For Dallas-based Zalat Pizza, the Reaper Roulette Challenge is such a red-hot promotion, they’ve trademarked the name.
“Our challenge was buzzing around so much on social media, a national chain even attempted to copy the Reaper Roulette Challenge until they realized Zalat had the copyright,” George Dounis, executive assistant to founder Khanh Nguyen, told PMQ.
Zalat Pizza, which has 30 locations and was featured on PMQ’s cover in March 2022, sells around 1,300 Reaper Roulette Challenges every month. Designed for groups, the promotion fulfills customers’ demand for so-called “extreme” flavors in a fun and innovative way while spreading out the risk.
Customers can place an online order for delivery or carryout on any pizza on the Zalat menu, adding “Reaper Roulette” for an additional $2.50. Zalat’s pizza makers then add a few drops of a super-spicy hot sauce—to the tune of 600,000 Scoville units—to one slice of the pie. Which slice? There’s only one way to tell. Take a bite and make sure you’ve got a full glass of ice water (or any beverage of your choice) to put out the fire.
It’s a savvy promotion for groups of customers looking to add a little risk to their culinary adventures. “Zalat’s ‘Reaper Roulette’ is a good way to punish your loved ones,” Axios Dallas noted in a June 24 article, after a trio of staff members took the challenge for an Instagram Reel. “This is so scary,” one of them said, as she dug into a slice of Zalat’s famous Pho Pizza.
“Our founder, Khanh, came up with the idea back in 2020,” Dounis said. “In addition to dropping our Pepperoni Masterclass pizza, we released the Reaper Roulette slice as an option. Khanh wanted to add something fun and unique to the menu. Looking back at our Facebook page, one of the earliest appearances on our socials was April 20, 2020. Customers can still add a reaper slice to any of our pizzas for an extra $2.50.”
Nguyen, a former attorney and software developer who relocated to the U.S. from his native Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975, often calls himself an “accidental restaurateur.” But he makes no secret of his ambitions. “I’m always thinking multiunit,” Nguyen told PMQ in 2022. “Why knock out one concept, only to go and change it up? It’s very complex getting one of these ideas to work. If you have one that survives and makes it, why not just perfect that model so you can replicate it at scale instead of coming up with a brand-new one every single time?”
“Our entire business model was designed with plans for global pizza domination,” Nguyen said at the time. “I’m a natural business guy, especially with my ADD. Whatever I do, I’m always designing for global domination, whether it works or not.”
