Why do some pizza places say ‘No double toppings’? Why can I have and ounce of pepperoni and an ounce of sausage, but not two ounces of pepperoni? I realize that for each additional topping, the amount of each one gets smaller, that just makes sense. But it makes NO sense that I can’t have two helpings, at whatever level my pizza’s going to have, of the same thing? Why can I have a $1.50’s worth of mushrooms on a sausage pizza, but not a $1.50’s worth of sausage on it?
And, notice I didn’t even mention the thing about the national ads we get in the mail showing pizzas COVERED with pepperoni, and when we order one we get about 1/3 as much.
No, I just want an answer to the ‘double topping’ thing.
At least some national chains are very specific about how pizza are laid out, down to the number and placement of pepperoni slices. I imagine that they simply haven’t set down a satisfactory specification for the double topping. I know, from making pizza at home, that there is very definitely an optimum, and beyond that there is a definite diminishing return. A chain might not want to sell a disappointing product.
And that’s why I said I realize that more toppings means less of each one, but that doesn’t explain why a 3-topping pizza can’t be 2/3 mushrooms and 1/3 olives – or whatever. Makes no sense.
I stopped trying to figure out what was going on with pizza when they came out with thin crust pizza with bread sticks on the side… and thought to myself… “They’re making the pizza with a thinner crust, so they can make it cheaper… and they’re charging the same price, so they’re making more money… but then they give me the extra crust anyway in the form of breadsticks, so they’re not making more money… and they’re spending more time and effort making the pizza, so their employees are working harder… and the pizza isn’t as good…”
then they started putting the cheese inside the crust, rather than on it…
then they put the extra dough back into the crust, only just around the edges, and put lots of extra herbs on the part that sticks out around the edges that nobody eats anyway…
So, I just make my own now, and if I want more pepperoni on it, I put more pepperoni on it. So, that’s why you can’t get it with extra pepperoni: they’re insane, and you don’t make your own pizza.
I need some clarification. I’ve never seen a pizza place that said you couldn’t have double toppings. All I’ve ever seen are restrictions on coupons that offer free toppings that they couldn’t be double toppings. That has a good logical reason: to keep people from ordering double expensive toppings like pepperoni and force them to go with two cheaper offerings.
But no double toppings ever, even if you pay for them? Never seen it; don’t believe it.
The next time I pick up a pepperoni from the Hut, I think I will bring along one of the colored ads for it and show the manager the difference in the picture and the pizza they are trying to sell me.
The actual pizza has about 2/3 what the ad shows.
If one person each day at each place would do this, they might change their ads.
If the policy exists, it has to be to avoid dealing with whiners. Customers who are royal pains in the arse are often the reason the rest of us suffer or the various franchise owners.
I would also add that a touch of the policy is inspired by the franchise rules, in that when protecting the ‘brand’, you can’t make something and sell it that isn’t part of the franchise agreement. A ‘unique’ pizza would fall into that category.
Additionally, if one franchise owner felt he was threatened by another franchise owner who was selling items that weren’t part of the standard franchise menu, it would be a big headache to sort out, and someone could lose franchise rights.
To ensure franchisees are playing on a level field, the menu is the menu, and they draw the line somewhere.
Such a skeptic. Go to Pizza Hut’s coupon page, punch in ZIP code 10022, and the first line in the fine print for the Any Way You Want It/Them pizzas is “No double toppings.”
I know someone who works at a Pizza Hut. This is a franchise store. Their policy is to allow double toppings with these coupons. Thus, you won’t know if your local Pizza Hut will allow it or not without asking. I wouldn’t be surprised most stores ignore this policy.
I tried that long ago. They denied it was true and made me give them the name of my local store. The manager of that store called and said he had no such policy. When I asked him why the coupons said it was the policy, he just said he didn’t know and I could have whatever I wanted on my pizza. And would I please write back to Nat’l HQ and tell them I had no problem with his store.
Not exactly an answer, is it? And lots of non-chain places have the same retriction in their ads. There’s got to be a reason, and they just don’t want us to know what it is.
Actually, if they made the pizza from the ad, it would be inedible. Most food in ads is fake-plastic, paint, rubber, or else it’s all pinned and glued together. Otherwise, it would never survive hours under those hot lights to photograph it-it would wilt and spoil.
It looks like everyone agrees (including the OP, the Pizza Hut national hq, and the specific restaurant in question) that you CAN get “double toppings” it’s just that for some coupons in some restaurants you can’t. It looks like Exapno Mapcase has the most plausible answer.
OK, by now you know it IS true. But what you say also makes no sense. I can have the #1 and #2 most expensive toppings, but not a double helping of either. I’d guess that pepperoni and sausage and ham and canadian bacon and (extra) cheese all cost about the same, per ounce, at least that’s my impression from supermarket prices. I can have any two of them, but not two helpings of any one of them. I don’t think cost is the issue.
People want pizza for the taste(s) they prefer, not for the (perceived) cost of the toppings. Plus, their prices are set to cover what the average order costs them. If lots of people get the more expensive toppings (mainly the meat items) then they just raise the price of all pizzas to cover it. And even if it were a price issue, they’d just charge extra for it, e.g., “Extra charge for more than two meat toppings”. I’ve never seen that or anything like it, so that tells me price isn’t the reason.
I’ve never seen a “no double topping” restriction in Canada. If it exists and is enforced, perhaps it is meant to boost profits by making it so you can’t order triple of the most expensive toppings – I would guess anchovies and cheese would cost more than onion or mushroom.
