# How was pizza delivery "30 Minutes Or Less Or It's Free!" to now taking 2 hours for a pizza? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2025, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700 "2025-03-17T04:09:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/61 "2025-03-18T00:11:30Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In fact the cited NPR article makes the point that the only pizza (or other fast food) that’s not going up at roughly the rate of inflation is specifically Domino’s & Papa John’s. The guest expert lays that at the feet of them making it up on the volume. Perhaps, but I’ll bet on lower quality (or at least lower cost) ingredients too. It’s because they don’t use eggs. 😉 Inflation doesn’t hit all ingredients equally (eggs being an example of something that has famously gotten way more expensive recently), and I wonder whether pizza relies on ingredients that haven’t risen in cost as much as some others have. But I can believe that volume has a lot to do with it. Volume is what makes cheap fast food feasable: you can’t survive on low profit margins unless you have a lot of customers. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed any decline in quality from the Domino’s near me. For cheap pizza, it’s pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/62 "2025-03-18T00:19:06Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I haven’t noticed any decline in quality from the Domino’s near me. For cheap pizza, it’s pretty good. In my opinion, the pan pizza at both Domino’s and Pizza Hut isn’t as good as it used to be. The rest of their pizzas are good as ever, though I think Domino’s sauce is too sweet these days. Little Caesar’s standard pizza is much worse than it was back in the “pizza pizza” days, but the Detroit deep dish is surprisingly good (although extremely greasy). Papa John’s has gone way downhill altogether. Papa Murphy’s is the same as it ever was, except that last time I got a pizza from them the Italian sausage had WAY too much fennel in it and it made the whole pizza taste like black licorice. Mod Pizza was just one location in Seattle about ten years ago until it started franchising and went nationwide, and their stuff tastes exactly the same now as it did when it was just one location. These days I usually just go to a regional chain called Pizza Time, which is on roughly the same tier as those two, but is easier to get to and back quickly on the bus and which has a large two-topping carryout deal for $9.99. After Easter I’m gonna have to go pizzaless for six months, so by the time I’m done I imagine that even Little Caesar’s will sound appetizing. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/63 "2025-03-18T00:23:31Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Perhaps, but I’ll bet on lower quality (or at least lower cost) ingredients too. When I worked at Domino’s I recall the manager telling me the cheese was the most expensive ingredient. (By weight, I assume?) If that’s true, has the price of cheese decreased over the decades? Or maybe it’s no longer 100% cheese, and it contains fillers. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/64 "2025-03-18T00:40:29Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > When I worked at Domino’s I recall the manager telling me the cheese was the most expensive ingredient. Yeah. Cheese was about half the total food cost. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/65 "2025-03-18T00:41:50Z")
I certainly don’t know. But my bet is mostly fake cheese, less costly meat ingredients and fewer ounces per pie, etc. Good bet the crust has gotten subtly thinner as well. Ref the Subway “footlong” debacle, I wonder if a size “large” at e.g. Dominos is the same diameter as it was when I was 25? Or 55? If you reduce a 16" diameter pie to 14" you remove ~25% of the area even though it doesn’t look nearly that much smaller. And/or increase the crust border that is bare bread not garnished with expensive sauce, cheese, & toppings. ---
**Author:** ![MacDoc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/macdoc/32/18696_2.png) [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/66 "2025-03-18T00:56:33Z")
Has anyone else read **Snow Crash**? If you l ike scifi it is hilarious and the section on pizza delivery just too funny/deadly. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/67 "2025-03-18T00:57:12Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > If that’s true, has the price of cheese decreased over the decades? If I’m reading this graph correctly, don’t think so. [![](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1EExZ&height=490) ](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1EExZ&height=490) I think they are just taking a smaller margin. Back in the 1980’s labor and food cost penciled out to about 40% of sales. Nobody but the managers made more than minimum wage and the bulk of the drivers’ income was from tips. There was plenty of room to slash margin by increasing volume. Inflation and labor shortages will likely see the end of dirt cheap pizza in the very near future. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/68 "2025-03-18T01:16:17Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Ref the Subway “footlong” debacle, I wonder if a size “large” at e.g. Dominos is the same diameter as it was when I was 25? Or 55? According to their website, the sizes they offer are small 10", medium 12", large 14", and extra-large 16". Wikipedia says that up until the early '90s they had 12" and 16" only, so I assume that yesterday’s large is today’s XL. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/69 "2025-03-18T01:19:23Z")
Ref @Smapti just above. Shrinkflation for the win!!! > [@MacDoc](#): > > Has anyone else read **Snow Crash**? > If you l ike scifi it is hilarious and the section on pizza delivery just too funny/deadly. One of the top five books of the 20th century. Eerily, it seems ever more prescient as I get older and the world gets weirder. Burbclaves are next. Really. ---
**Author:** ![songsoflovetrouble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@songsoflovetrouble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/songsoflovetrouble)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/70 "2025-03-18T01:24:09Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > I heard something on NPR recently that pretty much said exactly that – relative to inflation, pizza has gotten cheaper. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > And… pizza must be getting cheaper. Because I recall the price of our pizzas being around $8 to $10, and I am seeing these same prices today. “Eating at Domino’s” is poor-coded now. At least until the 80s, poor people simply didn’t eat takeout food. Getting any kind of prepared food, let alone getting it _delivered_, was a luxury until relatively recently. The effects of this on people’s perceptions of the economy and society is significant - people who were born in the 90s or later honestly think that it’s somehow expected that you should be able to have a burrito delivered to your house and it magically shouldn’t cost any more than what they imagine the “correct” price of a burrito sans delivery to be 10 years ago. Trying to explain to them that anyone who even went to Taco Bell in 1985 was probably at least middle-class is like teaching algebra to a pig. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/71 "2025-03-18T01:33:09Z")
Are these (today) $10 pizzas any good, is the question. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/72 "2025-03-18T01:38:48Z")
As my brother famously said of US Navy shipboard food: “Well, … it’ll make a turd.” Beyond that little is claimed of big chain pizza, and little is delivered by them either. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/73 "2025-03-18T03:33:34Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Are these (today) $10 pizzas any good The $10 Dominos pizza is _fine_. I think it’s better than the Costco pizza, which is considerably larger for $10. Neither are great by any means, but when I can feed four people for under $30 OTD, and have leftovers enough for several lunches, I’m willing to accept that this is fast food level pizza. Non-fast food pizzas have gotten much more expensive. The ones that used to be $20 for a large are now $30. That isn’t all new inflation, but probably going back 25 years. So do I want one $30 pizza that is genuinely good, or several $10 pizzas that are fine? Also take into consideration that the $30 pizza requires using lowest common denominator toppings. When I buy several $10 pizzas, I don’t have to worry if one person won’t eat one of the pizzas. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/74 "2025-03-18T03:36:52Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Are these (today) $10 pizzas any good, is the question. It’s fine. It’s not amazing but my kid likes them so sometimes we do Dominos over the considerably more expensive local non-chain options. I wouldn’t pick it out of a pizza line-up but I don’t have to make a face and force myself to eat it either. It tastes like chain pizza. Obviously the main draw is the price but, for around $25 to feed the family after delivery, tax and tip (two medium pizzas), I feel that the taste is still a good value for the price on nights when no one feels like cooking. Easily one of the cheapest options given the cost of the delivery alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/75 "2025-03-18T09:03:33Z")
I definitely remember being young and only having pizza on special occasions and it was a HUGE deal to get one and just one. When my parents wanted to eat cheap but also out I believe Taco Bell would have a deal where you could get a dozen tacos for like $5 ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/76 "2025-03-18T09:35:54Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It’s because they don’t use eggs Actually, it’s the cheese. Cheese on a pizza usually costs just about the same as all the other ingredients combined. So a small change in the amount of cheese on each pizza can offset most if not all of the inflation on all the other ingredients. You take a hit on quality, but in general, pizzas can take that hit, and still be a decent meal. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/77 "2025-03-19T05:43:10Z")
I feel pizza places today make their money in the “upcharges”, Dominos has a $7.99 one topping large deal (at least it used too) but then they want $2 each for any additional toppings, and Pizza Hut wants even more like $3 per additional toppings on their $9.99 large special. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/78 "2025-03-20T15:28:49Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > Two hours seems overly long Yeah when I call for a pizza it usually takes 15 minutes if its pick up or 30-45 if its delivery. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/79 "2025-03-20T19:52:12Z")
When I delivered for Domino’s many years ago, they always pushed 2-liters of soda when they were on the phone with the customer. Perhaps because there was a big markup on them. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700/80 "2025-03-21T02:47:25Z")
Why do you think McDonalds always says “Do you want fries with that?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-pizza-delivery-30-minutes-or-less-or-its-free-to-now-taking-2-hours-for-a-pizza/1015700.md?page=5)