Eddie Cerino owns and operates Eddie’s Pizzeria Cerino in Ohio. Open greater than a 12 months, Cerino’s unconventional cooking and menu choices show there’s extra to pizzerias than pies and pasta.
Q: Your menu objects use costly substances like San Marzano tomatoes, seafood and contemporary 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 together 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 don’t have any or little or no waste. We run one contemporary 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 all the pieces from all of our totally different pastas to sauces, proteins and breads. Lastly, we now have a really detailed system for warm prep that enables us to make many objects from scratch and nonetheless keep consistency in our taste profiles.
Q: Your weekly specials are creative! What’s your secret for duplicating these homestyle recipes in a business kitchen?
A: We’re an organization of techniques and recipes. We modify 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 making ready them the identical. We are also very cautious that the particular fi ts our sizzling line system. It can’t be too difficult, too many substances or take too lengthy to get out of the kitchen. It is rather vital 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, they usually’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 may very well be serving the identical merchandise. We do purchase a pair desserts from an area purveyor, however we make the remainder. We restrict the dessert menu and run month-to-month specials. This controls the quantity of prep and stock and permits us to reap the benefits of 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 attempt some unconventional specials. Unconventional for a pizzeria, that’s. Now our specials normally 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 making ready them with high quality substances constantly offers you a leg up on the competitors and permits you to construct the vital “common” buyer base.
Q: You’ve been open greater than a 12 months now. What’s the one factor that has shocked you probably the most about this enterprise?
A: One of many modifications I’ve seen over the past 12 months is buyer data of culinary substances and preparation. The plethora of meals and cooking packages 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 possibly can’t brown some floor meat, add it to your marinara sauce and name it Bolognese. This does put strain on operators to be artistic and truthful of their menus and specials. When you don’t, the eating places down the road will, and take a few of your prospects together with them.
