Pizza Today - March 2017 - 18

with SCOTT WIENER

man on the street

In the End ...

I

just read a quote that completely
terrified me -- and for once it
wasn't spoken by a politician! In
late 2015, the head of a major food
company suggested to investors that
their ailing pizza chain should concentrate less on making good food and
more on making their food easier to
buy. As someone who enjoys eating
delicious food, my heart sank when I
read his words. Not that I was surprised to learn that a huge pizza chain
was more concerned with the bottom
line than they were with their product,
but the blatant disregard for the end
product really hit me. Independent
pizzeria operators often follow the cues
of their biggest competitors, but this
one feels like the shotgun bang at the
beginning of a race to the bottom.
The real problem I have with saying
that easy is better than good is that
the two are not inversely proportional.
This is pizza, after all. It's a handful of
ingredients mixed together, flattened,
topped with a few other ingredients
and then baked. It couldn't get much
simpler. There's why I'm offended by

1 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / M A R C H 2 0 1 7

Is Easy Better than Good?

the idea that making good pizza is just
too hard to do when you're trying to
maximize another part of your business
model.
On the upside, I completely agree
with the concept of streamlining the
ordering process. Sloppy menus with
too many items overwhelm me, so
I appreciate brevity in that respect.
This is one of the main reasons for the
growth in fast casual. It takes complex
processes and reduces them to their
components. A dish is no longer a
fully realized product; now it's a choice
of pasta shapes, sauces and proteins.
Maybe it's a choice of tortillas, beans,
proteins and salsa heat levels. Or
perhaps it's a choice of crusts, sauces,
cheeses and toppings. As soon as
your chef 's ego heals, you'll admit it's
easier for the customer. This is not my
preferred way to experience food, but I
can see the allure for a business that's
concerned with speed.
Last week I challenged myself to
investigate this new restaurant trend
by visiting two concepts that utilize
a streamlined ordering system. One

was a Greek restaurant in New York
and the other served poké (Hawaiian
raw fish salad) in Seattle. Both were
extremely simple, with menu boards
clearly defining each step of the ordering process. Both ordering processes
were super simple, and I was at my
tables with fresh meals within minutes
of arriving. Now for the bad news:
only one of the dishes was any good.
Taking the easy way out only gets you
so far before everyone realizes that the
emperor is not wearing any clothing.
It's highly effective to put yourself
in the mind of your customer to better
understand your pizzeria's flow. Any
bottlenecks in the system can and
should be fixed before they clog up the
whole place. Just remember that the
customer probably won't come back for
your easy ordering system if the pizza
they get tastes like garbage. ■
SCOTT WIENER is

the founder of Scott's
Pizza Tours in New York City and
SliceOutHunger.org.

By MANDY DETWILER
http://www.SliceOutHunger.org http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - March 2017

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