Increasing your hours into the sooner a part of the day can herald an entire new buyer base: the breakfast crowd. Some pizzerias proceed to showcase their pizza recipes with a breakfast-style model, whereas others stick with the fundamentals (like omelets and French toast). No matter method you determine, there’s a defi nite capability to extend your profi ts and higher compete with native eating places that supply a breakfast menu.
Gabriel Pellegrini, proprietor/chef at Sagra, a trattoria in Austin, Texas, rolled out a Sunday brunch in June. “A number of our opponents, different eating places, have brunch and have been fairly profitable,” says Pellegrini.
Seems it was a great transfer. Sagra, open since 2007, earned the title of “greatest brunch” from Citysearch.com readers in 2008. Served on Sundays solely, there are 10 objects on the brunch menu, together with frittatas cooked to order and some pastas (Tortellini alla Pesto and Lasagnetta Verdura). Two dishes are cooked with a cracked egg on high: Sagra Pizza (tomato, egg, pecorino, spinach, mozzarella and truffl e oil) and Linguini alla Carbonara (house-cured pancetta, contemporary peas, egg and Parmesan sauce). “We attempt to hold the meals so simple as potential,” says Pellegrini. “We additionally attempt to overlap as many issues as potential.” To keep away from additional prices on his half, Pellegrini elected to make use of the identical fl atware and plates he’d already been setting out for lunch and dinner. A method he maximizes his brunch profi ts is to cost $5 for aspect orders (like house-cured pancetta, herbed polenta or roasted new potatoes). Sagra additionally prices additional for a build-your-own brunch possibility.
“The most effective factor is to maintain it easy. And never attempt to overextend it, as a result of it’s solely sooner or later per week,” says Pellegrini. Whereas on Friday evening he schedules a crew of seven staff within the kitchen, for brunch solely two are required, and he ensures setup tasks are easy sufficient that they want solely arrive a few hours earlier than opening.
In October, Invoice Rizzuto, proprietor of Rizzuto’s Wooden-Fired Kitchen & Bar in West Hartford, Connecticut, added brunch to his menu. As a result of the 5,000-squarefoot restaurant is inside an affl uent buying middle with a gymnasium, boutiques and different eating places and subsequently gives heavy pedestrian traffi c attracting diners didn’t take a lot effort.
For $20, diners get entry to an antipasti buffet (with artisan cheeses, salami and prosciutto), a dessert buffet and a range from the menu that’s cooked to order and served tableside.
“The breakfast pizza is the preferred merchandise,” he says. Three eggs are cracked on high earlier than putting the pizza within the oven. The pizza additionally has smoked pancetta, roasted peppers, thinly sliced potatoes, sautéed onions and mushrooms. “It comes out of the oven wanting like an ideal woodfi pink pizza. Individuals can tear off the crust and dip it within the egg yolk. It’s so good!” Different breakfast entrées are steak and eggs, French toast and eggs Benedict.
Many pizzerias, nevertheless, serve breakfast every day. Of Blissful Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream’s 64 places, 24 serve breakfast, with the fi rst location launching its early-morning meal seven years in the past. A couple of serve weekend brunch. “Competitors with pizza on the whole makes you get actually artistic,” says Kristel Whitty, half proprietor and director of promoting. “The entire thought is providing an answer for the visitor that fi ts their life-style.” Apart from egg scramblers for breakfast, employees can take orders for omelet pizza.
“We principally construct an omelet on high of cheese and bake it in an oven,” says Whitty.
To deal with the issue of being related as solely a spot to eat pizza for lunch or dinner, Blissful Joe’s started providing morning deliveries to companies. “As a substitute of bringing donuts to the offi ce, you’ll be able to have an omelet pizza delivered,” says Whitty.
For breakfast, Good Pizza, situated contained in the Good Resort in San Francisco, serves three forms of calzones filled with scrambled eggs. The identical recipe used to create pizza dough for meals after 11 a.m. is used for the calzones. In a single, the elements are sun-dried tomatoes, feta, spinach and onion. In one other are bacon and fontina. Breakfast staples like granola with dried fruit and natural milk, oatmeal, natural yogurt and pastries are additionally on the menu, which has a grab-and-go model that appeals to lodge visitors and neighborhood residents. As a result of the lodge’s mantra could be very eco-friendly, counter tops and to-go merchandise are fabricated from recycled paper, and oregano and basil are grown on website.
The pizza spot’s authentic mission was to cater to lodge visitors’ dinner wants. “However as the one eatery within the lodge, we wanted breakfast service on the lodge within the morning too,” says Dave Hoemann, vice chairman of meals & beverage for Joie de Vivre Hospitality. Only one employees individual mans Good Pizza, working each the cashier and the pizza oven behind it. A barista station can be inside, so whether or not a morning cappuccino or a latte in the course of the afternoon with a slice of pizza, that want may be met.
Take into account including upscale espresso and espresso drinks to the breakfast menu, as a result of a latte can drive up a buyer’s invoice greater than a single cup of espresso will. Sagra selected to supply espresso served in a French press, which yields a richer, extra sturdy style, “after which we don’t need to cope with refi lls,” says Pellegrini. “With these, we simply drop the French press on the desk and depart. If they need extra, they need to pay extra.” ?
Breakfast Menu
How do you promote your new breakfast menu when all of your pizzeria is thought for are pizza pies for lunch or dinner? To let prospects know your choices go farther than a meat lovers particular or four-cheese pizza, strive providing a particular promotion legitimate solely throughout breakfast hours.
For example, Gabriel Pellegrini, proprietor/chef at Sagra in Austin, Texas, provides $.75 Mimosas to get individuals within the door for his Sunday brunch. “It’s sort of a pull to get individuals in so we will promote individuals eggs for $10,” he says. Apparently, he discovered that the preferred breakfast drink continued to be a Bloody Mary, however the preliminary pull of Mimosas labored for fi rst-time brunch-goers.
Kristine Hansen is a contract author overlaying meals, drinks, journey and inexperienced dwelling. She lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
