Super Bowl Sunday Super Busy for Local Pizza Joints

For Super Bowl Sunday, winning counts in the wide world of sports, but in the local food industry, speed and happy customers is what will score the most points this weekend.

When demand rises, speed matters. So how fast can pizza guys assemble pies? Much faster than it will take Pink to sing the national anthem.

When preparing a pizza for the oven, Cape Girardeau Domino's general manager Duane Fenwick said his store on N. Kingshighway usually aims for 45 seconds or less.

"My fastest time is 28 seconds. I'm the fastest here," Fenwick said. "Bryan at the Domino's location on N. Sprigg can do about 26 seconds."

And according to Fenwick, his store stays regularly busy through the week, even up until Super Bowl weekend.

A pizza with pepperoni, sausage and green peppers comes out of the oven Wednesday at Domino's Pizza in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

"The first weekend of the month is usually our busiest," he said. "Friday and Saturday will be really busy, and Sunday will be more like a busier Friday," Fenwick said. "We usually staff extra people, so we can handle the rush. No problem."

Delivery times are usually the same as normal days, according to Fenwick. Most customers will get their order in about 20 minutes.

"We have six drivers and four managers working. So we've got a full crew," Fenwick said. "Generally about 4 p.m. is when it really starts picking up. Then we're pretty busy until halftime. At halftime, we get a lot of business, then it kind of tapers off as the evening goes along. I've been here for 10 years, so it's just another day to me," Fenwick said.

Speed, timeliness and quality definitely count for Cape Girardeau Pizza Hut cook, Devin Sturgeon. He's been with the company for three years and said he makes sure the pizza dough is ready before the order is even placed.

"This eliminates the few seconds of stretching the dough. We then put the sauce and cheese on, so we can make it under 3 minutes. For it to go through the oven start to finish, it's 7 minutes. So in total, it's 10 minutes for everything," Sturgeon said.

Marco's Pizza driver Marlowa Harris makes a delivery Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 in Cape Girardeau.Fred Lynch

Sturgeon said the Pizza Hut location he works for is very busy Super Bowl Sunday all day long.

According to Sturgeon, Thanksgiving is one of the busiest times of the year, because of football.

Sturgeon also said they have around five drivers scheduled for Sunday, because the faster they can get pizzas done and delivered, the better.

Becky Kroll, who has managed the Marco's Pizza on Broadway for four years, said an order must be completely ready in 4 minutes or less.

"A pepperoni pizza takes me 44 seconds. And my pizzas look like pizzas when they get done. Our district manager can make one in 38 seconds," Kroll said.

According to Kroll, last week she started working on the schedule for Sunday, making sure they are adequately staffed for pregame, postgame and also confirming everything is ready before opening time.

Marco's has also increased its stock of food supplies for this weekend, including chicken wings, pepperoni pizza and the highly popular thin crust, Kroll and David Morgan manager-in-training said.

"It's usually all hands on deck for holidays, and big sporting event days. We get a lot of business from that, because people are either watching TV or having tailgate parties. We've been staffing for months to get ready for [this weekend]," Kroll said. "You don't staff a few weeks before an event, you staff months before an event, so that your people are trained."

According to Kroll, there will be more delivery drivers than usual scheduled this Sunday, and safety is always a high priority.

"We have a rule: fast on the feet, not on the street," Kroll said.

Ryan Austin, general manager for Imo's in downtown Cape Girardeau for 18 years, said he requires his employees to prepare a pizza for the oven in 3 minutes or less. And according to him, Sundays are always busy, but this weekend is going to be a lot busier.

"We're actually running a pretty big wing special ... so I had to bulk up quite a bit on my wings, extra large pizzas, and everything really. I imagine all weekend is going to be pretty busy," Austin said.

Pizza-preparation speed certainly depends on the number of toppings, according to Cape Girardeau Papa John's manager Gale Schenimann. She has been employed at the Kingshighway location for a little over two years, and says that Super Bowl Sunday is similar to Black Friday for retail.

"It will be like preparing for 'Pizza-geddon' here ... Our weekend truck will be a large one. We will be prepping a lot extra and folding hundreds and hundreds of boxes."

According to Schenimann, her co-workers compete internally to see which employee can fold pizza boxes the fastest.

"You can fold 50 boxes in 5 minutes if you move quickly enough," Schenimann said.

Schenimann also said "everybody who works here will be working -- everybody. You can't even request off; it's blocked out. I'm pretty sure the whole weekend is blocked."

Papa John's has more than 10 delivery drivers scheduled for Sunday, according to Schenimann. The store can, on average, prepare a pizza for the oven in 4 minutes or less.

"It's crazy all day," Schenimann said. "If [our employees] get any downtime it'll be after 10 p.m."

But, Super Bowl Sunday isn't the busiest day of the year for Marco's.

"Our 'Black Friday' is Valentine's Day, believe it or not," Kroll said. "New Year's Eve is a huge day, too, along with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day."

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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