Serving customized pizza is a great way to please your customers. People love being able to choose not only their pizza toppings, but also sauces, cheeses, and other seasonings. However, offering customized pizza can also put a burden on your kitchen staff if you're not proactive. Here are some steps you can take to keep things manageable for your staff after adding customized pizza to your menu.

Don't go overboard with the options.

When restaurants start serving customized pizza, they sometimes assure that offering more options is better. However, the mere fact that you're allowing customers to design their own pizzas is enough. You don't necessarily need to offer ten kinds of cheese and a dozen different sauces in order to make this offer appealing. Instead, try to keep your number of options manageable. Offering three different sauces and three different cheeses is plenty. Three or four different crust options are enough. This will cut down on the number of ingredients your staff has to keep in stock, and it will also make it simpler for servers to take orders.

Track what toppings and options your customers actually order.

Use your POS system to track which toppings, cheeses, sauces, and crusts your customers actually order. Review this data at the end of every month. If there are options that are ordered very rarely, nix those from the menu. This will save you money on ingredients that go bad without being used. It will also eliminate unnecessary clutter from your coolers. Why keep buying ingredients that people are not ordering?

Create fill-in ordering cards.

Taking orders for customized pizza is not easy. To minimize the number of errors that are made, and also to make things easier for your servers, consider creating your own ordering cards. List all of the options on the ordering cards. Also, include basic instructions that tell your customers to circle the options they way. You can include prices, too, if you so desire. When customers sit down to order, give them an ordering card and pencils. This way, they can just fill in the card and hand it to your server. Your servers won't have to write down long lists of toppings and risk missing one. The kitchen staff will have an easier time reading these standardized orders, too.

Offering customized pizza does not have to be a huge hassle for your staff. Follow the advice above to keep things simpler.