Spoilt for choice, whichever way you slice it

Johnny Moore's hospitality career started at Pizza Haven, before it was bought out by Domino's.

OPINION: My hospitality career started more than two decades ago when -- only a year out of knee-high socks --  I was hired as a shift manager at Pizza Haven.

Anyone remember Pizza Haven? It came and went without much fuss, bought by Domino's in 2005. An Australian company, I believe. Maybe what worked in Australia failed in our tiny market.

Who knows? Who cares? I care. But free market capitalism doesn't. It just chewed poor old Pizza Haven up and spat it out. The market didn't want the product and the marketeers weren't clever enough to sell the public something it didn't want.

So Pizza Haven's gone. Eagle Boys anyone? Stallones... gone. One franchisee's dream after another, up in wood-fired smoke as the big boys played big boy games and the market, much like modern politics, retreated to the extremes - dirt cheap or high quality.

Do you know what normally happens when the big boys conspire? They take over the market and eventually put the price up to make some money against all that loss-leading they had to do to drive the wee fellas broke.

I can't think of much that has become cheaper over the past few decades. Bandwidth? Or the price of a cellphone call? I'm sure when the old brick phone first showed up on the scene, a phone call cost a buck or two a minute.

Remember, at the start, cellphones were for yuppies and 1980s high fliers with Porsche turbos and the greasy mullets of affluence that were worn in that period.

People used to tell this joke:

Q: What do you call a fish with a cellphone?

Pizza, that's what. Because now you can get a perfectly reasonable quality Hawaiian pizza from either of the big players for five bucks.

I'm sure in Eagle Boys' days, that exact pizza was about 20 bucks.

It's a wonder poor families are feeding their kids anything besides pizza, greasies, chips and fizzy - so low is the cost of non-nutritious food.

And if it's not really cheap pizza that gets you going, there are now more options than ever.

If you like super-sized American-style pizza, there's Sal's. What a great business model to look so unique in such a crowded market.

Or how about a pizza from the Brewery in the Tannery. Wood-fired pizza and excellent Cassells beer, anyone?

Speaking of wood-fired, how about Base Pizza in Little High? They take the idea that pizza should be simple and excellent and serve it up perfectly. This, I think, is what pizza should look like.

Or if you like something a bit more Italian, how about the Birdwood in Beckenham -- even the staff are Italian.

And if you're a Kiwi and you just love a Kiwi-style pizza, you can't go past Winnie Bagoes. Ah, Winnies, you know exactly what Christchurch wants.

Winnies recently relocated its city premises to Welles St, into a building that had looked unable to attract customers right up until the moment it opened its doors.

And I'm sure there are all sorts of little pizza outlets dotted around the suburbs that you might consider to be the best of 'em all.

My point is this: we're spoiled as consumers. Don't forget how rubbish hospitality used to be. Now we can get what we want, when we want it.

I wonder what pizza will look like in another 20 years? Like a pizza pill? Whatever the case, I'm sure the dirt cheap ones'll still be about five bucks and anchovies will still taste like penguins smell.

I'm hungry. I'm gonna go get a pizza for lunch…

Source: Stuff.co.nz

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