I don’t know about that. But I sure do like the way you think!
The pan pizza literally sits in a pool of vegetable oil in a pan overnight while it fluffs up. Of course it’s greasy. It floats on top of a vegetable grease ocean for 18 hours before you eat it. Some (not most) of that oil soaks into the crust while it cooks, most of the rest stays in the pan and eventually goes down a drain in the dish area, but there’s still a lot more oil on that style pizza than a normal pizza.
And yet, it’s very, very popular because Americans want oil on their pizza.
I don’t eat the pan pizza very often. The hand tossed gets a very thin spray to keep it from sticking to the pan, and as such, it is *far *more healthy for you, and as for myself, the thin crust is even better because it doesn’t get any spray or additives at all.
But people really, really like their pan pizzas.
People order the dinner box, which has a rectangular pan pizza, and breadsticks, which uses almost the exact same dough, and sits in the same veggie oil as the pan pizzas, and the cinnamon sticks, which are made out of breadsticks and they just add cinnamon to the top.
So, it’s a box with three pieces of cooked dough that are all soaked in oil. That’s just too much oil for me. It should be too much oil for everyone, but.
Your total amount of oil you’re going to consume ordering pan style pizzas and breadsticks/cinnamon sticks is going to be more than if you ordered french fries from McDonald’s.
One thing I’ve noticed, an odd correlation- the folks that always ask for the dinner box, and order multiple dinner boxes, are the folks that do not tip the driver.
There may be some correlation between wanting the most amount of the unhealthiest food for the lowest price, and making the greedy and short-sighted decision to not pay the person you hired to drive a cab to your house and climb three flights of stairs to give you your hot dinner anything for his time.
The correlation is that some people don’t want to spend money on quality food, therefore certainly don’t want to spend money on quality service. Money they have, since they’re ordering four times a week.
Seriously, people shouldn’t order the pan pizza every day. Break it up a bit, guys.
I’m not one of those folks that thinks the gubbermint should tell you not to eat unhealthy food. But moderation in all things. If it contains a crapload of oil, it should not be eaten twice or more a week.
So Askthepizzaguy, would you say the new menu is doing well? Have sales gone up across the board? Or is it the same amount of sales just people trying different things? Or no one is trying the new stuff?
Partially, and Howie’s is hardly unique in that regard anymore, several other chains have had flavored crust for years, but what the Hut is doing is more extensive than just sprinkling flavor on the crust, there’s a whole variety of options, that’s just one of them.
Heh–there’s no “probably” about it. That stuff must be 20% sugar/corn syrup/something else sweet.
You actually do. Because when I wrote "pizza hut’s Brooklyn style pizza is far better and a lot cheaper. "
The part where I wrote “Pizza Hut’s” was a typo. I misspelled “Dominos”. 
Seriously–I get that they’re your competition (having read the whole thread by this point) but right now, if you get Domino’s Brooklyn Style pizza with their “Robust Tomato Sauce” and whatever toppings, it’s (IMO) the best chain pizza out there.
Also, are the Peruvian Insanity Peppers or whatever they’re called supposed to taste like they’ve been marinated in pineapple juice? The flavor of them was so very weird that I’m wondering if my Pizza Hut somehow mixed the pineapple and Peruvian Chiles together by mistake or something.
I don’t think it’s Pizza Hut that’s making the Peruvian peppers like that, because I’ve had apparently identical peppers from grocery store salad bars. So blame Peru. I like them, actually, in moderation. If I want a sweet topping, better those than pale canned pineapple
Also, does anyone know anything about the gluten free offerings that are being tested? pizzaguy, are they testing it anywhere near you? I’m curious what they are actually offering in that regard. For example, does it sit in grease?
Oh yeah, that’s all I ever eat when I order from Dominos.
Which you’d think I never do, because Pizza Hut. Nada, I order from other chains all the time, because (a) I’m Askthepizzaguy, and I didn’t get that handle because I vaguely enjoy pizza sometimes, and (b) I gotta see how the competition is doing.
Their hand tossed pizza has too salty a seasoning on the crust, I don’t like it. And if I were to eat a pan pizza I’d get ours.
I tried their thins, and nnnnnope. Pizza hut only.
They’re cherry peppers, which are a kind of chili pepper, but I don’t think/know if they’re supposed to be hot or not. All I know about them is what I googled about them.
I can tell you this: They are located almost adjacent to the pineapples on the make line, at least at my store, and I think the design is fairly standard for most stores. It is possible, considering you mention pineapple juice so strongly, your one order got contaminated by pineapple juice by a careless worker, particularly if they didn’t properly drain the pineapples before putting them on the make line.
What can happen if a worker is careless and it’s busy, is they might dump the pineapples, juice and all, into the container to put on the make line, and skip the draining step.
Then, if the pineapples are located in one of the upper rows of the make line, they could reach in, grab a handful, and carry a bit of the juice and have it splash into the nearest container on the make line all night, which would completely ruin the flavor of the topping that night.
I would be very tempted to think something like that could happen. That’s why my cooks have explicit instructions to fill the make line properly *before *dinner rush, and before the PM crew takes over, because I don’t want pineapple or worse, jalapeno juice on my pizza, when I didn’t order any.
Your taste buds probably aren’t lying to you. The product is supposed to be drained properly before being put out, and if that step was skipped, something like that can happen.
What sucks is that’s indicative your store’s management or worker team doesn’t care about the process of what they’re doing. It might have just been that one thing one time, but when it comes to chain stores, there’s always another store around the corner that is probably following the processes better and prepares better quality food.
It’s like Wendy’s… I adore Wendy’s food. But I have to go the extra mile to find the one that doesn’t screw up my order. And that’s what irritates me.
This is what you get when you pay people the bare minimum. Non-professionals. Scab workers, basically.
I’d pay an extra dollar to make sure my food is made properly every time, but some corporations don’t see it that way.
I can only speak for my store, the new menu is doing *quite *well.
Not as much enthusiasm for the new sauce, the crushed tomato one, but I’ve seen plenty of pizzas made with the barbecue sauce and the alfredo sauce, and plenty of pizzas made with sriracha drizzle and sriracha on the crust.
The cheeses on the outside of the crust and the new crust flavors are taking off, and people are ordering them online. It doesn’t translate to additional income because they’re free, but the flavors are getting people to order the pizzas in the first place, which boosts sales.
The new stuff is definitely being tried, the only stuff I’ve had to toss so far was a half portion of the crushed sauce that had actually managed to reach its expiration date. Nothing lasts that long at our store. We run out of everything, we have no products that ever reach the expiration date here.
Half the time I have to explain to our customers that we’re out of stuff. Stuff that’s being advertised. That’s embarassing, even though I don’t do the food truck. People assume as I am a manager that’s my direct responsibility or I have authority over the guy that does it. Wrongo.
Sales at my store have literally doubled in the past 4 years. And I don’t mean we’re a small store that went from doing 400 a day to 800, no no… We’re outselling all the other chains in our area and all the other pizza huts as well. We’re a *high-volume *store and we still doubled our sales.
I’ve heard the gluten free pizza being discussed, but they haven’t tested it at our store yet.
Spoiler alert- every single time they offer a niche crust like that that caters to persons with a particular dietary restriction, it’s a bomb and it gets pulled quietly 6 months to a year later when no one is looking.
There is a dustbin several miles wide which contain failed health-smart products.
It’s not just a matter of money, even in a high-volume store like mine, certain niche crusts (like the panormous or the pizza mias) wouldn’t even sell one per day, or perhaps even a week.
There’s no point in ordering a case of dough if you’re going to toss 90% of it, and smaller stores really cannot afford to toss case after case of dough.
Mine might be able to get away with it, but the next 9 out of 10 stores who don’t sell as much won’t.
Did you know we serve chocolate, regular, and strawberry milk with our hershey’s cookie?
Well, *we *don’t. We only ordered 1 case of the chocolate milk, and we sold like 2 of them. We never ordered any regular or strawberry, and no one asked for any.
And we didn’t order another case of chocolate afterward.
I happen to know that all the other stores in my region are requesting it be taken off the menu, because ordering a giant case of chocolate milks to sell 2 chocolate milks is a terrible business model.
You can expect to see milk taken off the menu soon for obvious reasons, and that’s with corporate insisting it stays on the menu. It’s only a matter of time before they buckle and accept the harsh reality of the situation: No one orders something covered in pizza cheese and then also orders dairy as a beverage.
Here’s what people aren’t trying: The curried away or the ginger boom boom.
But, don’t expect those flavors to disappear. They haven’t pushed them via advertisement yet, firstly, and secondly, they’re both a seasoning powder that is kept fresh in individually sealed packets. It doesn’t expire, and because of how it’s packaged, it doesn’t even get stale even if we don’t sell much of it, because your flavor on your one pizza came from precisely 1 packet that wasn’t shared with the next pizza.
So, even if those flavors don’t sell well, I don’t anticipate they’ll disappear, they will be there for adventurous types to try regardless.
Are you guys getting the Triple Cheese Stuffed crust in your areas, or is that being tested only in my market?
It’s our regular stuffed crust but they put a blend of the asiago, parm, and cheddar that we have now on the outside of the crust before they bake it.
Me personally, I don’t like asiago cheese, but if you want your pizza to have oodles of different cheese flavors, this is probably heaven to you. It’s 3 cheeses on a cheese-filled crust, baked on a cheesy pizza pie.
Have I mentioned the word “cheese” enough times yet?
I just saw this on the Web site the day I went to order my “new menu” pizza. I am going to try it this weekend.
How is that bacon cheese stuffed crust doing? I thought it was horrible. It was too much bacon in one small space - bacon and pizza seems to do better when it’s distributed over the entire pizza.
**Askthepizzaguy ** - great info - thanks for sharing!
We observe Pizza Friday at our house 
I’ve ordered the hand tossed, Hut Favorite (garlic butter, Parm & parsley) crust flavoring with the tomatoes, red onion, mushrooms and spinach several times and it’s been quite good, IMHO. Our local PH adds the spinach in a single layer (sounds like others just throw a handful on & flatten it out?) and the leaves are nicely wilted by the time I get the pizza home.
I did try the pretzel flavoring on the hand tossed crust last week - quite salty, but that’s right up my alley (thankfully I have no blood pressure issues!) Tempted to try the balsamic vinegar drizzle next time…
it sold pretty well when it was new, but with all gimmick stuffed crust pizzas, interest tends to wane after several months.
Also, the area I am in is low-income, they tend to avoid spending extra money on gimmicks. Stuffed crust pizza is popular, but not as popular as it is at other stores.
About the spinach topping: They did not do a whole lot of training about it, all they said was about the raw food handling process, and how to portion it out.
There is one portion size, and I feel, it is too much spinach. And I’m saying that as someone who enjoys generous toppings.
People might try asking for light spinach, or spinach spread out, so the spinach can get warm properly. I would wager that would make a better product, because there’s nothing wrong with the ingredient itself, there’s just so much of it that it can stay cold, especially on a medium pizza. Though I find the amount we put on a large still excessive.
Also, while you’re here, what is up with the salami? Yeah, the disks are bigger than pepperoni, but at least on the pizza I got (and in the picture) you get one slice of salami per slice of pizza. If you don’t want it to overlap, cut the disk into quarters and spread it around, but if I’d ordered just salami as a topping, I’d be pretty pissed that 1/2 - 2/3ds of my slice didn’t actually have any salami on it.
Or is this some rare salami made with truffles, fois gras and saffron and thus is just too expensive? 
On a medium pizza, the salami are so large that they take up almost the entire slice. Then, because it’s a circle, it doesn’t really fit neatly into the triangular slice of pizza you end up getting, and putting it on the pie, smaller circles don’t actually fit very neatly into a larger circle unless they’re really tiny circles.
Any sliced meat is typically put on one layer thick.
My advice- ask for extra salami. There are several deals which involve multiple toppings (in my market) including mediums and larges with two toppings, and typically some online deals with multiple toppings, and there are usually coupons out there which allow for 3 toppings.
If you put salami on there twice, it may be more to your liking, and there are ways to do it without being charged for it.
Also note that on pizzas with multiple toppings, such as a meat lover, any individual topping is put on in a smaller amount than if you put 1 topping on the pizza, otherwise the toppings won’t cook properly, particularly on 6 and 9 topping pizzas.
An all-pepperoni pizza has about twice as much pepperoni as a three topping pizza that includes pepperoni.
Another thing to consider about the sliced meats, particularly the pepperoni or salami, is that when the pizza is cut, it causes the slices of meat to slide over, and tip sideways, leaving gaps that weren’t there when the pizza was put into the oven. Often times people interpret that as being less toppings because they see gaps, and ignore the meat caught between the slices.
The salami are so huge that it’s unlikely the salami on your slice of pizza actually managed to avoid being cut by the pizza cutter. I don’t think they are small enough to avoid being cut, and if they are cut, it can cause them to pull to the side.
That all being said, I’m probably being more explain-heavy than I need to be. My advice about getting extra salami, and noting how to do it at no extra charge, probably resolves your problem, and thus, what more needs to be said.
Tried the siracha again, this time on the crust instead of as drizzle. Way more noticeable this time. Kinda interesting. Very sweet, but then here comes the hot. I liked it, but it was too hot for me to eat very much and I had to stop eating crusts before I stopped eating 'za.
I just tried the garlic butter on the breadsticks instead of the usual breadstick seasoning.
Immensely superior. Oh god, how can anyone stand the breadstick seasoning? It’s all you can taste.
The garlic butter sticks and the marinara… I finished them this morning after reheating them from last night. Did not lose an ounce of flavor, and I find myself sitting here completely disappointed I don’t have more.
I usually can only eat one or two of the breadsticks before the seasoning makes my brain say “STOP EATING THIS”.
Real talk.
I am going to try the fiery pepper sticks next.