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How Do All Those Pizza Joints Survive?

I’ve asked myself, many times, how all the Pizza joints on the street manage to survive, what with price pressure from the big chains and the saturation of the market. Well, I think it comes down to two or three fundamental issues. And I went to some lengths to gather research proving my point…

Pizza Margarita DiFrancesco - Large © 400 gradiThis is a grand championship winning classic Pizza Margarita. Devour it with your eyes…

Actually I went to the length of my faithful canine buddy, Riley’s, leash. Which is to say, I took a careful count of the number of delivery Pizza boxes in the paper-recycling bins of the houses on my street this garbage day morning when we went on our daily constitutional.

Only about one in four houses had no Pizza boxes in their bins. Many had two, and a few had three or more. I counted them all, divided by two (because paper recycle day only comes every second week around here) and then calculated an average. On my suburban street, it turns out that folks buy enough delivery Pizzas to feed every household 1.79 medium pies each week! That’s way more than I expected. And I think, with our mix of empty-nesters, young families and just average folks like me, my street is pretty representative of the population as a whole.

Huge, unfailing demand is one big reason all the Pizza joints – chain and one-off – survive from year to year.

What’s behind the demand?

Pizza serves all four of the major food groups: Meat, Dairy, Veggies and Protein, along with three of the four unofficial groups, Salt, Fat and Starch. (The fourth is Sugar.) All the natural cravings and nutritional requirements addressed. Your body and brain know how complete and satisfying Pizza is for you!

Pizza ordered in is also easy. The delivery thing is often what sways me toward Pizza rather than Greek or Shawarma or something else that beacons, but doesn’t offer delivery. Delivery, of course, was pioneered by the Pizza sector. They knew what they were doing.

Everybody loves Pizza. They may not agree on what they want on top of it, but I don’t know anyone who’d say ‘no’ to a slice. Pizza/flatbred transcends cultures and societies. There’s really nothing else quite like it.

And there you have it!

The key to the mystery of how all those Pizza joints manage to survive – and thrive! – is really an easy one. It seems Pizza is just a natural part of out lives!

Mangia! Mangia!

~ Maggie J.