Pizza Today - May 2019 - 28

balls to their page and connect them
with catering, gift cards and loyalty
programs," Kurkowski says. "They can
push that right to the customer's phone
or tablet or laptop every time. It's great
digital signage that doesn't take any
space in the pizza parlor."
With some systems, customers have
to enter their e-mail address to gain
access to the complimentary WiFi. At
Minsky's Pizza, with locations in the
Kansas City, Missouri area, an in-store
device allows customer access to the
free WiFi and enables the restaurants
to capture their e-mail address. "We
can then reach them via e-mail marketing to share promotions, discounts
and special events," says Brent Wittrock, Minsky's pizza partner and general manager. "It's a win-win scenario
that has helped us grow our e-mail
marketing database by 28,000 over
20 months, generating increased revenue across our 18 locations."
Having WiFi makes it easier for customers to post on social media, which
can help the restaurant. "People are on
their phones, and they check in to the
restaurant on Facebook," says Aaron
Hostetter, owner of Uncommon Pizza
in Lititz, Pennsylvania. "Checking
2 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / M AY 2 0 1 9

in lets other people know they are at
Uncommon Pizza, having a good time
with their friends."
ONE DRAWBACK OF OFFERING FREE WIFI

is people might order one slice of pizza
and a beverage and sit at the table for
hours, preventing lunch and dinner
customers from finding a table. One
way to prevent this is to set up the
system so that the user can access WiFi
for only half an hour or an hour and
can log in only twice in a 24-hour
period. That prevents campers or
people who use the restaurant as their
own low-budget office.
Some restaurants don't have to worry
about these campers. "When we're
busy is dinnertime, and that's not when
people are coming in to work on their
laptops," says Ned Lavelle, one of the
owners and cofounders of Pinthouse
Pizza Craft Brewpub, with two locations in Austin, Texas.
Instead, Lavelle says, people come in
with their laptops during the late afternoon, which would otherwise be a slow
daypart. "We are a third place for some
guests," he says. "We have a number
of people who come in after work and
they check e-mail, do some work on

their laptop and have a beer and maybe
a snack before they go home."
He adds that the first location of
Pinthouse used a residential router for
WiFi, which was not enough bandwidth for the place. "It was a spotty
signal," Lavelle says, "The manager
would have to spend time messing with
it to reset it." For the second location,
Pinthouse made a bigger investment
and signed up with a commercial
provider.
Electrical outlets are also important.
"If you're building a new place you
want to think about where people can
plug their stuff in, from at the bar to
the tables," Lavelle says.
The costs for WiFi vary, but
Kurkowski says restaurants typically
have a closed WiFi system for their
own point of purchase and other systems and adding a commercial router
for customer-facing WiFi can cost as
little as $2 per day. "It doesn't cost very
much at all," he says. "If it brings in
one person a day ordering a slice and a
soda, it pays for itself." n
NORA CALEY is a freelance writer who
covers small business, finance and lifestyle
topics.

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