Many ski areas are preparing pizza, but often find that problems with consistency and merchandising limit the sales and profit potential. Yet, pizza can be a large profit generator because the pricing by the slice, quarter or whole pie can be quite low for a major menu item. It can also feed a large crowd quickly if the proper equipment is used.
Three successful ski area pizza operators from three different parts of the country have shared their methods and approaches to pizza. Each does pizza differently, but all have discovered how to put out a quality product that fits the need for quick service and profits.
At Mt. Baker, Wash., the food service is run by concessionaire Ken Van Kleeck, who learned the pizza trade while he worked his way through college. With this background, he is able to make his own dough from scratch.
Using a small 10-quart mixer, each batch of dough yields 12 twelve-inch pizza shells at a cost of about 26 cents each (not including labor). If properly refrigerated, this dough will last up to three weeks.
For cooking, Van Kleeck uses a large flat deck, gas-fired oven (most ski areas do not have an excess of electricity, so gas is the cooking method of choice) and rolls out the dough with a mechanical dough roller. On this he puts pre-shredded pizza cheese (a mix of cheddar and mozzarella) and a canned pizza sauce that is spiced up with oregano and garlic.
The pizza is offered by the slice for $1.75 (eight slices to a 12-inch pie) and whole pies for $10. Ven Kleeck limits the choices of toppings to pepperoni, Canadian bacon, black olives, mushrooms and pineapple, in order to maintain speed of service and to assure a quick rotation of inventory.
Van Kleeck bought all this equipment used for considerably less than the $10,000 new price tag.
Jim Largess, the food and beverage director at Sunday River, Me., uses the Original Crispy Pizza program. This New England-based company delivers fresh frozen dough balls that are thawed and rolled out by hand. Original Crispy also delivers pre-grated cheese and prepared pizza sauce. Using this program, Largess has eliminated many production problems and is able to sell pizza in a high-volume market.
Largess offers a 16-inch pie for $10 or one slice (eight to a pie) for $1.75. In the cafeteria, only plain cheese or pepperoni are offered to speed service during busy periods. However, in the grocery store, where take-out is available, a wide choice of toppings is offered. In the base lodge, the pizza is sold in the bar and merchandised in a lighted and heated display case.
Each 16-inch dough ball weighs 30 ounces and costs 73 cents, six ounces of sauce and nine ounces of cheese goes on each 16-inch pizza and the finished cost without labor comes in at $1.96. Largess figures it takes one person less than an hour to roll out 25 pies. The pizzas are cooked in Baker’s Pride ovens that can hold four pies at one time. These ovens are gas fired and cost about $700 each.
At Eldora Mountain Resort, Colo., Bob Pease and Woody Hoye, director and assistant director of the food and beverage operation have simplified the pizza operation with a new product called Pan-A-Live pizza. This product comes frozen, packed six 12-inch pies to a case. They are already sauced and cheesed and have a shelf life in the freezer of many months.
To serve, the pizza is thawed at room temperature for two to three hours, which allows it to rise, and then baked in a small electric pizza oven for 12 minutes. These ovens cost less than $100 and do an outstanding job of cooking pizza. Six ovens are in use and during a busy hour, over 30 pizzas can be sold.
Because of a special manufacturing process, Pan-A-Live pizzas have a very “yeasty” taste, a quality missing from many processed pizzas. People say that the pizza tastes as good as a pizza parlor pizza.
At Eldora, pizza is offered only in the bar along with nachos, which allows the bartenders to do the cooking and greatly simplifies the operation. The pizzas cost Eldora $3.13 each, much more expensive than the other two operations described, but labor is greatly reduced. The sales price is $8.95 per pie plus $.85 for each topping or a quarter pie for $3.50. The pizza is merchandised in a heated and humidified glass case.
Each of these operations has a different production system and they solve the quality and consistency problem in different ways. Van Kleeck at Mt. Baker probably has the most cost-effective operation, making his own dough, but simplifies the job by training employees himself. Largess at Sunday River uses Original Crispy because of the price and ability to get support from the pizza company in training his staff. Pease and Hoyt at Eldora offer a quality product with little labor yet have realized consistency with the Pan-A-Live program.
Most important, these operations are successful because they offer quality products that are well merchandised and competitively priced. As part of an overall program, pizza can be a value to guests and a profit center for operator.
