Pizza Today - February 2018 - 114

Mike's Monthly Tip
MIKE BAUSCH

ARE YOU READY TO BE
SUCCESSFUL OR READY TO GET BY?

y first store, my first year,
I'm 22 years old and I get
an order for 10 large
20-inch pizzas that need to be delivered to a major aircraft company in my
town within 50 minutes. I said: "Come
Hell or high water we are going to do
this order. I need this order." Nonetheless there I am, without a driver, without a plan - and the pizzas were only
going into the oven at the 50-minute
mark, not into the customer's hands.
I failed and it hurt bad. Now I had
to comp these pizzas with the knowledge that this company wouldn't trust
me with a large order ever again.
That day I had two servers on the
floor and one guy in the kitchen doing
the in-house pastas while I made every
pizza. I was so desperate to control
1 1 4 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / F E B R UA R Y 2 0 1 8

labor, but I cut my nose off to spite my
face.
I vowed to myself that I would figure out a way to be ready for anything
and still control labor moving forward.
I started small by getting racks to
keep pizza crusts ready to be sauced
and cheesed. I found members of my
family who were willing to be on call
as drivers. I phoned loyal businesses
ahead of time to lock in orders that I
could prepare for that morning with
advanced notice. I got enough of those
orders to justify one more person on
the line, then two, then eventually four
more.
FINALLY, I WAS AT A POINT TO WHERE I
HAD MY PIZZA LINE and prep work ready

for a 100-pizza order any time, any

day. Then a beautiful thing happened: I got some 100-pizza orders
and we got them out very quickly. I
never sought to be the "pizza in your
hands in 30 minutes or less guy",
but I did set out to be the guy who
you could trust to make big orders
happen.
If you want to catch Moby Dick,
your boat needs to be able to hold
him. The same thought applies to
your store. Once you have the confidence in your crew and operations
to say, "Bring it - we can handle
that no problem", then you'll find
yourself handling big orders with no
problem. Hopefully handling them
often. If you are prepared to just get
through the typical day, then that's
all you and your store will ever be:
typical.
Game plan sheets helped us get to
this point. Now when we have five
catering orders in the morning (all
over $500) that need to be delivered
to different points in Tulsa, along
with three more caterings that night,
we game it out so every point is
covered. A game plan will say what
time each item needs to go into
the oven and when it needs to be
prepped. For cold items, it will cover
when those are to be done, who is
supposed to do them, etc. Plates,
forks, knives, cups and delivery bags
are all set aside with a sheet on them
dictating which order they belong to
so there is no ambiguity. This is all
being done by just one store in addition to regular in-house orders. Also,
the in-house table ticket times are
not affected by all of this. Sounds
crazy, but it is doable when you plan
with purpose and communicate
effectively. ■
MIKE BAUSCH is the owner of Andolini's
Pizzeria in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a
frequent speaker at the International
Pizza Expo family of tradeshows.

JOSH KEOWN

http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM

Pizza Today - February 2018

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