There’s nothing quite like the local pizza joint...the perfect combination of great food, service, and the heart of community that the big chains just can’t deliver. Granbury client Pizza Mizza in Santa Barbara, California has mastered the art of delivering great pizza and setting themselves apart from the competition. We sat down with Pizza Mizza owner Sean Ebadi to get a little insight into what makes their operation so successful.
Keeping it in the Family
Part of being a local favorite is finding fun and unique ways to serve the community’s families with events like “Kids Eat for $1” during the summer and “Disney Night”. “Our business is all about families”, says Sean. “From the specials we run to the type of food we serve. We are constantly looking for ways to appeal to what they need”. They don’t stop at in store events, either. Pizza Mizza also provides weekly Friday pizza orders for the kids at the local schools and donate mostly to local children's causes.
Delivering More than just Pizza
In addition to focusing on their community, Pizza Mizza stays on top of the competition by offering a wide array of selection on their menu, prepared fresh in store. Trying to feed the family, but not everyone in the mood for pizza? No problem at Pizza Mizza. According to Sean, “The biggest difference between us and our local competitors is our vast and varied menu and the fact that we deliver all over town. We serve everything from Pizza, Pasta, Salad and Sandwiches, to a full line of appetizers and 2 soups made fresh daily. The fact that we can deliver these types of items in addition to typical delivery fare, makes us a logical choice for any group of people who are trying to make sure everyone gets what they want”.
The Right Technology Solution
Earlier this year Pizza Mizza converted to Granbury’s Thr!ve Point-of-Sale technology, designed specifically with pizza and quick service restaurants in mind. Among the improvements since switching to Thr!ve, Sean notes they have been able to drastically reduce their average transaction time and employee errors at the register. “The user friendly manner in which you can enter customer and order information is the best feature on Thr!ve POS for us. It has reduced our standard order input time drastically. In addition, it has cut down on mistakes that were made when we tried to put a note with an item” says Sean. More importantly though, “the system really is easy to learn and use”.
Finding the Right Technology Solution for Your Business
Having a POS system is essential for today's pizza/restaurant operator. Sean offers this piece of advice if you’re in the market for a point-of-sale system: “If you deliver pizza, a POS is a must. Entering customer address info each time would be awful for us considering we do 45 deliveries per day. That coupled with the reporting and marketing features make something like this a must have for any pizza shop looking to grow”. A cash register is a great starter option, but a point-of-sale is really the way to go if you’re looking at high volume business and long term growth.
Take it from Pizza Mizza, you don’t have to be one of the “big guys” to beat out the competition - you just have to have the right tools. The next time you’re in Santa Barbara, stop by for a slice (or one of their other great menu items!).
