Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509140059
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Roanoke College is out.
The Holiday Inn made it, but just barely.
Is this the annual list of cool places to visit in Salem?
Nope. It's Pizza Hut's new delivery area.
Salem pizza-eaters take note: Your Pizza Hut last week scaled back its delivery zone to addresses within a five-minute drive from the restaurant. And, thanks to all those horribly timed traffic lights along West Main Street, five minutes won't take delivery drivers much past Interstate 81 on the north, Texas Hollow Road on the west, North Broad Street on the east and East Fourth Street on the south.
The five-minute limit wasn't something Mark Jackson, Pizza Hut's area manager, cooked up just to make life miserable for pizza-starved Roanoke College students. It's company policy - has been for quite some time - and the Salem restaurant had been delivering to the beat of its own drum when it sent drivers on 20-minute road trips.
Jackson said he reined in the deliveries because dining room and carry-out orders were suffering. Now that the pizza ovens aren't stuffed with pies headed out into the Salem suburbs, dine-in orders that may have taken 30 to 40 minutes may be ready in as little as 15 minutes, he said.
But there is hope for delivery-dependent Salemites. Sometime during the next year, Pizza Hut would like to open a delivery-only location in Salem, Jackson said. If it's anything like the three delivery shops in Roanoke, it would offer an eight-to-10-minute delivery zone.
For now, don't worry too much about those poor college students. Most of the dorm business goes to Papa John's and Domino's, which keep baking pies long after Pizza Hut stops taking delivery orders at 10:30 p.m. After all, what self-respecting college student orders pizza before midnight?
by CNB