While many restaurants are taking a big fat hit from the pandemic, right now there’s one clear winner, and it’s pizza.
In the wake of this economic carnage, restaurants like Sweetgreen—dubbed a $15 salad company in this piece from Marker—are losing business like crazy. Marker reports that Sweetgreen is laying off 20% (!!!) of its corporate jobs due to these lousy times after its sales took a big dump in the eight weeks after the pandemic started, falling by 60%. I’m no mathematician, but that is not a step in the right direction.
Days of the office desk salad are gone for now. When I worked in an office in downtown Chicago, desk salad (if you know, you know) was something that happened about once or twice a week. I do not miss those cubicle salad days.
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But right now, pizza is dominating. Fast food pizza is crushing it, with Papa John’s recently reporting an uptick of 23.8% in quarterly same-store sales. (Not all pizza restaurants, however: in my most recent job as a pizza-slinger, our restaurant was surviving, but it was not by any means achieving the same success we had pre-pandemic. With third-party apps sapping 30% of each order along with lower sales, that’s a big hit.)
That being said, pizza is quietly a business force to be reckoned with. Profit margins on pizza are larger than that on most other dishes, giving pizza restaurants more of a cushion. There’s added benefits to pizza. It travels relatively well, and it also reheats well. (Pro tip from me: order your pizza uncut and slice it yourself, or reheat it in your oven until the cheese starts bubbling again. Pizzas that are pre-cut get soggy much faster and nobody wants to receive a soggy pizza.)
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There’s the other intangible things too. When I’m working from home the idea of getting an expensive salad delivered just doesn’t have the weirdly nostalgic appeal as taking that stressed-out brisk walk down a city block to pick it up myself. A pizza for that same price always sounds way, way, better.
November 17, 2020 at 01:20AM
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How pizza is crushing the $15 salad - The Takeout
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