‘Too many cooks’ for Pizza Hut?

Photo Credits: dcwcreations / Shutterstock.com

Pizza Hut’s announcement yesterday that it was reinventing its menu — the chain this month will begin offering exponentially more choices in crust, sauce and toppings — motivated me to re-watch the viral-video sensation from a few days earlier, Adult Swim’s “Too Many Cooks.” I swear it’s not because I’m procrastinating from writing my column. The nation’s largest pizza chain, a division of Yum! Brands Inc., reportedly will add dozens more choices to increase customization for pizza orders: crust flavors will grow from one to 10, sauce flavors will increase from one to six, and customers could also choose from five new premium toppings and five new “drizzles.” What’s more, Pizza Hut will have 11 new pizza recipes, including six new specialty pizzas, plus a Skinny Slice line of lower-calorie pizza. The pizza cooks in the chain’s kitchen better bolt down the sinks, because Pizza Hut is throwing everything including the proverbial kitchen sink on the make line. What does that have to do with “Too Many Cooks”? I’m glad you asked. I was mesmerized by the video because of the way it deftly combined every sitcom trope from ’80s and ’90s TV into one 11-minute mashup of an opening-credits sequence for the most demented show that thankfully never existed. The “Too Many Cooks” theme song is even catchier than half the stuff on the radio. But the video went further than just referencing every fake piece of nostalgia and ephemera from my adolescence; it also threw in a bunch weird, dissonant twists, like a serial killer and space aliens. It all worked in a brilliant piece of performance art, probably because it was so audacious in its scope. They thought of every sitcom cliché, but then let it get bizarre and trippy. Maybe that wasn’t the best compliment I could pay Pizza Hut, so let me state more plainly that I think this massive menu expansion could work. Sure, a major caveat is that some struggling restaurant chains, namely McDonald’s, are right to seek more menu simplification in an attempt to narrow in on a better product offering for consumers and improve accuracy and speed of service. Also, Domino’s famous rebrand from 2009 and 2010 was narrowly focused on its core pizza product, but there’s little doubt that has paid off handsomely. But I think Pizza Hut is doing the right thing because consumers, particularly the younger ones the chain is trying so hard to reach, want choice and customization. This menu revamp has it in abundance. And while I would be nervous about it for a burger chain like McDonald’s, which already has a crowded menu board and doesn’t want to overcomplicate the drive-thru line, it’s a good move for a pizza chain of Pizza Hut’s size. The majority of pizza orders at the largest brands come from online and digital channels, which are perfect for customization and choice. And speed of service isn’t nearly as make or break for pizza players as it is for quick-service brands with drive-thrus, as long as the pizza gets delivered around the proverbial 30 minutes or less. So I would not judge Pizza Hut too harshly for doing too much at one time. Having struggled to grow same-store sales for two years, the chain probably needed to take a big swing. Most of these new flavors and combinations sound pretty good; I’ll likely be among the first to try them. The ultimate measure of this ambitious rebrand will be whether it drives sales. It will be one of the more interesting stories to track in 2015.