We were busily updating menus today when we came across this crazy deal offered by Gigio’s Pizza on Irving Park and Pulaski. The deal is as follows:
Have you ever seen anything like this? Us either. It raises a variety of questions. We thought we’d call Gigio’s and ask them about their policy, but the following happened instead:
Call 1) ten rings, then slight background noise. We hang up.
Call 2) three rings, then someone picks up and immediately hangs up the phone.
Call 3) three rings, then slight background noise, and a sullen “hello.” We ask if we’ve reached Gigio’s Pizza, and our interlocutor hangs up without a pause or a word.
Did we have the right number? OF COURSE we did, we’re freakin’ MenuPages! So basically, this guy was just an asshole. Let us forge on with our discussion of the offer, confirmation and explication be damned.
1) Let’s take this at face value and assume it means, after twenty deliveries, you get $5 off. Now, twenty deliveries is, what, $400? So the discount comes to approximately 1%, depending on what kind of pizza you like. HOW GENEROUS.
2) Also, the $5 would go a small fraction of the way toward paying the $40 in delivery charges you’d accrue in the process. By the way, delivery fees? We hate them. It’s pure gravy. Unless the restaurant is using it to buy gas for its delivery cars, the money isn’t going anywhere but the till. The delivery guy is getting almost nothing for his time - it all comes from your tips, which are much lower than they’d be if there wasn’t a fee sapping your generosity. (We also don’t like the practice of tipping - pay a fair wage and factor it into the food prices, dammit! But that’s a whole other post.)
3) Is this a hidden jab at menu websites? Does Gigio’s intend to punish its customers for using MenuPages? We think so!
4) So, couldn’t you just game the system by walking into the store and picking up two dozen copies of the menu? After all, they’re newly worth a quarter each (although the meter won’t accept them). To prevent this, Gigio’s would have to be extremely miserly with handing the things out, or they’d have to stamp each menu that goes out with the pizza to the customer’s home to ensure its validity later on. We suspect that neither of these things transpire. Please feel free to cheat them, by the way! Exploiting loopholes is a great American pastime.
Okay, we feel better now!
Gigio’s Pizza [MenuPages]
[Photo: from the menu they faxed us]
