Marketing

A National Pizza Day primer of pie-related perks, promos

What U.S. cities are most "pie-struck"? Where are the biggest National Pizza Day deals? And which state wants pizza as its official food? You might be surprised.

Tuesday, Feb. 9 is National Pizza Day in the U.S. (Photo: iStock)

February 8, 2021 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

If there's one thing pizza purveyors know how to do, it's party. It makes sense then that on the nationally designated day to pay homage to the almighty pie — National Pizza Day on Feb. 9 — pizza restaurant operators are pulling out all the stops to light up the faces of diners with big sloppy, tomato-sauce-covered grins. Heck, even the whole Northeastern state of Connecticut got swept up in the sentiment of the season, when the Hartford Courant reported last week that lawmakers there moved to make pizza the state's official food pizza.

Of course that set off mega-rants by the pizza supremacists to the south, as the New York Post relayed, who said Connecticut was just a poser in the pizza universe and should go back and sit in its corner.

But all that New England-area vitriol aside, pizza lovers are sitting pretty this week, when just about every one of the nation's approximately 78,000 pizza restaurants has Tuesday circled as their very special day of recognition. We'll get to some of those in a moment, but first we want to take a minute to relay the interesting findings made public recently about the nation's best (or at least most fervent) pizza cities.

The outdoor services platform and app, Lawnstarter, compared the 100 biggest U.S. cities across factors like pizzeria prevalence, search popularity and average cost to deteemine what 10 cities simply have the worst case of pie-brain. Pizza-box-centered drum roll please!
Best Cities For Pizza Addicts

• New York City.
• Chicago.
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Tampa, Florida.
• St. Louis, Missouri.
• Las Vegas.
• Atlanta.
• Cleveland, Ohio.
• Richmond, Virginia.

In the company's findings of what it said were the absolute worst cities for pie-lovers, the 10 worst tended to fall in California, Texas and … gasp … New Jersey, with the three worst pizza cities being Jersey City, New Jersey, at No. 198, and Santa Ana and Fremont, California as No. 199 and 200, respectively.

And on top of all that dough-roll of information about pizza and geographical preferences, Pizza Marketplace also got some numbers on what the favorite pizza toppings were — at least in the catering realm — from catering connection platform, ezCater, which of course provided a pie chart for the results. What they found was that when it came to the stuff we preferred on our pizzas, the result was slightly scandalous, showing that the most ordered catered pies were actually topless, a.k.a. good ol' cheese pizza.

Top pizza catering order choices. (Image: ezCater)

"Personal preferences are harder to accommodate when ordering pizza for a large group," Giliah Librach, ezCater senior manager, Menu Strategy & Operations, told Pizza Marketplace. "We see cheese, pepperoni, veggie, mushroom, and meat lovers pizzas leading the pack by a wide margin. Customers do love to select exactly what they want on their pizza though, so we are seeing increased demand for personal pizzas and pizza boxed lunches. They allow customers to order for a large group, but customize it per person. With those orders, we're seeing much more variety, like pineapple, gluten-free crust, or spicy sauce."

Whether the pizza order is by person or by group, there are tons of brands celebrating National Pizza Day Tuesday by passing along savings and other specials to their customers. Here are some of the ones that have crossed our desk at Pizza Marketplace recently:

• Blaze Pizza: BYO or signature pizza with a side salad and bottled drink for $10. Two large one-topping pizzas for just $20.
• Chuck E. Cheese's: One free medium pizza with a purchase of a large one-topping pizza. Free DoorDash U.S. delivery. Free UberEats Canada delivery.
• Cicis: Three medium one-topping pizzas to go for $12.
• Domino's: Large carryout three-topping pizza for $7.99.
• Grimaldi's: Carryout 18-inch traditional cheese pizza, small house or Caesar salad and cheesecake or two mini cannolis for $25 in select states.
• Hungry Howie's: Use the code PICK2 for two items from National Pizza Day menu, including pizza, sticks, soda and cookie for $5.99 each. Two-topping pizza for just $10.99.
• Marco's: One-topping medium pizza for $6.99.
• Mici's: Rewards members at this Denver, Colorado-based brand get a complimentary 10" Cheese Pizza redemption Feb. 8 – Feb. 11 with any entrée orders.
• Papa Gino's: Get two extra-large cheese pizzas, Two extra-large cheese pizzas, small order of cheese breadsticks and cinnamon sticks for $29.99 with the code 7390.
• Papa John's: Two large pies for $10 each, as well as 15% off regular menu-price orders.
• Papa Murphy's: $3 off on large or family-size pie with the code, "PIZZADAY."
• Pasqually's Pizza & Wings: Free large pizza with orders of $25 or more with the code PIZZADAY or a free large cheese pizza with DoorDash or GrubHub order of $25 or more.
• Pieology: Take part in a free Instagram Live event on National Pizza Day at noon PST for 10% until the end of February.
• Pizza Hut: Take $5 off online orders of $25 or more.
• Round Table Pizza: App orders get a free stuffed crust upgrade on large pizzas.
• Russo's New York Pizzeria: The brand is releasing two burrata cheese pizzas as medium 12-inch pies between today and Valentine's Day for $10 each for one week each.
• Where's Weed: This platform, which calls itself the "Yelp of cannabis" will give one grand prize winner $200 worth of pizza, with a chance to also win an additional $100 Visa gift card for giving Where's Weed feedback and taking photos of the pizza orders. Go online to https://wheresweed.com/blog/category/2021/jan/national-pizza-day-giveaway to enter.
  
  After the initial entry, an individual can get up to 23 additional entry opportunities by sharing the contest and visiting Where's Weed accounts on different social media platforms. The giveaway ends 11:59 p.m. MST, Feb. 10, and is only open to U.S. residents 21 years or older. The winner will be drawn Feb. 11.

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.