Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Whose Pizza Is It Anyway?

After writing about food delivery earlier this month, I couldn’t help but chuckle over the latest oddity in this, apparently, never dull service category.

According to multiple stories, some national chains such as Chuck E. Cheese are selling food under different names on delivery platforms. Chuck E. Cheese uses the name Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings. In the CNN.com article, a spokesperson for the chain said that the brand is wholly separate, the two simply share kitchen space. Applebee’s and Boston Market were two other examples of chains doing something similar.

The CNN.com article includes a fun text exchange between a customer who ordered from Pasqually’s only to suspect it was really a Chuck E. Cheese pizza. This is part of what the customer texted to her Grubhub delivery driver. “It’s good, but it’s totally Chuck E. Cheese pizza! My husband said that the chef character at Chuck E. Cheese is named PASQUALLY so I think they just made up this secondary restaurant for takeout now that they can’t be open.”

The spokesperson said it’s a different pizza which was described as “a more flavorful, more premium pizza experience.”

Wow, two thoughts.

First, what does that say about regular Chuck E. Cheese pizza? Does that make it bland and middling? Second, when did eating pizza become an experience? I realize that experience, like curate, has lost all meaning, but is there any pizza outside of maybe Sicily that could be described this way?

When it comes to the Chuck E. Cheese of my youth, though, I do think the ball crawl might merit the word experience.

Little did I know that many people feel the same way. Vox.com writes that, “there’s something about swimming in a vat of colorful balls that people and animals of all ages find simply delightful." A fascinating, deep-dive from Vox about ball pits walks us off.

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