Crowd Pleasing Hot Stuff Pizza Sets a New Record?

When asked Friday by a Grafton Square employee if he wanted to buy a 52-inch pizza, Nate Tallackson thought they were joking.
"Is that a fat joke?" Tallackson responded.
Grafton Square became the first convenience store in the nation Friday to sell the mammoth 52-inch long, 15-inch wide pizza from Hot Stuff Foods.

The rectangular pizza, which takes an hour to make and required special attachments installed to the conveyor belt of the convenience store's oven, weighs about 15 pounds and retails for $39.99.
The gigantic pizza box it comes in has a picture of a tape measure on it and reads: "Caution! May need two to lift."
"It will not fit in a compact car," said Grafton Square owner Mike Beaudoin.
Brett Narveson's eyes opened wide Friday when he saw the pizza, dubbed the "Big Stuff Crowd Pleaser Pizza."
"It is for sure the biggest pizza I've ever seen," Narveson said. "It would be good for a Super Bowl party if I could figure out how to get it there."
Narveson said the next closest thing he could think of is Pizza Hut's Big Foot Pizza, which measured 2 square feet and was cut into 21 slices when first introduced in 1993.
"It is nothing compared to this," he said.
During a demonstration Thursday, one of the pizzas baked at Grafton Square was cut into 38 large slices.
Grafton Square was chosen as the first of Hot Stuff Foods' approximately 1,600 locations in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia to sell the pizza because of Beaudoin's status as one of the company's top franchisees. Hot Stuff Foods officials said Cavalier, N.D., native Beaudoin is a top seller, aggressive marketer and sells many large pizzas.
"There were many stores considered, but we thought Mike was the best in the nation to roll out this pizza," said Hot Stuff Foods local consultant Mark Wariseh. "Mike is our test location. Mike is the real world."

"It's not the same as making a regular pizza," said Grafton Square employee Wendy Zimprich, who, at 5-foot-9, is barely taller than the pizza. "It's way more fun. It's always fun having a change. It gets boring making the same things over and over."
The pizzas will be marketed primarily for big events such as birthday parties, family get-togethers, reunions, church events and sporting events. The pizzas also can be personalized by adding dough letters and numbers made with cookie cutters.
"The pizza market is repetitive and it needs a wow factor," said John Olson, research and development manager with Hot Stuff. "It's kind of a novelty factor. We were just looking for a way to bring something new to the marketplace."

This article originally appeared in The Grand Forks Herald

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