We screw up here at Zippys regularly. We admit that freely. We DON'T set out on any given day to hurt people or make them feel disappointed, dejected or defeated which is apparently exactly what one person in our town did last night to us.
How did this person do so much to ruin what was another good day at Zippys for us? Well, it started when a young woman with apparently nothing whatsoever to do and who has absolutely no shame or conscience called and stumbled out an order. "Uh, we gots bout a hunerd people here and they hungry! We want enough pizza to feed um all. How many pizzas would that be?"
Tamara helped her through the order, set the time for completion, and that was that.
Tamara has taken pizza orders for 8 years of her young life and after she got off the phone she looked at me and remarked, "I don't feel good about that order, its not real."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Well, the order just sounded....not real, I don't know how to explain it, I've just taken enough prank phone calls to know what they sound like and that one sounded like one." Sometimes orders don't sound real. Sometimes they sound anything but real. The time honored tradition of pizzerias is to call back to verify the order and even doing that is a fine line. You don't want to offend someone about to spend $150.00 of their hard earned cash by telling them you think they are a liar.
When time came to make the pizzas, Tamara called to verify the order. "Yes, we want twelve pizzas. Six pepperoni and six cheeese" There you go, we did what we were supposed to and all that was left to do was make the person 12 pizzas and wait for them to pick them up.
And, that;s exactly what we did. We waited and waited....
Do you know how much cheese it takes to make twelve sixteen inch pizzas? About one hundred sixty ounces, give or take. That's around $30.00 dollars worth of cheese. Ok, thirty bucks, in the scheme of things isn't much, I admit. We make that many times over in any given day, but...thirty bucks in a small town pizzeria is still a number to be reckoned with. We don't make THAT much money and we do struggle daily to buy the best cheese, the best, freshest ingredients we can at the best prices and the guys who sell cheese, meat, produce, paper goods and everything else we use do not give any of it away.
Keeping track of food costs down to the penny is one major factor in opening our doors every day. We do everything we can to keep food costs low so YOU don't have to pay more each time you order a pizza. Make sense?
When pranksters, if you can call them that, personally I call them criminals, order twelve large pizzas and just don't show up for them, Zippys and our good customers bear the cost. And for what? Even after 8 yrs of the pizza business Tamara doesn't understand why someone would do what this person did. What pleasure did the person get out of pranking a pizza shop? Was it intentional to "cost us money?" The only other prank we have received, that was the motive, it was a stealing employee that Tamara had fired. Since we haven't fired anyone recently (because we have some of the finest employees Zippys has ever had), it couldn't be that. So then seriously, did we make her mad? was it revenge? was it just to be cool? I guess we will never know why Teresa stiffed us.
Now... You'd think we lost money on this deal, right? Not really, we did make lemonade out of the lemons as we usually do here at Zippys. We got on Facebook and sold 8 of the 12 pizzas! Ok, we sold them for cost....a few less than cost and two cheese pizzas we gave away to a couple who had nothing to eat and no way to buy anything. That felt good! There were 5 customers who got a deal, we recouped some of the cheese costs, and we felt good for giving people a bargain and we went home smiling.
So, next time you think of pranking a pizzeria, especially a hometown pizzeria who serves your friends and neighbors, please think again and have a heart.
When you hear about people who do these kinds of things to your hard working business people in your town, pity them because they don't have either the imagination or the education to amuse themselves in any other way than to wreck businesses and make life tougher on those of us who try hard to work and make a living.
To the young lady who called last night, get a life. You might think its funny to cost Zippys money but the customers we try hard to please think the only loser in the deal is you.
Zippys!
Expect something better!
How did this person do so much to ruin what was another good day at Zippys for us? Well, it started when a young woman with apparently nothing whatsoever to do and who has absolutely no shame or conscience called and stumbled out an order. "Uh, we gots bout a hunerd people here and they hungry! We want enough pizza to feed um all. How many pizzas would that be?"
Tamara helped her through the order, set the time for completion, and that was that.
Tamara has taken pizza orders for 8 years of her young life and after she got off the phone she looked at me and remarked, "I don't feel good about that order, its not real."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Well, the order just sounded....not real, I don't know how to explain it, I've just taken enough prank phone calls to know what they sound like and that one sounded like one." Sometimes orders don't sound real. Sometimes they sound anything but real. The time honored tradition of pizzerias is to call back to verify the order and even doing that is a fine line. You don't want to offend someone about to spend $150.00 of their hard earned cash by telling them you think they are a liar.
When time came to make the pizzas, Tamara called to verify the order. "Yes, we want twelve pizzas. Six pepperoni and six cheeese" There you go, we did what we were supposed to and all that was left to do was make the person 12 pizzas and wait for them to pick them up.
And, that;s exactly what we did. We waited and waited....
Do you know how much cheese it takes to make twelve sixteen inch pizzas? About one hundred sixty ounces, give or take. That's around $30.00 dollars worth of cheese. Ok, thirty bucks, in the scheme of things isn't much, I admit. We make that many times over in any given day, but...thirty bucks in a small town pizzeria is still a number to be reckoned with. We don't make THAT much money and we do struggle daily to buy the best cheese, the best, freshest ingredients we can at the best prices and the guys who sell cheese, meat, produce, paper goods and everything else we use do not give any of it away.
Keeping track of food costs down to the penny is one major factor in opening our doors every day. We do everything we can to keep food costs low so YOU don't have to pay more each time you order a pizza. Make sense?
When pranksters, if you can call them that, personally I call them criminals, order twelve large pizzas and just don't show up for them, Zippys and our good customers bear the cost. And for what? Even after 8 yrs of the pizza business Tamara doesn't understand why someone would do what this person did. What pleasure did the person get out of pranking a pizza shop? Was it intentional to "cost us money?" The only other prank we have received, that was the motive, it was a stealing employee that Tamara had fired. Since we haven't fired anyone recently (because we have some of the finest employees Zippys has ever had), it couldn't be that. So then seriously, did we make her mad? was it revenge? was it just to be cool? I guess we will never know why Teresa stiffed us.
Now... You'd think we lost money on this deal, right? Not really, we did make lemonade out of the lemons as we usually do here at Zippys. We got on Facebook and sold 8 of the 12 pizzas! Ok, we sold them for cost....a few less than cost and two cheese pizzas we gave away to a couple who had nothing to eat and no way to buy anything. That felt good! There were 5 customers who got a deal, we recouped some of the cheese costs, and we felt good for giving people a bargain and we went home smiling.
So, next time you think of pranking a pizzeria, especially a hometown pizzeria who serves your friends and neighbors, please think again and have a heart.
When you hear about people who do these kinds of things to your hard working business people in your town, pity them because they don't have either the imagination or the education to amuse themselves in any other way than to wreck businesses and make life tougher on those of us who try hard to work and make a living.
To the young lady who called last night, get a life. You might think its funny to cost Zippys money but the customers we try hard to please think the only loser in the deal is you.
Zippys!
Expect something better!
