As a Slice of Life, Pizza Takes the Pie

If you’d like a pizza while you watch today’s bowl games, you can order one shaped like a football from Little Caesar’s Pizza.

It is not only a cute marketing stunt, it is also homage to the patron saints of pizza: Football and Television. Without them, where would the pizza industry be?

“Probably in some other business,” says Rob Doughty, chief of public relations for Pizza Hut, the world’s largest pizza chain.

“Our biggest single day is the Super Bowl. On the average, we sell 1 million pizzas a day, but on Super Bowl Sunday we sell 4 or 5 million. And that’s just us. We have 27% of the market share.”

Football makes New Year’s the second-best day. Monday nights, usually the worst nights for pizza sales, are good nights if there’s a football game on the tube.

But any night with a big TV event makes for good business, says Maggie Proctor, public relations manager for Domino’s Pizza. “We find there are increases the night of the Academy Awards. I can’t prove it, but our people say sales went up during O.J. Simpson’s slow-speed chase on TV.”

John Craft opened his Pizza Bakery in Newport Beach on Jan. 17, 1991, which happened to be the day of the televised bombing of Baghdad and the beginning of the Gulf War. Business was very good, he says. “We started with a bang.”

In the past decade, the number of pizza outlets in the nation has doubled from 30,000 to 60,000, according to the National Assn. of Pizza Operators. Nowadays, it’s a $31-billion-a-year business.

Nearly two-thirds of sales come from takeout or delivery orders by people who are either glued to their TV sets or just don’t want to cook or eat out. According to Bob Jordan, executive editor of Pizza Today magazine, some pizzerias are cashing in on the trend by stocking their own rental video movies and delivering them along with the pizza.

Demand for delivery is expanding. Nearly all of Domino’s business is delivery, “but it’s the toughest part of the business,” Proctor says. “If you have a restaurant with 100 seats and they’re all filled, that’s it. You don’t have to plan for more. But for us, our capacity is the 22,000 addresses within a store’s delivery area.”

Finding good drivers is another difficulty, she says. “We have very strict standards: at least 18 years old with a clean driving record for two years. We run motor vehicle checks before we hire them and during their employment.”

Still, pizza deliverers’ reputations as supersonic drivers make insurance companies jittery.

“When I first got into this business 12 years ago, insurance was no big deal,” Craft says. “Now it’s a real hot potato. I guess there are fewer and fewer companies willing to insure pizza drivers. We haven’t had any collisions in six years and only a minor amount of tickets, but there’s no doubt been a lot of claims [industrywide].”

Jeff Keenan, one of Craft’s drivers, is 25 and, like many drivers, a student. His nine years of pizza delivery makes him a grizzled veteran to whom newcomers look for advice. His advice: “Don’t forget the salads, and don’t get lost.”

Piloting his off-road pickup down Irvine Avenue in Newport Beach at 20 mph over the speed limit, he says he’s been lucky--one ticket in nine years.

Drivers such as Keenan make minimum wage, plus 50 cents or so per delivery for gasoline. Like waiters, they depend on tips. The proper tip: “Two dollars plus the change.”

Speed is vital, Keenan says. Insulated cases do a good job of keeping the pizza warm, but a tardy pizza means a peeved customer and no tip.

“The people on the phone are important. If they say [the pizza will be ready in] 30 minutes but they’re actually backed up an hour, we’re the ones who have to face the customer. You make nice, apologize, and if they won’t take the pizza, you have it for dinner.”

There are cheap tippers and women who answer the door in see-through negligees and people who give the wrong address. There are people who want to rob you of your money, “although you don’t have to worry much about that around here.”

But there are also happy days, like the time Keenan was tipped $85. “The lady had a hundred-dollar bill and six dollars and no checks,” he says. “I couldn’t make change for a hundred, so she gave me the hundred and said keep the change.”

Well-heeled people are the growing part of the pizza clientele, says Jordan of Pizza Today. “A lot of families are two-employee homes, professionals, and they want to go by and pick up gourmet pizza and break open a bottle of wine. It’s called casual upscale dining.

“It started with Wolfgang Puck and the California Pizza Kitchen. Now there are lots of gourmet pizzas--veggie pizzas with eggplant and artichoke hearts. Goat cheese and seafood and pesto.”

Pizza locations also are proliferating, Jordan says. “We’re seeing growth in small pizza operations. The market is pretty much half and half, chains and independents. We’re seeing pizza in convenience stores, malls, gas stations, even in grocery stores.”

America’s first pizzeria opened in New York City 101 years ago, and pizza remained a regional dish in the Northeast for decades, Jordan says. Now pizza is so well spread in the U.S. that no one area dominates consumption. “You can find New York-style pizza [thick or thin single crust] anywhere. You can find Chicago deep-dish pizza [thick, multilayered crust] anywhere.”

Why has it become so popular? “We’ve done a lot of market and sociological research on this,” says Doughty of Pizza Hut.

“You eat it with your hands, so it’s very informal--food you have when you’re comfortable with friends and family. Our biggest sales are Friday nights, when people want to get comfortable and forget the stress of the past week.

“There are interesting dynamics involved with pizza. It’s round, which is symbolic of the circle of family and friends. It’s the modern-day version of breaking bread together.

“It’s universally liked by adults and kids. Moms tell us that eating a pizza is about the only time a family really sits down together nowadays, what with hurrying off to the kids’ soccer games and things like that. For that reason, we use a lot of family gatherings in our advertising.”

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Piece on Earth, With the Works

* In the United States, people eat on the average about 100 acres of pizza a day. That would make a pizza more than three football fields in diameter.

* Half of all American pizza is sold on Fridays and Saturdays.

* A quarter of a million milk cows are required to keep just the leading pizza chain, Pizza Hut, supplied with cheese. Pizza Hut uses about half of the mozzarella string cheese produced in the United States.

* In the United States, the typical pizza delivery driver covers 50 miles a day. In Western Europe and in Asia, those miles are usually driven on motor scooters.

* When the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was unearthed, archeologists found shops resembling pizzerias.

* Pizza as we know it was made possible by the introduction of Peruvian tomatoes to Europe in the 16th century.

* The first modern pizza was made in 1889 by a tavern owner in Italy, Don Raffaele Esposito. He used tomatoes, mozzarella and basil and named it the Margherita pizza after the then-queen of Italy.

* Pizza was introduced to the United States by Italian immigrants. The first pizzeria in America opened in 1895 at 53 1/2 Spring St., New York.

* The most popular pizza toppings in America are:

Adults: (1) Pepperoni, (2) Beef, (3) Italian sausage, (4) Mushrooms, (5) Green peppers.

Children: (1) Pepperoni, (2) Extra cheese, (3) Italian sausage, (4) Mushrooms, (5) Canadian bacon or beef.

* Some popular combinations outside the United States:

Belgium: onions and curried chicken.

France: ham, mushrooms and tomato slices.

Germany: sauerkraut or spinach, ham and onions.

Russia: sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon and onions.

Spain: veal, onions, bacon and barbecue sauce.

Hong Kong: ham, mushrooms and corned beef.

Indonesia: shrimp, bean curd, mushrooms and Szechwan sauce.

Malaysia: curry, mutton and onions.

Singapore: squid, prawns, clams and mussels.

Thailand: crab, chilis and strong chili sauce.

Source: Pizza Today magazine and Pizza Hut Inc.