topic Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level! in Pizzeria

Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

ToastyToast — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:15:41 GMT

I operate a small artisan pizzeria. I would LOVE to be able to put a count on Pizza as a Menu Category before each service. We do sourdough pizza and only have a specific # of doughs for each service. We are constantly having to guess / estimate how many more orders we can take towards the ends of the night based on eye-balling dough trays. If we could put a count on the whole menu category it would be SO helpful!

p.s. I know I could make all my pizzas 1 item and have the topping combos be modifier groups - but it looks horrible on the guest facing side and it's much harder to understand which items are performing best in that format.

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

cheskoxd — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:21:01 GMT

Hey,

What about a modifier group called "Dough", that will be a required modifier, it will have no price, but as you know, modifiers are items, so we can assign a quantity to the modifier and then make it required, so once there's no more Dough, the "Pizza" item will be automatically set to Out of stock, since the required modifier is Out of stock. So before each service you can set the quantity of Dough and it will update on all the items that currently have the Dough mod as required

And you can use the same modifier group as a Shallow copy with multiple pizzas, so all of them will share the same Dough.

If a required modifier group has one option, and the option is out of stock, the whole Item where the modifier group was assigned will be Out of Stock

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions 🙂

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

ToastyToast — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 19:43:32 GMT

That sounds like an interesting work around. Would servers / guests ordering online be forced to select that modifier every time they order a pizza?

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

cheskoxd — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 19:30:45 GMT

Yes, they will be forced, or we can also set it to be Default Modifier, so it will be automatically selected

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

ToastyToast — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 22:18:18 GMT

Gotcha. And it would still be visible on every ticket. While that might technically work, it's too disruptive to workflow to be practical. Similar to having 1 item called pizza, with a count on it, but then having all specialty pizzas available as 'topping combos' or something. It technically would work, but it's bad for customer and staff UI. Far simpler from UI standpoint would be the suggestions of my post, allow us to put counts on the category. But I understand from an engineering pov that is probably a big ask. However, it would be useful, and not just for pizza.

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

Flame_And_Pie — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 14:04:19 GMT

This is how we do it. I have all my pizzas listed to select from. You (online) or the Server selects the pizza and then the crust from the first "required" layer of modifiers. Then the "additional toppings" are next but optional. The first modifier (required) is the dough type (we have 4 styles, NY Round, Detroit Style, Cracker Thin, Gluten Free). In your case, if you only have one crust style, you just make that the default and mark it as required. Your dough ball count is maintained right there at the dough level.

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

rcmck — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 18:21:47 GMT

@Flame_And_Pie shared their online ordering page on a another post, to get a better idea on the setup, definitely the best option if you have limited quantities of dough every day. https://order.toasttab.com/online/flameandpie

Re: Allow Inventory Count At The Menu Category Level!

ToastyToast — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 19:14:54 GMT

Thanks for sharing your setup! That would definitely work for keeping dough counts. As a place with only 1 dough type, something about it just doesn't sit well with me, having to select a dough type on every pie we sell. But I appreciate your input!