Beverly Hills Pizza Man Makes Dramatic Comeback

Celebrities have their time in the limelight, while around them, an invisible support cast keeps the wheels turning smoothly.

As owner of Jacopo’s Pizzeria, SpeedLine user Barry Fogel has helped feed the notable residents of glamorous neighborhoods for almost 40 years. His own success story unfolded in the shadows of the rich and famous.

Barry got his start at Jacopo’s at 13 as a dishwasher and rose quickly through the ranks. “The owner would drop in, and then he’d leave for the track,” Barry recalls. “The restaurant was run by kids. My brother was head kid first and then I turned head kid.” Barry learned the ropes on the fly and purchased the store in 1977, at the age of 19. “I knew a lot about making and delivering pizza, but not much about running a business,” he confesses. “I learned while doing and I made a lot of mistakes along the way.” 

Young owner Barry may not have gone to restaurant management school, but he used his smarts: Fast forward 25 years, and he was running five Jacopo’s stores, located in some of California's glitziest neighborhoods.  “We were getting bigger,” Barry says. “At that point, we must have had 150 to 160 employees. We ran a big catering division with a fleet of trucks. We did television and motion picture catering. We catered special events like the Screen Actor Guild (SAG) awards every year and many of the sitcoms you see on TV.”

Managing a Growing Restaurant Chain

To manage his restaurant chain and catering operations, Barry started shopping for a new POS to replace an outdated system. He installed SpeedLine in all his restaurants in September 2004. “I chose SpeedLine because I could see it was a mature, stable product that was designed for pizza restaurants. It had all the features I wanted, including a strong delivery suite,” Barry says.

“SpeedLine also runs on brand name hardware that is easily fixable and replaceable,” Barry adds. “That was important to me. I didn’t want to have to buy proprietary hardware that is bundled with the software and be stuck with some rude box that was thrown together in a garage.”

Since a lot of his time was tied up in administration, Barry also liked the ability to use the corporate management software options SpeedLine provided through SpeedLink Enterprise. “I could see all the stores from one computer,” Barry explains, “and check sales reports from home. I could change my menu and push it out to the other stores, without having to go there to do it.”

But even as his business reached an all-time high, the unthinkable took place. “I had just finished catering the SAG awards, and I went to a chiropractor with a stiff neck,” Barry recounts. “When he did a high speed neck rotation, he tore an artery in my neck, and I had a stroke right on his table.”

Jacopo’s catering operations ground to a halt. “The catering division was my baby,” Barry says. “I sold all the food and I did all the cooking for most of the events. When I couldn’t work anymore, we had to shut down. Later, when I started getting better, I couldn’t run all the stores from my couch at home. So we kept the two best stores and sold the rest.”

Barry spent the next two and half years regaining his strength. “I’m fully recovered now,” he says. “I have completely refocused myself on working in the restaurant once again, every day, talking to the customers, on the phones and in the dining area. We still do catering, but not on the scale we did it before, as a separate division with trucks.”

Endings and Beginnings

After his return to the frontline, Barry faced another watershed event: He learned that he could no longer renew his lease at one of his locations. Rolling with the punches, he scouted the neighborhood for a new spot. “In October 2007, we moved down the street about six blocks away,” he says. “Some of our guests we’re in shock over the move. After almost 40 years in the same place, I've seen two, and sometimes even three, generations growing up eating at Jacopo's. Our store was a landmark. But we designed the new place to preserve the charm of the old location in a slightly larger dining room. It’s gorgeous! It’s nice to start fresh, instead of just working around what we have had all these years.”

In the new location, SpeedLine still presides over the counter. “I could have all my ovens and phones, and equipment there,” Barry notes, “but I wouldn’t open my door until SpeedLine was in. We have to have it to do business. It’s the heart of the restaurant, an integral part of the store. We could not operate without it.”

“We’ve had SpeedLine for a few years,” Barry adds, “but the product has not gone out of date. With each upgrade, there are new features. When I go to the restaurant shows, I’m always happy to see that my system has stayed current. And SpeedLine continues to provide great ideas, lots of support, and marketing tips. That’s pretty neat.”

Gearing Up for Growth with Online Ordering

Ever the entrepreneur, Barry recently launched a new online ordering Web site. OnlineMenuOrdering.com built his online menu and integrated it with SpeedLine so that his online orders would come straight to the POS.

“We’re doing a lot of advertising to draw people to the site,” says Barry, “Google AdWords, CitySearch for Los Angeles, and the like. I do everything I can to get our Web site to pop up near the top for pizza delivery searches in any of the zip codes that we service.”

Barry handles all his online marketing himself. His efforts to place well with the search engines are paying off: “Week by week, our online orders have gone up,” Barry notes.

When asked if adding online ordering was a good move for Jacopo’s, Barry says: “Absolutely. People love it. For us, it is not so much the increase in order size that’s significant as the increase in frequency. We find that people who order online, tend to order more often.”

“It’s convenient for customers,” Barry adds. “If they know what they want, they hit a couple of keys and their order is in. Or they browse and read the descriptions and then they think, ‘Okay, I’ll add that spinach and artichoke dip too.’”

“I would definitely recommend online ordering to other operators,” Barry says. “It’s something you can offer your customers to distinguish yourself. And nowadays, everything is moving online. You want to stay ahead of the curve, instead of playing catch up.”

Looking back on his experience, Barry offers some advice: “The first step is finding an online ordering provider you can trust. Not all providers are the same. Some charge a monthly fee; others ask for a percentage of every order. Check with other restaurant operators to find out how satisfied they are with their online ordering provider.”

“You have to realize that there some work involved in getting ready to go online,” Barry continues. “Building your site and integrating with your POS can be tricky. Each restaurant is unique. You want to find a provider that will respond to your needs and understand the way you do business. You’ll have to work with your provider to give them the information they need to set you up. There’s definitely a time investment involved.”

“We were very pleased with our experience with OnlineMenuOrdering.com,” Barry says. “They’re great guys to work with.”

As a next step to grow his online sales, Barry plans to promote his catering business: “I’ll be visiting the HR departments of several big entertainment companies,” Barry says, “to see if I can get a link to the Jacopo’s Web site on their Intranet. It will make it convenient to place catering orders, and much quicker than a fax.”

When customers place an order from the Jacopo’s Web site, they can order ahead for any date and time they wish, within the stores’ opening hours. This feature ties in with SpeedLine’s ability to defer orders, and is perfect for catering. “The fact that SpeedLine can handle deferred orders is huge for us,” says Barry. “We use that feature all the time for our catering orders.”

Creative Restaurant Menu Sparks Media Exposure

Innovation at Jacopo's drive traffic to the restaurants and Web site. Barry offers several specialty dishes that are only available on special occasions, like the heart-shaped pizza, sold around Valentine’s Day and the famous pizza on matzo (crispy unleavened bread), available for the Passover holiday.

Barry builds hype for these special dishes by submitting online press releases. Each press release clearly outlines the stores’ contact info, including the address of his online ordering site. “Last year, some of the local TV stations even came out at Passover and shot some footage,” Barry says. “Our neighborhood has a big Jewish population, and they cannot eat leavened bread for a week. We started four or five years ago serving pizza on unleavened crust and it has made quite an impact. It’s the kind of thing big chains cannot do: They just cannot get this personal!”

“We try to come up with new menu items every few months and weed out the slow movers,” Barry adds. “With SpeedLine, it’s easy to see what’s selling and what isn’t. And that’s key. I can look at the data a million ways: Items selling day time, night time, delivery, and who is ordering what. In many ways, I cannot make decisions without it.”

As head chef, Barry focuses on quality and consistency: “I take pride in the food we serve,” he states.  Jacopo’s has received good ratings on Zagat, one of the Web’s authoritative guide to restaurant reviews. The Los Angeles Times also named Jacopo’s chopped antipasto salad one of their five favorite salads of the year.

Looking back on Jacopo’s eventful history, Barry is happy with where he finds himself:   “We had to retract after my accident,” he says. But I’m glad to be hands-on again. Right now, I really want to get my two restaurants just right.”