Setting Up Your Pizzeria for Greater Customization

If you give your customers more options to customize their pizza, you can often expect the orders to come flooding in. People seem to love being able to choose their sauce, their crust, and their cheese. What you need to be sure of, though, is that your kitchen is set up to handle this increased customization. Here are some ways you can make your pizzeria kitchen better-suited to customized pizza orders.

Prep your dough options ahead of time.

If your custom order options include different crust thicknesses, make sure you prep balls of dough in various sizes at the beginning of the day. You don't want your pizza makers to have to remember to pinch off a certain amount before making a thin crust or add a certain amount before making a thicker crust. If you have thin, regular, and thick crust balls pre-made, your pizza makers can grab and go — and you'll have less waste. If you offer a gluten-free crust, whole wheat crust, or some other options, make sure these are also made ahead and labeled well.

Create a sauce station.

Do you still have one person both saucing and topping the pizzas? When you start offering more custom options, it's time to create a separate saucing station. This way, you can have all of your sauces out on the prep table in separate sauce wells without crowding your pizza maker. This also leaves more space around the pizza maker who then adds the cheese and other toppings.

Review your order printouts.

Take a look at the printed tickets that your pizza makers reference as they make the pizzas. Are the options displayed in a readable, efficient way? If the printed tickets list all the options on one line, for example, they might be hard to read. It's worth spending the time to modify your printout system so that the tickets are easier to read. List each customization option on its own line. When almost every order that comes in is well customized, your pizza makers will appreciate the simplicity. They'll probably make fewer mistakes and be able to work faster, too.

Offering highly customized pizzas is a great way to set yourself apart and bring more customers in the door. However, you do need to make sure your kitchen is set up to support this customization. Pre-make your pizza dough balls, create a separate sauce station, and check those printed tickets.

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