Creating Winning Side Dishes - Canadian Pizza Magazine

It’s driven by what your customers are telling you.

If you ask pizza operators what they would like to do to improve their profits, most would probably tell you they want to increase their sales and lower their costs. A number of pizzeria owners have been able to do both by adding new dishes to their menus. Some are entrees, but many more are side dishes to give their menus a broader appeal. These menu additions range from the expected (wings and subs) to the unexpected (nachos and Italian-style poutine).

Where do operators come up with new items that will sell? According to Kevin Cook, owner of Byron Pizza in London, Ont., new ideas can come from just about anywhere, but he has had great success by listening to his customers. When many of Kevin’s customers were asking about nachos, he decided to try them; they are now among his most successful side dishes.

“The market determines a lot of it. It’s all driven by the customers. If you get enough people asking for something, you’ve got to listen to them.”

Cook also gets some good ideas from the Internet and travelling, picking up menus from as many places he visits as possible.

Onion rings are an old reliable offering.

Sometimes the best ideas come from the operator’s imagination. Windsor Ontario’s Arcata Pizzeria has been a popular take-out and delivery location for close to 40 years. Taher Abumeeiz, the owner for the past nine years, looked around his kitchen and saw cheese, pasta sauce, and french fries. He decided to try something a little different and came up with his own version of poutine, using the tomato-based sauce in place of gravy. It was an instant hit and remains a big seller.

Because of differences in the customer base and competitors, adding items to a menu will probably have different results at different locations, even within the same company. Gerry Follett is the owner of Gerry’s Pizza and Wings, a four-store chain in the Sarnia Ontario area. He has added submarine sandwiches to the menus at his stores with very different results. The sandwiches are a big seller in one store, but the other stores with Subway and Quizno’s locations nearby sell relatively few of them.

Assorted chicken fingers, cheese sticks and wings

Ricco Foods, in Strathroy Ontario, is a full-service supplier to the pizza industry, carrying not only pizza supplies, but also a product line that includes chicken wings, french fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, and battered mushrooms. According to owner Don Windsor Sr., chicken wings are by far the best-selling side items among his customers. Gerry Follett finds many of his new menu ideas coming from his suppliers, especially Ricco Foods, a company he has been working with for a number of years.

“Usually suppliers will tell you if there is a new product coming online. They will bring you samples, so you just try it with customers.”

Kevin Cook is another operator who sees his supplier as an important resource.
“If there’s something new I want, they will research it there and get back to me with the proper information on the product and any contact information I may need.”

Whether or not an operator can offer a particular menu item will often depend on the space and equipment in the kitchen. The addition of deep-fried items usually means a major kitchen renovation to add the necessary hoods and vents. One solution can be the new generation of ventless fryers from suppliers such as Wells and AutoFry. There is also a countertop model available from Perfect Fry for locations with more limited space.
Equipment is just one of the things Kevin Cook looks at when he considers adding a new item to his menu. Profitability is a major consideration. He is also careful that items he adds do not complicate the operations in his kitchen.

“We used to have lasagna; it’s very expensive to make good lasagna with ricotta cheese. We also found that it took a lot of time to produce it and we had to ask ourselves whether or not the profitability is there.”

In addition to operational and cost considerations, public tastes and preferences also play a big role in what is added and what is successful. Many customers are trying to move toward healthier eating and that is making a difference on pizzeria menus. At Arcata Pizza, that has meant an increase in the sale of baked panzerotti and the very popular addition of Caesar, Greek, and garden salads a year ago.

Byron Pizza’s Kevin Cook believes that the successful operators will be those who are able to balance their core pizza business with new side dishes that appeal to as broad a customer base as possible.

Nachos are starting to appear as pizzeria sidelines.

“Keep current on the business. That’s where a lot of the good ideas come from. You need to know what is going on in the industry and in particular what is going on in your area of the world. Listen to your customers; they’re the ones who are going to be buying your products.”

Arcata Pizza’s Taher Abumeeiz feels that good menu ideas can from just about anywhere, especially when you consider customers are better informed and more global in their thinking when it comes to food. He is only half joking when he speculates on the pizzeria menu of the future. “Maybe one day you are going to see sushi. You never know.” •

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New ideas may enable operators