National Pizza Month: Tips & Tricks to Boost Sales
From busy school nights and football games to one of pizza’s biggest nights — Halloween — it’s no wonder that October is National Pizza Month. Check out these recommendations for simple ways to lean into the season, boost sales, and delight your customers.
1. Bring in orders with October specials
Our data shows that top-performing pizzerias are 30% more likely to offer specials at the top of their menus. If you don’t currently offer any specials, October is the perfect time to get started. We recommend creating deals that include pizzas, sides, and drinks at a reduced price, specifically for these occasions:
Football watch parties
Halloween gatherings
Study nights
Specials boost sales and are easy to add to your menu. You can even customize your special with a festive image — the designs below are specifically sized to work perfectly on your menu. Just tap the images to open them in a new window, save them via your preferred method, and head to your Owner’s Portal to add them to your menu.
2. Build a seasonal menu
Dive into fall with small menu tweaks that make a big impression on your customers. Here’s a few ideas, but let your imagination run wild — it’s easy to add and remove menu items via your Owner’s Portal.
Limited-time autumnal pizzas: Entice customers to add new items to their usual orders with toppings like roasted butternut squash, and lean into spicy and sweet flavors like hot honey, chorizo, and candy bacon.
Spooky-themed pizzas: Use toppings like olives for "spiders" or arrange pepperoni in jack-o'-lantern designs.
Offer Halloween desserts: Everyone has candy on the mind —tap into the sweetness and expand your offerings with themed desserts like ghost-shaped cookies.
3. Prepare for Halloween night
Halloween is consistently one of the year’s busiest nights for pizzerias. Here’s how to make sure your shop is prepared for the rush.
Offer preorders for Halloween night: Streamline operations by letting customers order in advance — this helps you get a jumpstart on your orders, frees up your phone, and helps you make more accurate decisions for staffing and purchasing ingredients.
Hire extra help: Ensure you have enough drivers and kitchen staff to handle the surge in orders.
Stock up on key ingredients: Avoid running out of essentials by getting extras of everything you might need well in advance. This helps avoid any frantic shopping (and missed orders) on a high-demand day.
Provide Halloween candy for kids: Set up a candy station at your pizzeria or include a small bag of candy with every order. It’s a tiny gesture, but it encourages families to choose your pizzeria as their go-to Halloween meal.
Thank you for providing your neighborhood with fresh, delicious pies during National Pizza Month — October wouldn’t be the same without independent pizzerias.
Head to your Owner’s Portal to create menu specials, add seasonal items, and make sure that preordering is available. Plus, your Branding Studio is constantly updated with seasonal social media graphics that you can post to get your customers excited (and hungry).
Not part of our nationwide collective of indie pizza shops? There’s still time to have your best-ever October.
