By Charlie Pogacar
In 2010, Papa Murphy’s started a $10 Tuesday promotion that ignited a cult-like following. Tuesday nights quickly went from a sleepy weeknight to one of the brand’s busiest of the week. As time went on, the promotion lost some of its juice—but Papa Murphy’s is looking to reboot the promotion, beginning with tests in 11 different markets.
The venture begs a pair of questions: Can a loss leader of a deal drive enough traffic to be worth it? And how does a franchise pizza brand unite behind a common cause to create more sales—and profit—for all of its stores?
Dallas Massey, senior vice president of marketing of Papa Murphy’s, joined Papa Murphy’s in March. One of the first things he took a hard look at was the $10 Tuesday promotion, which was no longer the sales engine it had once been.
Related: Papa Murphy’s Wants In On the ‘Value Wars’
What he observed was an inconsistency across the brand. Because food and labor costs had spiked, some franchisees were offering the deal for $13.99, while others were still doing it for $10—with other stores doing something in between. Furthermore, some stores limited the deal to certain pizzas (think: excluding premium crusts or only offering certain toppings).
“It’s such an iconic promotion,” Massey recently told PMQ Pizza. “But as it got more fragmented across markets, we kind of lost our ability to shout about it. You can’t say ‘any large pizza for $10’ when it’s $13.99 in one place and only certain crusts qualify in another. That inconsistency killed our marketing power.”
It’s important to remember the unique space Papa Murphy’s inhabits. A take-and-bake brand, Papa Murphy’s competes with other pizza chains, independent pizzerias and, increasingly, the frozen aisle in grocery stores.
“The competition isn’t just Domino’s anymore,” Massey said. “It’s the local grocery store. It’s dinner delivery kits. And we’re also hearing a lot more about perceived value—what people feel like they’re getting, not just what they’re paying.”
That’s why Papa Murphy’s is now testing a true return to $10 Tuesday in 167 locations across those 11 markets. The idea? Bring back the original offer—any large pizza, any variety, just $10—and see what happens.
“It’s not a systemwide rollout,” Massey clarified. “This is a test, and we’re looking closely at how guest behavior changes. Do people come in more often? Do they trade up to premium pizzas once they’ve had the experience? Do they try a stuffed crust they’ve never bought before and fall in love with it?”
Massey admits the test may lose money at first, which can be a challenge for a franchise brand trying to keep its franchisees happy. But the impetus for doing it in the face of those challenges, Massey said, lies in the growing importance of consumer data. If the promotion can increase foot traffic and total transactions, Massey and his team will be equipped with numbers that show the overall effect it could have on the brand.
And Massey emphasized that it was franchisees who tipped him off to the issues in the first place. They weren’t happy with the status quo and knew something had to give.
“They were saying, ‘Tuesday sales are falling,’” Massey said. “And when we dug into the data, it wasn’t complicated. As prices went up, transactions went down. In the markets that only raised the price to $10.99, things weren’t so bad. But where the price had been raised to $13.99, sales were hurting.”
The $10 Tuesday test is also a referendum on how consumers define value in 2025. Massey said the brand is acutely aware that value doesn’t just mean low price, no matter the premise of the promotion in question; it can also mean meeting or exceeding expectations.
“Guests don’t want to feel like they’re being tricked,” he said. “You can’t dangle a $10 offer and then throw in a bunch of fine print. That creates a bait-and-switch feeling. We’re trying to lean into a real, extreme value that people can trust—and frankly, feel nostalgic about.”
To that end, the brand’s creative materials for the campaign evoke the early 2010s, right down to the fonts and colors. “There’s a lot of brand equity built into this promo,” Massey said. “We ran it consistently for over a decade. We don’t need to explain to people why it’s a good deal. They already know.”
Papa Murphy’s plans to run the test for up to 180 days, a longer-than-usual window designed to account for the brand’s guest purchase frequency and allow for the potential addition of more locations. And Massey knows the test isn’t guaranteed to work.
“If after a few months we’re not seeing transaction increases, we’ll have a hard conversation,” Massey said. “But we’re optimistic. This brand was built on quality and quantity. And if we can bring those two things together again at a clear, compelling price point? I think we will win.”
Whether $10 Tuesday can once again become a traffic-driving force remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: Papa Murphy’s is betting that, sometimes, looking back is the best way to move forward.
