How Pete’s Pizza Increased Sales with a Phone Answering and Delivery Service | Tarro Case Study 2025

I'm Max, Director & GM for pizza at Tarro. I've worked in the pizza industry for years, including stops at small chains like Please Pizza (2 locations) and larger chains like Pizza My Heart (20+ locations).

Today, I’m sharing the story of Pete’s Pizza – a 9-location Philadelphia pizza chain. This is a story about modern pizza operations: how a chain drowning in phone order chaos turned things around with a smarter phone answering system for pizza restaurants. If you’ve ever wondered how to handle nonstop phone orders during peak hours, increase restaurant delivery sales or even how to increase restaurant sales with advertising, Pete’s journey offers the answers.

Pete discovered Tarro in a pretty interesting way. For years, he often ordered from a Japanese restaurant near his home. One evening, while placing a sushi order, he noticed something different. The person answering the phone sounded calm, polite, and professional. There was no background noise or chaos, just a smooth, reassuring experience.

Curious, Pete asked the restaurant owner about it, and she told him they had started using Tarro to handle their phone orders. That moment stuck with him. Pete had actually been searching for a reliable third-party service like this for a while.

And that’s how our partnership began – through the referral of another Tarro client. Which, by the way, is how we meet many of our new clients. I’m not saying this to brag, although I will admit I’m proud of the fact that word-of-mouth is such a strong growth driver for us. It’s an obvious and clear indication of the power of our services and the value we can provide.

When I met with Pete, I learned the story behind Pete’s Pizza: a family legacy that started with his parents decades ago. The shop became legendary during the Philadelphia blizzard of 1993 when Pete’s was the only restaurant still delivering through the storm. 

With that legacy of service came modern pressures: phones ringing nonstop, orders slipping through the cracks, and frustrated customers. Pete admitted that some people even thought his staff were rude – but really, they were just overwhelmed by the chaos.

To build the right solution, we couldn’t just watch from the outside. That’s why my teammates and I decided to work long shifts across Pete’s 9 locations. From this experience, we could feel their pain points firsthand and design the most effective solution for the restaurant.

And once we worked inside, we realized the struggles went far deeper.

What Happens When Pizza Restaurants Rely on Manual Phone Ordering？

Phones never stopped. With one number feeding four lines, Pete’s handled 200–300 phone orders a day, plus 500–600 total orders on busy days. I’d start a phone order and a second line would immediately ring. I’d interrupt the flow of the first call to put the second on hold. 5-minutes later (after completing the first order), I’d go back to the customer on hold. Sometimes they were still there. Sometimes they were gone and their business was lost.

I often struggled with the heavy Philly dialect. Customers rattled off addresses and credit card numbers incredibly fast. And many regulars expected the front desk to know their details by heart without repeating. Meeting those expectations was almost impossible.

And if this wasn’t enough, I had to balance answering the phone with my other responsibilities: prepping pizza boxes, packing food, cleaning, and handling payments from in-restaurant guests. Not to mention, the incredibly long days (starting at 11 AM, often going past midnight) and the sweltering kitchen in Philly’s July heat with ovens blazing and no AC.

Beyond that, there were countless small frustrations that piled up every shift.

For orders from 3rd party apps (DoorDash, UberEats, etc.), two tickets were printed – the first from the 3rd party app where the order came from (which staff felt were difficult to read) and the second from their POS that was printed manually (which, while imperfect, were preferred by staff). Two tickets often created confusion under the pressure of the rush. The result? Orders would get made twice, wasting food and time.

During slow hours, I'd see 2-3 drivers sitting idle in their cars with nothing to do. But during the dinner rush, those same drivers would be overwhelmed with back-to-back runs, causing delays and frustration. Those delays and frustrations lead to more customers calling to complain, which led to other callers being put on hold, so on and so forth.

Younger employees, who can only work 10-20 hours per week while balancing their studies, created a “staffing carousel” across shifts and inconsistent operations. The same person rarely showed up two consecutive days in a row, and – as is true with younger employees in general – they would often quit. Then, new hires would need to be vetted and trained, which adds to the already heavy burden of remaining staff – a vicious cycle.

Here’s what shocked me most: On the busiest nights, the team was so overwhelmed by splitting duties between the phones and their other responsibilities that by 9:30 PM, they literally pulled the phones off the line just to catch-up. They had to choose between answering calls and actually fulfilling orders – a decision that meant lost business for the restaurant.

I knew that no restaurant would ever choose to turn away customers unless they truly had no other choice. For Pete’s Pizza, adding more staff wouldn’t stop the missed calls, prevent order errors, or eliminate duplicate tickets.

Pete needed a system that could:

• Answer every call, no matter how many came in at once
• Record every detail accurately, even when customers talked fast, had accents, or made changes for orders last minute
• Simplify operations, streamlining phone orders, and delivery with low effort

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The Solution: How Tarro Transformed Pete’s Operations

We introduced Pete’s team to Tarro’s phone ordering service, delivery, and SMS marketing to fit Pete’s Pizza’s case.

Phone Ordering: How Does Tarro’s Phone Ordering Service Increase Accuracy and Reduce Missed Orders

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“The hardest part was when customers kept adding extras—sauces, toppings, and side dishes. If you’re writing it down manually, it’s so easy to miss something. That was one of their biggest issues with phone orders.” —— Pete Filopoulos, Owner

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To solve this, we knew the answer was technology. Accuracy in phone orders can’t rely on memory or messy notes. It needs a system that’s built for consistency.

With Tarro: Orders are right every time. 

Tarro Phone Ordering eliminates staff phone time so they can focus on cooking, packing, or helping customers at the front desk. With every call instead handled by a well-trained team of pizza phone ordering specialists (yes, real people) who understand restaurant operations, and know how to guide customers clearly and efficiently.

And with our industry-best 99.5% phone ordering accuracy rate, costly errors are avoided, and every extra request gets recorded the first time.

As Pete explained, “If a customer asks for a side of blue cheese, extra cheese, or any other add-on, it’s always charged correctly. We never have to worry about losing money anymore.”

With Tarro: 100% of calls answered

Pete’s used to juggling four lines and 200–300 phone orders per day, with staff pulled away from their other responsibilities just to keep up. With Tarro’s unlimited lines, no call is missed. If a caller disconnects, we call them back. Staff can finally stay focused on their stations. The result? Orders flow more smoothly, and morale improves.

With Tarro: Guests are happy.

Before Tarro, Pete’s staff were constantly overwhelmed—phones ringing nonstop, customers on hold, and frustrated voices on the other end of the line. As Pete said, “People used to tell me I had rude staff.” Now, with Tarro, that chaos is gone. Every call is answered, every modifier is recorded, and every customer speaks to someone polite and professional.

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Delivery: How Can Pizza Restaurants Increase Delivery Sales Without Third-Party Apps?

Although phone orders were heavy, it's feast or famine for the delivery drivers. They were either not busy at all or extremely busy, yet they were being paid the same per hour. I often saw 2–3 drivers waiting in the shop or in their cars during downtime.

From our on-site research, the delivery problems of Pete's compounded:

• Drivers often got overwhelmed.
• Drivers weren’t reliable or trackable.
• Drivers called in sick.
• Drivers sat idle for hours.
• And when using platforms like DoorDash, commissions were high, and customers were pulled away to the apps.

The impact of these delivery problems directly showed up in the revenue.

During one Sunday, Pete’s lost $1,090 in cancelled delivery orders. Over three months, that added up to $20,607 in known cancellations because the drivers were too busy. In reality, even more orders were lost due to churn after bad experiences.

To solve these delivery challenges and the lost revenue that came with them, we rolled out Tarro Delivery. This enabled Pete’s Pizza to:

• Delivery within certain hours, even during peak hours.Deliver within extended hours — customers no longer had to wait endlessly or complain about late deliveries.
• Deliver even when drivers call in sick — the restaurant stays calm, staff can finally focus on the food, and remain consistent without worrying about driver reliability.
• Deliver all orders outside a radius (up to 15 miles) or inside an unsafe zone – reaching more customers with minimal extra cost and effort.

With Tarro: serving more customers with high satisfaction

Pete’s reduced missed orders by 90% due to distance issues. Also, because their drivers were not overwhelmed, they received 82% fewer complaints regarding delivery times. 

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With Tarro: Your customers stay yours.

Pete told me,

“I don’t like third-party apps. They charge too much, and they redirect customers away from us. I’ve always wanted an option where people just call directly, order directly, and we deliver directly.” 

That’s exactly what Tarro helped Pete achieve. 

With Tarro’s delivery service, every phone order goes straight from the line to the kitchen, then out to Tarro drivers—with 0% commission. Pete no longer has to juggle schedules or deal with unreliable drivers.

Once the phone ordering service and delivery stabilized, Pete wanted to keep that momentum going. That’s when Tarro’s SMS campaigns came into play.

SMS Marketing: How to increase restaurant sales without spending extra on advertising?

Beyond saving orders with phone and delivery service, we also designed targeted SMS campaigns for Pete’s to boost revenue during critical events. A game day weekend was a perfect example.

With Tarro: Loyalty turns into growth.

Tarro’s SMS campaigns keep Pete’s brand in front of loyal customers and trigger orders within minutes.

Normally, Pete’s weekends averaged about $25,000 in sales across 9 locations. When we launched SMS campaigns with promotions Pete’s sales increased to $45,000, an 80% lift in a single day – all without additional advertising spend.

“I love it. Orders start coming in within 5 minutes – SMS helps generate buzz.” — Ted

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The Results

A Partnership Helps Pizza Shops Scale

^{“Now with Tarro, orders don’t slip, add-ons get charged, and customers talk to polite agents instead of stressed staff. It makes the business easier to run and better to scale.” — Pete Filopoulos, Owner}

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Pete’s Pizza didn’t just survive the rush but turned it into growth. With Tarro managing phones, delivery, and SMS, Pete’s freed up staff, captured every order, and kept customers happy. Now, with 9 locations running on one standard system, Pete’s has easier training, better consistency, and the confidence to keep expanding.

And Pete’s story is just one example. Tarro’s service has already helped over 3,000 family-owned restaurants cut stress, save money, and grow sales. With our model, your restaurant can streamline operations and boost revenue.

Ready to see how Tarro can transform your restaurant? Schedule a  free consultation right away.

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