“Telephones rang, beeped and chirped at Seymour pizzerias Sunday afternoon Sunday. A 30-inch pizza and two calzones from The Brooklyn Pizza Co. A large meat pizza and wings from The Red Star Pizza Co. And a large deluxe with bread sticks from Pizza Palace. Local pizza joints anticipated a strong afternoon and night of sales, according to Tribtown.com in Indiana.”
“They weren’t alone. According to the website pizza.com, Super Bowl Sunday is the top night for pizza sales across the United States. ‘We’ve planned for a whole day of sales in the last four hours,’ Red Star co-owner Jason Petro said around 4:30 p.m. Sunday. He and his partner — his dad, Gary Petro — brought in extra help and extra delivery drivers and started prepping veggies and meat ahead of time.
“But co-owner Shawn Malone at Brooklyn Pizza estimated his store would serve an extra 100 guests Sunday night because of the big game at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis. ‘We’re expecting about double the amount of business on a regular busy day,’ Malone said. ‘You don’t really know what to predict, but so far it’s been off the hook.'”
Patty Robbins, a manager at Pizza Palace, estimated her shop would sell about 200 pizzas during the Super Bowl, or about 25 percent more than normal for a Sunday night. ‘Super Bowl Sunday is one of the biggest nights of the year,’ Robbins said. ‘We’re looking for an extremely busy night.”’
Petro was experimenting Sunday afternoon with a boneless buffalo wing pizza, combining pizza with another top Super Bowl food — spicy chicken wings. According to the National Chicken Council, Americans were expected to eat more than 1.25 billion wing portions over the Super Bowl weekend, or more than 100 million pounds of wings. The third annual Supervlau Snack Down Survey by Harris Interactive predicted some 23 percent of those who watched Super XLVI would eat chicken wings, up slightly in popularity from last year, and second only to dips and spreads (32 percent), the chicken council reported. Pizza and salty snacks tied for third at 14 percent, according to Harris.
