Chain Known for “Better Ingredients” Launches Summer-Long “Papa’s Specialty Pizza Challenge” to Find Next Great Specialty Pizza

According to The Australian, “Melbourne pizza aficionado Tony Fazio was hired to run the restaurant, which was located in a basement in a hidden alleyway.”

According to the Washington Post, “The food industry and major business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are threatening to withdraw support for a long-pending bill to improve food safety, saying they are upset by a proposed amendment that would ban bisphenol-A, a controversial chemical, from food and beverage containers.”

Little Caesars Pizza today announced the appointment of James C. Hartenstein as vice president, International. In his new role, Hartenstein will have direct responsibility for all functions outside of the United States, for both existing countries and creating strategies to develop new markets. He will report to David Scrivano, president of Little Caesars.

When business is booming, a lot of things are going on in your pizzeria’s kitchen: Knives are chopping, sauce is stewing, dough is flying, and you can’t seem to keep the pies moving in and out of the oven fast enough. No doubt it’s easy to cut a few corners or delay a much-needed cleaning when you’re living the pie life in full swing. But what starts as a little spilled tomato sauce can turn into a real safety and sanitation issue rapidly.

According to KPHO.com, “A Brooklyn, N.Y., man loves pizza so much that he intends to eat it for every meal, every day, for an entire month.Nick Sherman told News 12 in Brooklyn he plans to eat pizza at a difference place every day this April.

According to the Madison County Courier, “Vince’s Gourmet Imports is teaming up with Madison Cortland ARC to raise money for educational services and employ people with disabilities.”

Exploring your options in new meat toppings will wow customers who crave more than pepperoni.

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, “Pizza Hut has relaunched its website to make online ordering faster and more intuitive, the company said Tuesday.”

Philadelphia based start-up PizzaPages.com has officially opened the doors of its Online Directory.

In the spirit of Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary, Pizza Fusion has launched a nationwide search for the greenest, most eco-friendly pizza recipe in the country with the Pizza Fusion Earth Day Video Contest.

Freedom Environmental Services (Pink Sheets:FRDM) announced today that it has signed a service contract with Little Caesars Pizza to service multiple store locations in the Central Florida area. Freedom Environmental has already installed new grease tanks in some of Little Caesars Pizza locations and will be rolling out to new locations as they come on line. In addition to grease tank installation, the contract calls for emergency services, wastewater clean-up and grease disposal.

According to the Seattle Times, “Good Chicago-style deep-dish pizza is hard to come by in Seattle, but there’s a tasty new choice in the city: Kylie’s Chicago Pizza.”

It may boast an Italian heritage, but pizza is now claimed by South Americans and South Asians alike, not to mention Croats, Israelis and Armenians.

According to MacReportOnline.com, “Big Ten Conference and Little Caesars Pizza Bowl officials announced today an agreement to extend their affiliation through the 2013 college football season.”

Frozen pizzas — once the quick dinner of last resort — have increasingly become gourmet items, with new premium lines being added to store shelves each year. Chicago-based Home Run Inn Pizza has led this movement with its pizzeria-born creations. While making pizzas that are great right out of the box has been the key to Home Run Inn’s success (they are the top frozen pizza brand in the Chicago market), they learned quickly that pizza fans were customizing Home Run Inn frozen pizzas to suit their tastes, needs and whims.

According to BNet.com, “California Pizza Kitchen (CPKI) joined the restaurant-chain sale frenzy this week, saying it is exploring financial options including a sale or major investment. But while chains such as Carl’s Jr parent CKE Restaurants (CKR) are selling because they urgently need money to pay off debt, California Pizza Kitchen has no such problems. The 250-unit chain would likely be better off waiting until a growing economy boosts its sales and improves its value.”

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, ” Pizza may be one of the cheapest, most convenient foods in the United States, but American consumers overwhelmingly turn to pizza over other meal options because of taste, new research shows.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Yum! Brands Inc. on Wednesday said its first-quarter earnings rose 11%, helped by strong sales in China, a market critical to the restaurant chain.”

We’ve all heard these stories in the news too many times before: A pizzeria gets broken into, robbed or vandalized; employees are assaulted or put in danger; money or supplies are lost through negligence or theft. When the authorities try to piece together the crime, the pizzeria owner admits he did not have surveillance installed in his shop—but his first thought will likely be, “It’s time to install some cameras so this doesn’t happen again.†Why wait until it’s too late?

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, “Consumer behavior patterns are shifting for the better for restaurants, according to a new study conducted by market research firm The NPD Group, with less consumers cutting back on dining out, and fewer customers searching for deals.”

runo Itin moved from Switzerland to Indiana in 1951 and, after a few years as a restaurant worker, decided to open his own venture in 1955: Bruno’s Pizza in West Lafayette. “My dad was already a baker, so he knew how to handle dough,†says Orlando Itin, son of Bruno, who runs the restaurant with siblings Bruno Itin Jr. and Tina Wisman. “To this day, we make all of our own dough in-house—for pizza as well as our sandwich rolls, garlic bread, breadsticks, you name it!†The special dough recipe also led to Orlando’s uncle’s greatest discovery: Bruno Dough.

In Winnebago, Illinois, Brian Weavel, the owner of Anna’s Pizza & Pasta, has called on some small-town spirit to revamp his pizzeria’s interior. In a joint effort led by Weavel, the village’s fine arts council and the local high school’s art department, budding artists will put their craft to the test while painting an Italian-style mural on Anna’s walls.