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Best pizza or worst contest?

Pizza makers love to win 'best of ...' contests, but figuring out whether the contests are run in an unbiased fashion is sometimes tricky. Ultimately though, customers typically visit the operation branded No. 1.

July 28, 2005

Having the busiest pizza shop in town is important to the bottom line, but having the most popular one might even top that.

Just ask pizza makers and their customers in Nutley, N.J., where some of the town's 27,000 residents have become embittered over the results of the annual Nutley Jaycees Pizza Challenge.

According a report on National Public Radio, after winning the Challenge three straight years, Ralph's Pizzeria & Restaurant owner Pat Custodi graciously bowed out of the contest in 2000. That allowed Rittaco's Pizza to take the crown, which prompted owner George Rittaco to hang a "Nutley's No. 1 pizza" sign out front.

That led Ralph's to reenter in 2001, when it reclaimed the top spot — but not without controversy. When the votes were counted, there were nearly double the number of ballots submitted than the number of people who paid to participate. Still, Ralph's ranking remained,

What's Important Winning a "best pizza" contest is great for operators' egos and their businesses. Being able to claim yours is the best in town draws customers. Ehile not every contest is carefully and fairly run, it doesn't seem to matter much to patrons, who are most interested in who's No. 1.

which stirred no small amount of rancor in the ensuing months.

In this year's contest, Michael's Pizza won the first vote, but a secret late-night recount put Ralph's back on the throne.

"I definitely think something fishy happened. It doesn't make sense," Michael's Pizza owner Michael Confordi told NPR.

"If they were going to do a recount, they should have had us there, too," said his mother, Irma Confordi. "The pizza challenge was supposed to be for a good cause, for scholarship money. But now it's out of control."

The result: Michael's, Ralph's and Rittaco's all claim to be Nutley's No. 1 stop for pizza.

Rittaco told NPR he's not surprised by the ongoing argument because pizza makers are fiercely proud. But sometimes that kind of pride leads people to even cheat to win, according to Michael Wickliffe, co-owner of four-unit Wick's Pizza in Louisville, Ky. His company has taken top honors five years running in Louisville Magazine's annual "Best of Louisville" contest. But several years ago, another pizza competitor tried to boost the company's odds of winning illegally.

"I'd heard they were caught buying 500 copies of the magazine so they could get the ballots and vote for themselves," Wickliffe recalled. "I want to win it badly too, but not that much."

Grossing $8.5 million annually in sales, Wick's Pizza is so busy that Wickliffe said he can't tell whether winning Best of Louisville boosts his business. It does boost his confidence, however, to know his pizza is well loved.

"Every time I go to the awards ceremony, my hands still get sweaty because I'm nervous; I want to win it," said Wickliffe. "But the truth is, these are popularity contests, and the best places don't always win. You can have the best pizza in the world, but if you don't have enough votes, you don't win."

Votes, schmotes, we're still No. 1

As it has changed so many things, the Internet has altered "best of" contests by allowing people to vote online easily and anonymously. The ease with which votes can be cast and tallied has made the contests simple to promote and produce, plus they generate tremendous site traffic for those Web companies and/or the magazines and newspapers behind them.

An inherent problem in the system, however, is how often the same person can vote. In the early days of online voting, votes were tallied, but voters were not tracked. Since then, more Web sites' online ballots require voters to supply some sort of unique identification, such as an e-mail address, or the site insists that voters accept a cookie to ensure they don't vote again from that computer.

Still, that doesn't stop voters from using the computers of friends and relatives who either don't care to vote or don't mind "lending" their identity to someone else. Such practices are difficult, if not impossible, to police online.

Additionally, as Wickliffe pointed out, reader/viewer polls are popularity contests that might not carry the weight of contest in which pizzas are tasted and judged by experts, such as those held at many pizza tradeshows.

But do customers care?

Probably not, said Tony Palombino, another Louisville operator who has won judged/peer-review contests, but never Best of Louisville.

"There's no question people take notice when they see an award on the wall," Palombino said in March, after winning Pizza Festiva, a contest held annually at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. His victory in that contest 10 years earlier put his business, Tony Boombozz Pizza and Panini on the map. "They see that in the store and they see 'first place' in our ads. I don't think there's any question that people take notice when you can say that."

Atlanta residents did just that earlier this year when St. Angleo's Pizza took first place in the city's CitySearch Best Pizza contest.

"It has helped us quite a bit. Even though it's July, it really got busy," said Morgan Prince, manager of St. Angelo's. "A lot of people came in and said they saw us on CitySearch and that they wanted to try us because we won."

Prince said that when the pizzeria sets out to print some new flyers and advertisements, he expects the owners will seize the opportunity to lay claim to Atlanta's best. He said it doesn't seem to matter to customers that St. Angelo's hasn't received awards from other contests yet because they're curious about who's hot right now.

"We're getting new customers daily from it," he said. "So I guess you flaunt it if you've got it, right?"

Give the reader credit

Louisville Magazine editor Bruce Allar said he believes readers want to see their favorite places win a Best of Louisville award almost as much as business owners want

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to receive one. How does he know that? The winners and runners-up chosen typically are the best spots in town, not just businesses that happen to have a large following.

What the magazine's staff calls "a dog" occasionally wins a category, he said, but it's rare.

"By and large, our readers do a pretty good job of picking quality, upscale places," Allar said. "It helps to have the (reader) demographic we do. They usually like the better places to begin with."

To ensure the voting is fair and accurate, every ballot is screened by staffers looking for voters' signatures. Voters get one chance to choose, and if the ballot is not signed, it's tossed out. Screeners also remain watchful of anomalies that might hint of cheating, such as ballots checked in one category only.

"Sometimes (the cheaters) are not real bright about it," Allar began with a laugh. "They'll send in a ballot that only has the pizza category checked. You have a pretty high degree of certainty that those people are trying to stuff the ballot box."

In each of three issues prior to the issue to which the ballot is attached, the magazine runs a letter from publisher publisher Dan Crutcher explaining he'll be looking for suspicious votes. And as a final effort to be wholly truthful, all ballots are sent to an independent accounting firm where they are tallied again.

The result, he said, is a contest operators say is worth winning.

"When we see those awards hanging in their restaurants, and when we see 'Best of Louisville' in their ads, we know they're very pleased to win these," Allar said. "We perceive that the restaurant category (in the contest) is very competitive; they want to win it. It's good for their businesses."