EVENTS & PROMOTIONS JUNE/JULY 2021

Industry Events

June 28-30

THE NIGHTCLUB & BAR SHOW

Las Vegas

This is one of the F&B industry’s premier events, and it’s a must-attend for pizzeria operators with a strong beverage component. This year’s show features the 2021 Food Festival and the F&B Innovation Center highlighting food and foodservice equipment exhibitors and live chef demonstrations. Learn more at ncbshow.com

July 10-12

THE TEXAS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION MARKETPLACE

San Antonio

There are Texas-sized opportunities to be discovered with every TRA educational session, cooking demo and virtual happy hour—not to mention every conversation with fellow restaurateurs. Newcomers and veteran operators alike will discover new moneymaking ideas and products to grow their business.

Learn more at tramarketplace.com

August 7-8

THE LOUISIANA RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION SHOWCASE

Who needs an excuse for a getaway to New Orleans? Nobody. But here’s a good one anyway. This two-day marketplace for restaurant and foodservice professionals is the largest and most attended show of its kind in the region. Learn more at lra.org

Summer’s here, and the pizza industry is moving forward after a challenging pandemic year. Here’s a look at upcoming events and webinars you won’t want to miss, plus some special food and beverage holidays to celebrate with promotions and LTO offerings!

PROMOTE THIS!

June 30

NATIONAL MAI TAI DAY

Kick the summer off right with pizza and Mai Tai specials! Create your own signature craft cocktails like the LMAO Mai Tai at Pizza Hyena in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, and the Apricot Mai Tai at Dom DeMarco’s Pizzeria & Bar in Las Vegas!

July 14

NATIONAL MAC AND CHEESE DAY

It’s a classic comfort-food dish, but pizzeria owners have taken it to the next level. Create a Mac and Cheese Pizza special and promote it on social media with mouthwatering photos. Who knows? It could be your next signature pizza!

August 6

INTERNATIONAL BEER DAY

Your customers will have beer on the brains, and it just makes sense to help them celebrate with beer-and-pizza pairings, cross-promotions with local microbreweries and new brews on tap or by the glass!

LEARN AND EARN!

2 p.m., July 7

PMQ MARKETING MASTERS FEATURING MOBIVITY

PMQ publisher Steve Green hosts this webinar about text message marketing with Mobivity, an industry leader that powers mobile messaging programs for brands like Papa Gino’s, Subway, Sonic and more. Join us on Facebook Live!

2 p.m., July 8

SPEEDLINE SOLUTIONS WEBINAR

Doing More With Less: Dealing With a Labor Shortage

SpeedLine Solutions tackles a subject that’s on the minds of pizzeria operators across the country: how to bounce back from the pandemic at a time when finding new employees is getting more and more difficult. Register today at pmq.com/speedline

2 p.m., July 21

PMQ MARKETING MASTERS FEATURING BRUCE IRVING

PMQ publisher Steve Green discusses the latest marketing strategies with Bruce Irving, the marketing visionary behind SmartPizzaMarketing.com and host of the weekly Smart Pizza Marketing podcast. Join us on Facebook Live!

Sunny’s

BBQ Bacon

Cheeseburglar

A Treasure Hunt For Pizza

Throughout April, Sunny’s Pizzeria in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, sent social media fans on its Pizza Hunt, a search for free pizza in a contest guaranteed to create brand engagement and media buzz. Sunny’s employees hid branded, coin-like tokens around the city and offered daily clues on social media for finding them. Clues were posted at 9 a.m. each day and featured tightly cropped pictures of the “easily accessible” locations where the tokens could be found. The hunters who found the hidden treasures were asked to post photos of themselves holding up their token. Every returned Pizza Hunt token could be redeemed for a free medium-size pizza, with a total of 30 tokens hidden throughout the month. Sunny’s also hosts trivia contests based on the popular TV show The Office and plates a variety of signature pizzas with catchy names and artisanal recipes. These include the Bangerz N’ Mash (garlic mashed potatoes, mozzarella, cheddar, sausage, beef, onions and a drizzle of brown gravy) and the Liu Kang Bicycle Kick (chicken, sweet chili sauce, mozzarella, green peppers, onions, pineapple, red pepper flakes, garlic powder and a sriracha drizzle).

WELCOME TO THE CRUST-ACEOUS PERIOD

A new pizzeria has taken Sacramento back to the age of the dinosaurs. Husband-and-wife duo David Smith and Jamie Dougherty opened Pizzasaurus Rex in January, marking the beginning of what they call “the Crust-aceous period” in world history. Guaranteed to appeal to kids, Pizzasaurus Rex features a green dinosaur, called P. Rex, on its boxes, menus and swag, including T-shirts sized for young’uns and grown-ups alike. Smith and Dougherty already own Old Town Pizza and Taphouse in Elk Grove, California, and wanted to try a different concept. “We had been playing around with much more serious names, but I eventually disliked them all,” Smith told Sactown Magazine. “Finally, we thought, ‘What if we did something that’s not too serious?’” Pizzasaurus Rex features one-size-only, rectangular thin-crust pies fired for six to eight minutes at 475° in a brick deck oven, plus 12 beers on tap and three vegan pizzas—the Vegan Cheese, Vegan Pepperoni and Vegan Combo.

How A New Pizzeria Went Viral On Tiktok

The owners of a pizzeria called Fired Up used TikTok to reach a global audience just one week before opening their new shop in Durban, South Africa, in late April. Luke Silver and Michael Benson created a one-minute video that showed them transforming an old garage into their dream restaurant. To a soundtrack by Edith Whiskers, they were shown signing the lease on the space and popping a bottle of champagne in celebration, then sweeping, cleaning, hauling boxes and materials, and even digging a ditch before finally sharing a hug in the video’s last seconds. The video has been viewed on TikTok more than 230,000 times, with follow-ups earning roughly 56,700 and 22,000 views. The first video helped make their opening night a smash success, the business partners said, with customers pouring in from as far away as Pretoria, a seven-hour drive. The secret of its viral success: sheer authenticity. The video depicted the camaraderie and closeness between two friends, warmed the heart and didn’t overtly sell anything. “We didn’t do it to try and sell our pizzas,” Silver told the news website IOL. “We wanted to show that we had a dream and we were fighting for it.”

A SLICE, A BEER AND A HOLOGRAM

Is hologram dining the next best thing to being there? Virgin Media, a broadband service provider in the United Kingdom, found out when it debuted Two Hearts Pizzeria, the world’s first hologram dining experience, in April. Using technology powered by its gigabit network, the company brought friends and relatives in London, England, and Edinburgh, Scotland, together for a one-of-a-kind virtual pizza date. The “pizzeria” was essentially split in two, with half located on London’s South Bank and half on Edinburgh’s Castle Street. Virgin Media projected life-size holograms in the dining spaces, allowing the participants to see, hear and talk to each other in real time, as if sitting at the same table. Thirty people participated in the two-day event, enjoying pies with friends via hologram on opposite sides of the U.K. “We’re serving up a slice of the future,” Virgin Media COO Jeff Dodds said.

“THE BEST UNSUNG RESTAURANT STORY”

Tom Sacco, CEO of Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream, believes the 52-unit Midwestern chain has the makings of a national brand. Headquartered in Bettendorf, Iowa, the company presently has stores in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. But Sacco, who became CEO in October, envisions opening 1,000 new stores around the United States over the next decade. Sacco told QSR magazine that the family-friendly chain, founded in 1972 by Joe Whitty, has “the best unsung restaurant story” in the industry. “I’m looking forward to sharing it with thousands and thousands of families and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of guests around the country in the years to come,” he said. To spur growth, Sacco has waived the initial franchise fee for new partners and reduced royalties to 2% during the first year and 4% for the second year. He also hopes to lure in pizzeria operators who have struggled during the pandemic, offering them the chance to convert their existing spaces into Happy Joe’s stores. Happy Joe’s, he said, has “all these positive, magical memories that have been created…over the years. But nobody outside of six Midwestern states has a clue as to who [we] are.” If Sacco meets his goals, that will change in the next 10 years.

DOMINO’S NEEDS MORE DRIVERS

Domino’s isn’t exactly hurting for business these days. But drivers? That’s a different story. The chain has logged 39 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth in the U.S. It controlled 22% of the country’s total quick-service pizza market in 2020 and aims to add nearly 1,800 stores in the coming years, with a goal of 8,000 nationwide. There’s just one problem: finding enough drivers to deliver all of that pizza. CEO Ritch Allison told investors that Domino’s, like many independents and chains, is “experiencing one of the most difficult staffing environments in a long time.” He added, “The real pinch point is the drivers. We’re working on continuing to make that a great job with the best economics, relative to other alternative [job opportunities]. We continue our work around fortressing to give them more deliveries per hour, which translates into higher wages. We’re working on technology and operating practices [so they] never have to get out of their cars.” The company is also banking on its driverless delivery vehicle, called R2, now being tested in Houston. If self-driving technology lives up to expectations, a day could come when Domino’s won’t need any drivers at all.

Blaze has become one of the fastest-growing pizza brands by appealing to young people through its digital marketing platforms.

Blaze Pizza Is Catching Fire In The South

Blaze Pizza, headquartered in Los Angeles, is gearing up for a major growth spurt in the American South. One of the country’s fastest-growing pizza brands, Blaze has inked deals to develop 16 new restaurants in Texas, Florida and Tennessee. The key target markets are Austin, Texas; Panama City, Florida; and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Spearheading Blaze’s growth in Texas is multiunit operator Kelsey Irvine, CEO of Carpo Pizza Enterprises. The 26-year-old franchisee, who currently operates 11 Jersey Mike’s franchise restaurants, plans to develop 10 new Blaze locations in the greater Austin area. Meanwhile, hotelier Kuna Patel is developing locations in Pigeon Forge and Panama City and plans to continue growing the Blaze brand through the Florida panhandle, Alabama and Mississippi over the next several years. “Texas and the Southeast have continued to be ideal markets for our brand, and we look forward to tapping into the wealth of potential in these regions while exponentially expanding our footprint over the next few years,” said Ed Yancey, Blaze Pizza’s vice president of franchise development.

Round Table Ghost Kitchen

Global Franchise Group (GFG) has partnered with CloudKitchens to launch Round Table Pizza’s first ghost kitchen, which opened for business in Los Angeles in April. Ghost kitchens, in case you haven’t heard, focus exclusively on pickup and delivery service and essentially serve as virtual locations for restaurant brands, allowing them to expand their reach while reducing overhead costs. Operated by longtime Round Table franchisee Leticia Vasquez, the ghost kitchen will offer an abbreviated menu focusing on large and personal-size pizzas. “We’ve seen a significant shift in consumer dining trends since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as more customers begin to rely on takeout and delivery options,” Vasquez said. “Now, with the opening of our first ghost kitchen, we can bring Round Table Pizza to a larger customer base, and I see huge potential for the continued growth of the brand.” GFG is the strategic brand manager and franchisor for Round Table Pizza as well as Great American Cookies, Hot Dog On a Stick, Marble Slab Creamery and Pretzelmaker. Paul Damico, CEO of GFG, said the ghost kitchen location will be “the first of what we hope will be many for our family of brands.”