workers lets prospects know they will choose up orders at a window. “You educate them,” he says. “On the telephone 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 had 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 could have a couple of minutes to get it carried out.”
The chain plans to open extra QSP places. The following one will likely be in a former Popeye’s Hen location that has a drive-thru. Gamm says the brand new format offers the chain extra choices in website 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 converse to somebody or one thing. That’s not as a result of they’ve a criticism, 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 choose up at a window.” There is no such thing as 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 speak into this signal?’ ”
Kim Trotta, of the household owned Trotta’s Pizza and Drive-Via in Cincinnati, Ohio, says she has seen just a few folks speak to the signage outdoors the constructing, a former automobile wash. “Whenever you first proceed into the doorway of the drive-thru, there’s a small signal that claims our hours. It’s humorous … typically folks speak into it. We allow them to speak into it, then we stroll over to them.”
Nora Caley is a contract author specializing in meals and enterprise matters. She lives in Denver, Colorado
