Anecdotally, there were also reports of employees finding the thick pies too cumbersome and time-consuming to deal with. After the initial curiosity wore off, not many customers were returning to the Priazzo for pizza nights. In the fast-casual atmosphere of a pizza chain, consumers wanted their typical fare. In early 1986, PepsiCo reported a 12 percent increase in Pizza Hut revenue, aided in part by the Priazzo. Others observed that pizza is one of the words commonly used for pie in Italian, making Pizza Hut’s insistence that their “Italian pie” was not a pizza rather grating for linguists. She refused an offer to endorse the pizza and noted that actual Italians would rarely put so much meat in their pies. One notable exception was Evelyne Slomon, a cooking instructor and author of 1984's The Pizza Book : Everything There Is To Know About the World's Greatest Pie.
The Priazzo gained some early devotees who enjoyed the dish's generous and layered presentation. While it was not exactly a deep dish pizza, it promised something of similar gastronomic substance, and Pizza Hut hoped that would entice people who didn’t have access to table-tipping pizzas outside of Chicago. On the strength of a $15 million marketing campaign and a commercial shot in Italy, and accompanied by music from famed Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini, the Priazzo made a splashy debut in June 1985, right around the same time that Pizza Hut and other chains were moving into home delivery. “We looked for those that we felt would have application in the United States.” In Italy, such double-crusted pies are known as pizza rusticha, though putting sauce and cheese over the top crust was unique to the Priazzo. “Most Italian homes have a version of their own,” Arthur Gunther, Pizza Hut's president at the time, told the Chicago Tribune of the idea behind the Priazzo in 1985. Diners could, however, ask that ingredients be subtracted.
#Dooble pizza full
For that you got the full Priazzo experience and nothing extra, as customers were not allowed to change or substitute toppings-or, more accurately, stuffing-as the surplus of ingredients was the entire point of the Priazzo. A small Priazzo sold for about $8.05, a medium was $10.95, and a large ran around $13.75. (A fourth pie, the vegetarian Napoli, was added later.)Īll the pies were stuffed with ingredients and then had a layer of dough with tomato sauce and cheese baked on top.
#Dooble pizza plus
There was the Roma, which had a mix of meat (pepperoni, Italian sausage, and pork) along with mozzarella and the very non-Italian cheddar cheese, plus onions and mushrooms the Milano had all the meat of the Roma plus beef and bacon, mozzarella and cheddar on top, but no mushrooms or onions and the gut-busting Florentine, which featured spinach, ham, and five different kinds of cheese, including ricotta, mozzarella, parmesan, romano, and cheddar. Though the name was nonsensical-it was the invention of Charles Brymer, a marketing consultant who had also named the Pontiac Fiero-Pizza Hut used names of Italian cities for the three variations. With the Priazzo, however, the restaurant went in the opposite direction-super-sizing a dinner option and limiting its availability to after 4 p.m. That menu item, which was intended to appeal to customers who wanted just a single portion on their lunch break, was a tremendous hit, increasing the company's lunchtime business by 70 percent.
The Priazzo, which spent two years in development, followed the successful 1983 rollout of Pizza Hut's Personal Pan Pizza. But there were problems inherent in a pizza chain that claimed to be serving something other than pizza. PepsiCo, which owned the franchise, hoped it would boost revenue by 10 percent. With two layers of dough, pepperoni, mushroom, onions, spinach, ham, bacon, tomatoes, and one full pound of cheese, Pizza Hut called it a pie others called it a strange alchemy of pizza, quiche, and lasagna.
The Priazzo was unlike any pizza Americans had ever come across.
When Pizza Hut rolled out its newest menu item in the summer of 1985 under the nonexistent Italian word Priazzo, the chain was quick to correct anyone who declared it a new variety of pizza.
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