800 Degrees limits pizza of the day special to weekdays
Molecular, cell, and developmental biology professor Matteo Pellegrini derived the number of different topping combinations for 800 Degrees’ pizza of the day special. (Conor Cusack/Daily Bruin)
By Eliza Blackorby
May 13, 2015 9:50 a.m.
Westwood’s 800 Degrees Neapolitan Pizzeria offered a 50 percent-off daily special until last week, when it began selling the 11-inch Neapolitan pizzas for about $4 only on weekdays.
Richard Farinas, the Westwood location’s manager who has worked there for three years, said the change was implemented to increase sales Monday through Wednesday, which were low compared to sales on weekends. He added he wanted to make the special more exclusive to Instagram followers and increase the restaurant’s online presence.
Farinas said employees have seen more sales Monday through Wednesday since the restaurant stopped offering the discounted price on weekends.
“It’s like pizza roulette,” he said. “It’s more of a way to attract guests to the restaurant and keep the company interactive (than it is a way to profit).”
Last week, the Westwood location sold 1,013 Instagram specials, Farinas said.
Farinas added the number of special pizzas sold each weekday has not decreased, but the total number of specials sold in a week has, after specials were no longer offered on weekends.
Aviva Hirsch, an 800 Degrees employee and first-year psychology student, said she thinks the special is extremely popular because of its low price.
She gestured at eight orders of bianca pizzas with pesto and soppressata, all Instagram special orders.
She added customers have recently been complaining about the reduction of the Instagram special to just five days a week.
Alexaya Learner, a fourth-year international development studies student, said she comes to 800 Degrees about twice a week when she does not feel like cooking.
“I’m disappointed that it’s been reduced to only Monday through Friday,” she said. “There’s definitely outrage.”
Oliver Adams, a student at Northern Arizona University, said he came up with the idea of offering a daily special featuring different topping combinations while working at Westwood’s 800 Degrees over the summer.
Adams said he noticed the restaurant’s Instagram account had not been updated in months and that the same customers kept coming in, instead of new guests. He said he thought a daily special promoted through the restaurant’s Instagram account could increase its customer base.
Adams reached out to a family friend, UCLA professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology Matteo Pellegrini, for help enumerating all the possibilities for toppings.
Pellegrini said he created a simple computer program to come up with all the combinations resulting from the 40 toppings available.
The program counted 53,148 possible pizza combinations, enough for 145 years, Adams said. Since the restaurant restricted specials to weekdays, the number increased to 204 years, he said.
The Instagram special was implemented soon after Adams presented this algorithm to his boss at the Westwood location at the end of the summer, Adams said.
Since then, the company’s Instagram following has jumped from 500 to about 14,000 and gains about 400 new followers a week, he added.
