About Pizza Salvatoré
Pizza Salvatoré is a family story that started when Salvatoré Abbatiello moved from Italy to Saint-Georges de Beauce in Quebec in the 1950s. Back then, pizza was still a foreign concept in Quebec, and Mr. Abbatiello was on a mission: to make locals fall in love with this traditional Italian dish.
What started out as a single restaurant in 1964 has now turned into a blooming business. Today, Pizza Salvatoré is owned and operated by the third generation of Abbatiellos — five siblings filled with ambition and passion. Since taking over in 2018, they have opened several new restaurants and are planning on opening a new location every two weeks through August 2021, resulting in a grand total of 30 restaurants.
"We all grew up working for the family business," says Élisabeth Abbatiello, Pizza Salvatoré’s Marketing Director. "When our father was ready to sell the company, we saw an opportunity to scale it up even more and introduce technologies that would enable us to reach a new customer base."
The Challenge
The Abbatiello siblings were already thinking about growing their delivery offering before the COVID-19 pandemic. While the company was mostly known for its indoor buffet, which represented 50% of their total revenue, they noticed that food delivery was becoming increasingly popular.
Then, the pandemic hit. Within 24 hours, restaurants were told to shut down and the business lost a core revenue driver. The team knew this was an opportunity to fully embrace technology and scale up their delivery offering.
The Abbatiellos immediately shifted their business strategy — they drastically cut their prices and implemented new processes and tools to better handle significant production volumes. But once they were fully equipped to embrace a delivery-focused business model, a major challenge emerged — the need to get in front of more customers. While they already had a delivery system in place and their own website, Pizza Salvatoré needed an extra push to raise awareness and reach new markets.
I am sure our revenues from DoorDash will continue to grow significantly over the next few months — the platform truly is a game-changer.
The Solution
After shifting the business strategy to focus on high volumes sold through delivery services, the Abbatiellos decided to look for a delivery platform that could increase their online visibility and customer base. "It was the best and easiest way to make sure we would cover all of our core markets," says Élisabeth.
The Pizza Salvatoré team partnered with DoorDash and were quickly impressed by the company’s proactive and attentive approach. "It only took 5 to 7 days to get the system up and running from the moment we reached out for an introduction call. Our account manager has been the same ever since, and she is always prompt with her responses and overall support," explains Élisabeth.
With quick and ambitious expansion plans, they needed to implement marketing initiatives that would raise local awareness and drive significant revenues. Pizza Salvatore signed up for DoorDash’s marketing tools including DashPass, which helps them reach DoorDash’s most engaged customers. They also launched Promotions like First Order 20% Off to help them acquire new customers, and Free Item Over X to increase ticket sizes.
The Results
Pizza Salvatoré’s partnership with DoorDash allowed the Abbatiello siblings to further grow their business by tapping into new markets, diversifying their revenue streams, and increasing their delivery capacity. In fact, Pizza Salvatoré’s off-premise revenue grew by 45% after joining DoorDash — and 60% of their DoorDash orders came from new customers. "In order for our new business strategy to perform, we needed to grow our customer base and connect with them," explains Élisabeth. "DoorDash helped us gain tremendous online visibility and reach those customers who had never heard of us before."
DoorDash’s ease of use and optimized user experience have proven to be beneficial for Pizza Salvatoré: in less than eight months, their revenue from the DoorDash platform tripled. And as of March 2021, 32% of all off-premise revenues were coming from DoorDash. "The number continues to grow every month," says Élisabeth. According to her, "Food delivery is becoming more and more incorporated in our culture, and customers will always opt for platforms that provide an easy and reliable experience."
