This Week in Pizza – February 5th, 2014

Most Floridians are not happy about the proliferation of pythons in their swamps, but Evan’s Neighborhood Pizza in Fort Myers treats the deadly snakes like, well, a treat. The pizzeria’s specialty pie, the Everglades, features pork, alligator, frog legs, swamp cabbage and, yes, python meat, and recently garnered coverage by the New York Daily News. In the article, owner Evan Daniell says the pizza offers “different flavors throughout each bite.” The chewy snake meat is marinated to remove the gamey taste, Daniell says, while the frog legs “have a cleaner taste than chicken.” He also says he has considered creating a “roadkill pizza” made with raccoon, armadillo and possum meat, but “I’ve yet to find a supplier.” Other major papers and news sites have recently covered the Everglades pizza, including the Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post.

Read more at PMQ.com.

You probably already know about the new IRS ruling that treats automatic gratuities as “service charges” and requires them to be reported as employee wages. Did you realize that this law also affects your pizza delivery charge? The ruling covers any charge that a restaurant adds onto the customer’s bill. Make sure you know all the facts!
Learn more about the new rules at The Pizza Insider.

The University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) is famous for its hard-partying students, and Tate Moore, the owner of Square Pizza, an Oxford, Mississippi pizzeria, is glad to feed them at the end of the night and send them home with full bellies. But when a few young customers started stealing décor and memorabilia from his walls, Moore discovered that crime really does pay — for him, at least. This short documentary from PizzaTV explains how Moore uses security cameras and social media to embarrass those misbehaving customers, retrieve the stolen items and spread the word about his pizzeria.
Watch the video at PizzaTV.com.

Seized with a craving for pizza, Missy Green, our international correspondent headquartered in France, checks out the local Pizza Hut and Domino’s in her Paris neighborhood and discovers some startling differences between the French chains and their American cousins, including one bizarre pizza-hamburger hybrid.

Read more at Pizza Without Borders.

With Instagram and Facebook making it easy to upload videos that play instantly in your customers’ feeds, it makes sense to turn this opportunity into a marketing advantage. Post short, fun videos of your employees at work or feature customers offering genuine testimonials about how much they love your pizza. The key is brevity: Keep them to 10 seconds or less, and your video, if it’s clever or funny enough, may just go viral!

Get more social media tips at Slice of Life.

Is Sunday one of your slowest days? That’s no problem at Pizzeria Piccola, located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, which dedicates many of its Sunday nights to “Society Sunday” fundraisers for school and community groups and nonprofit organizations. Pizzeria Piccola’s kitchen makes the pizzas, and group volunteers come in to serve as waitstaff for the evening. The participating group receives 10% of the night’s profits and 100% of the tips. For its part, the pizzeria gets free publicity for each event, with the various groups marshaling their forces to spread the word, generate buzz and encourage locals to show up and order pizza for the cause. The promotion appeals to everyone, from local churches and school groups to dance troupes, swim teams and Boy Scout troops.

Click here for 4 additional slow-day promotional ideas.