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Pizza brands fill up hearts, grocery carts with incentives for orders

Pizza brands are "bringin' it" when it comes to incentives that bring orders in from shut-in customers (photo: California Pizza Kitchen).

April 1, 2020

Philosopher Francis Bacon, once famously said, "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain."

Pizza purveyors are executing their own renditions of that idea with incentives to get their food to customers who cannot dine inside their restaurants amid COVID-19 restrictions.

California Pizza Kitchen, for example, has added a CPK Market in addition to takeout and delivery menu orders, according to a news release. 

The service launched Tuesday to provide specialty meal kit solutions and individual pantry, fruit, vegetable, and meat items to customers. 

"With food access currently top-of-mind for us all, we wanted to find new and creative at-home cooking solutions to ensure our guests and the communities in which we serve have as many high-quality fare options as possible," CPK Senior Vice President of Marketing Ashley Ceraolo, said in the release. "Given the entire country is dining differently and family mealtime is more important than ever, establishing a concept where guests could confidently purchase affordable produce, meat, and other essential pantry items was the best way we felt we could attend to immediate needs while still doing what we do best — serving our customers the most delicious food options available."

It features six specialty meal kits with recipe cards for at-home use.

Options include:  

• $25 Chef's Board, with a baguette, cured meats, cheeses, dried fruit and mixed nuts. 
• $34 for 20 pounds Raw Fruit & Veggies, with apples, broccolini, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, fingerling potatoes, grapes, onion, oranges, pineapple and tomatoes. 
• $12 for Lettuce Wrap Kit, serving four with lettuce cups, asian-inspired lettuce wrap sauce, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, and chicken. 
• $15 to $24 Taco Kit, with cilantro, limes, roma tomatoes, serrano peppers, yellow onion, vegetarian black beans, shredded cheese, tortillas, and a choice of flap steak, mahi, or chicken, with price according to meat selection. 
• $5 Kids Build-Your-Own Cheese or Pepperoni Pizza with par-baked dough, pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella, and in the case of the pepperoni pie, additional cured meat.  

Customers seeking traditional pantry needs can shop from more than 35 individual food and beverage options, including beer and wine if they're over 21. Options include eggs, rice flour, sugar and milk, as well as fruits, uncooked meat and seafood, pasta, sauces, breads, desserts, juices and the aforementioned beer and wine. 

"Each and every item from CPK Market shares the same quality ingredients as our legendary California-inspired menu and is still carefully prepared by our expertly trained chefs before being personally collected and bagged by a CPK team member for all of our guests —a quick, convenient, and affordable way to obtain your meal-prep and pantry must-haves in a crowd-free environment with much less contact than one would experience at a grocery store," Ceraolo said.

Customers can shop the market by logging on to the brand's website to order online or visiting a store and filling out a list to wait for their choices to be bagged and handed over curbside or at the register. Select stores also deliver, the release said. 

Heart-ier pizza choices send love

At least two other brands are bringing back their popular heart-shaped pizzas to entice customer orders for themselves or friends and family. Mountain Mike's, for example, has re-introduced the traditional Valentine's Day pies in its stores through April 30, a news release said.   

Mountain Mike's heart-shaped pizza (photo: provided).

The brand said the pies serve a way for families to "share the love" with people they miss by sending them a heart-shaped pie with edge-to-edge pepperoni. 

The heart-shaped pies can be ordered from all of the brand's more than 200 stores for carryout and contactless delivery with tamper-proof packaging. The pies are priced the same as large one-topping pizzas.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based Fresh Brothers Pizza is also bringing back heart-shaped pies. The brand said it's an attempt to convert April Fools Day into "April Fresh Day," when customers can buy a large one-topping heart-shaped pizza and receive another on the house with the code, WEHEARTU.

"As a company, we are committed to supporting the community that supports us. 'April Fresh Day' is just another way for us to give back," said Geoff Goodman, Fresh Brothers' Chief Executive Officer. "We're all in this together and hope this allows families to share a meal together or encourages them to send a heart delivery to a loved one or neighbor. heart delivery to a loved one."

Fresh Brothers also now offers a curbside concierge service and contactless delivery at its 20 locations in Southern California.

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For over 45 years, Mountain Mike’s Pizza, a leading family-style pizza chain known for its legendary crispy, curly pepperonis and Mountain-sized pizzas, has been quietly building one of the largest regional pizza franchises in the West. Today we're developing coast-to-coast with 300+ restaurants, and we're primed for explosive growth nationwide

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