Domino’s: This Is How A Pizza Chain Stock Did Just As Well As Google

never really had all lockdown, did it? Well? So we had a lot of bars and restaurants that closed just because people weren't going out, But I don't think we ever ended up having a formal lockdown exactly like they've had in the States, which is kind of weird because if you think about it, you know, Hong Kong was early to the coronavirus and people were really worried about

what would happen here. But I guess in the end we've we've come out pretty good and we've had like a decent experience of the lockdown, So you I guess you guys have missed and maybe it would be different in Hong Kong. Anyway, this phenomenon of like here in the US, like people are ordering pizza like crazy, and

obviously pizza delivery is one of the big things. But I guess I don't know if, like I guess, pizza is probably not as big of a cuisine there, but without the lockdown, You guys have probably missed this whole phenomenon of people just eating tons and tons of pizza during this whole crisis, the cultural phenomenon of people ordering lots of pizza. You're gonna have to explain this to me,

because yeah, I've missed this. You don't know. I was thinking, Tracy, I was thinking you should you should just move back to the US. You can talk about that another time. But anyway, it's wait, it's not fair to try to leure me back to the US using pizza. That's not fair. Come on, al right, Well we'll move on from that. But anyway, pizza is booming. In fact, I just last night I was on my bike and I biked buy

a Dominoes and they had this big sign. Maybe i'll put it in the post where you post the podcast. They had this big sign that's his business is booming. We are hiring. People are ordering a lot of pizza these days. One other question, have you read the novel snow Crash by Neil Stevenson Snow Crash, No, I haven't. That's that. It's a sci fi book. I want to say, right, I haven't read it. Yeah, it's kind of like a

it's a cyberpunk novel, so to speak of. There's this great line in they're talking about the description of society and this future state. He says, there's only four things we do better than anyone else. Music, movies, microcode, by which you mean software, and high speed pizza delivery. Like that is the essentially the U S economy of the future, and this world of music, movies, software at high speed pizza delivery. It's like I've been thinking a lot about

snow crash during this crisis. All right, So coronavirus is proof of America's dystopian prowess for high speed pizza delivery. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because it's all about how like all manufacturing has been outsourced to other countries. Um, the US doesn't build anything. There's all these divisions between states, and basically everyone is either a coder or eiza delivery person in this book, so everyone I should read it anyway.

One other interesting fact, you know, I mentioned that Domino's was booming, and one of my favorite facts is that Domino's Pizza came public in two thousand four, about two weeks before Google. Did you know that? Yeah, I've seen the chart. By the way, can I just say, before we go any further, I feel like I feel like you could talk about pizza for like a good three or four hours if let you like, you've already brought in like cyberpunk sci fi fiction and now you're doing uh,

now you're doing the stock market stuff. Okay, well anyway, Yes, I have seen the chart. Anyone who spent any time on Twitter has probably seen it as well. It's pretty amazing. The basic idea is that both Domino's Pizza and Google went public around the same time. I think it was two thousand four, and if you look at the chart,

they've basically had like a pretty similar trajectory. So everyone thinks if you invested money in the early two thousands in Google, then you haven't made your you know this tech genius and you've made millions of dollars. No one ever thinks, well, actually, if you put money into this simple pizza company, you would have made the same amount. Yeah.

So Google went public August two thousand four, Dominoes went Dominoes went public July or so, barely a month apart, and both of them are up about twenty eight and a half bold since then, Like it was truly incredible that the lines are identical. Anyway, Okay, that is a lot of set up. We're going to talk about pizza today because I want to get the story of how this one company did so well, how pizza company performed

so well on the market. And I thought, you know, with the coronavirus crisis getting everyone to eat pizza, I thought this was a good time to sort of talk about the incredible story of Domino's Pizza. I feel like you've been waiting a long time for this. I feel like you have a lot to get off your chest here, so let's do it. It's actually done. Want to get off my chest. There's just a bunch I want to know because I've always been fascinated, but actually don't know

about the story. Everything I've said so far is the extent of my knowledge. But we have a guest that knows a lot about the restaurant industry, knows a lot about the pizza business. There's a lot about Dominoes in particular. I want to bring in Jonathan Mays. He is the editor in chief at Restaurant Business Magazine. Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. I'm still trying

to process connecting cyberpunk with pizza delivery. It's still I'm trying to register that, so you'll have to excuse me for a minute. But it's true, right that people are ordering a crazy amount of pizza these days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh, it doesn't really matter like all three the well probably the fourth, but that the fourth one, Little Caesar's,

is in public. But if you look at the big pizza chains are all doing double digit same store sales right now, and um, people are just sitting at home and they have all sorts of cash, and where else are they going to spend it? Might as well order a pizza. Wait, I have a dumb question, and you know, forgive me, but I haven't been in the States for this crisis, so you know, indulge me. But why pizza

versus other food delivery? Like, I get that pizza is delicious, but it seems like you are both talking about a genuine pizza phenomenon here. So why is it so popular this time around? Well, all delivery is doing well. So um, if you look at whether it's a fast food chain or if it's a casual binding, if they do delivery, um, you know their delivery sales are way up. Everybody's delivery sales are way up. And and the thing about pizzas

that we just they we can break it out. We have the best numbers, we have comparison numbers for for pizza chains, and of course they do it better than anybody else for the most part. Um, it's a big value. So that's kind of the story. Is not necessarily that everyone had this crazy craving for pizza. Uh But if there's one food in America that long before grub Hub or long before seamless or whatever, people have always ordered delivery, it's probably a Chinese food is the other one. But

pizza it's just always been the sort of classic delivery state. Yeah, and they've they have the best. They have really good uh um set up, They control their delivery drivers, they you know, so you know, when it's from a value standpoint, it's still you can feed your family for like twenty bucks. It's it's uh you know, it's it's a it's all really easy to do and and that sort of thing, and people are really just accustomed to it. So so

you mentioned they have a pretty good setup. Can you walk us through what makes the pizza delivery industry special, how do the economics of that platform or the way it actually operates again, how did they differ from other food delivery services versus third party delivery or I guess even like a Chinese food restaurant that does delivery, Like what differentiates the Domino's business model from other food chains that might do delivery. Yeah, that's a really good question.

I mean, I think that there are some other issues with you know, Chinese restaurants that have prevented that sector from you know, being as sort of as big as a pizza chains. And I think a lot of it has to do with the process of cooking Chinese food and that sort of thing. Everybody eats pizza. It's a

fundamental value. So you know, you get a pizza from from Dominoes, and you know, you it might cost you, you know, depending on whether you use a coupon, it's going to cost you eight, ten, ten, twelve dollars or whatever, and you're going to feed a couple of people at the very least, And you know, it's a really hard to beat that value. That value is a big deal.

And it's also from a food cost and point. It's it's also fairly inexpensive, and um, that enables these companies to do these price deals which help them to do these values and uh and and that sort of thing. So um, it's enabled these large change to build up and build these these fairly sophisticated delivery networks, um all across the country, whereas they can't necessarily do it with

with with Chinese food to the same degree. So I want to talk a little bit about, you know, how the why the model works so well for pizza, but it hasn't worked as well for the third party delivery companies that still don't make money and the restaurants seem to dislike them. But before we get to that, I want to just talk about the pizza change themselves. And so you mentioned there's three or were big chains that Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, than Little Caesar's. Tell Us, first,

just think about the history of this. How did we sort of get this, uh, this industry in which all around the country pizza became this thing that became a chain, which we don't really see the same way again with Chinese food or other cuisines, but pizza very much became chained and franchised and there's a few dominant players. What is like, what is the history of that? And then I want to you know, then maybe we can get a little bit into what Dominoes did h in particular

that has stood up. It's it's actually more fragmented than say fast fast food. Burger is very very consolidated. Their only really just a handful of chains or very I mean, you just don't go and see like a drive through burger counts an independent drive through burger concept for instance. Now lately that's changed because all of these burger restaurants have popped up, and that's a thing, but you know,

pieces still a lot more fragmented um. But the the history goes back to what if you recall, it started out as these restaurants were dying in concepts, So Pizza Hut,

for instance, was dying in restaurant um. In the sixties, you know, Domino's emerged with this idea that you could deliver these pizzas directly to people's homes and they would call and then you know, so Dominoes really grew a lot in the seventies and in the nineteen eighties, and then they had this deal where they would deliver the pizza within thirty minutes or it was free, and that enabled that company to just you know, that enfranchising, which

it enables companies to grow very quick, really enabled it to grow very fast. And then you had competitors such as Little Caesar's which is also based in Michigan, like like Dominoes and and um, and then later Papa John's sort of emerged. Pizza Hut throughout this process sort of started converting its entire business model from that wait staff din in concept to a delivery model, you know, and it's just sort of became commoditized a little bit from

a chain perspective. So I mean, you know, you might have a favorite between Little Caesar's, Pizza Hut, and Dominoes or Papa John's, but you know, unbalanced there not terribly different from one another. So it's becomes more of a price deal, speed, convenience type factors. So these chains have been competing. I mean, they've competed for you know, for quality and things like that, but on balance, you know, there really isn't a whole lot different between them, so

they've competed based on price. Price. Competition is very fierce in that particular market. They have also been more than any other industry. They've been pioneers in adding technology to their to their restaurants. So they were very early adopters of ordering on the web and then of course mobile ordering to you know, to eliminate the pain point of having to call your pizza delivery restaurant and wait on

hold for like ten minutes or whatever. That pain point is something that they've been able to to reduce over the years and compete then on sort of service and speed and things of that nature. That's kind of how that works. So I have to say, when I was growing up, I'm pretty sure I was a Pizza Hut to vote. I distinctly remember, yeah, having birthday parties at Pizza Hut, and I remember some of the commercials as well.

We're gonna have to get our producer to insert some old like early nine Pizza Hut commercials into this for Nostalgiastic again. Hit Pizza Hut for Spring Pizza loaded with six delicious topics like mouth watering pepperonis, mushrooms, and green peppers. Right now, get a medium spring for seven and any

other medium for just more bucks more. Yeah, I gotta think there's almost nothing Tracy that makes me more nostalgia than thinking about like going to pizza hut with my family and like those I remember the I think you know, the table clause and anyone and everything go on. But that is I think we both have a very nostalgic experience about pizza huts as a kid, for sure. Um oh gosh, really, I'm getting flashbacks to didn't they have

like a Land Before Time dinosaur puppet promotion at some point? Okay, I'm getting really specific. Um, Jonathan, you mentioned the idea of um tech fitting neatly into the pizza delivery business model. Can you explain how that worked out for Domino's specifically? Like what was Domino's edge? Was it the way they did business, the way they used technology, or was it,

you know, God forbid the pizza itself. Um, well, that's a that's a really interesting question because you know, the entire sector is actually fairly good at us use of technology. I mean, Papa John's has had you know, roughly the

same digital ordering percentages as Dominoes for years. What what Domino's does differently, first off is, and this probably does does as much to explain why they have succeeded to the extent that they have is they roughly around the time they went public, they Dominoes required their franchisees to

adopt the company's own point of sales system. Uh and it was actually a controversial step at the time because franchise in a franchise world, the franchise ease a lot of times when it comes to a technology or some construction requirement that they have to spend, they will want the company to give them the requirements and then they

go shop around for a point of sales system. And there was there was, in fact, a very large lawsuit from some franchise ease against Dominoes over this poss them domino Is ultimately one, and then the franchise started converting their POLS system to two Domino system. So what what that's given the company is the ability to control the entire ordering process without having to actually go to another company.

So if they want to add functionality to their mobile or online ordering, they simply can simply do it and do it very easy, relatively easily or more easily than most companies. So that's enabled them to do things such as add ordering on a watch or ordering your pizza on a car, or instance, if you want to order from a from an Amazon Echo or something like that. So that's the probably the biggest thing that they did.

The other thing is that they marketed it by adding all of these cool things such as ordering on a car or whatever. They marketed the idea that you know that they're ordering process was easy. So one of the biggest things they probably did was convinced customers that they are more tech savvy than anybody else. They were doing double digit comps year upon year. It was kind of

amazing to see for a while. So Dominoes took a risk of potentially alienating or antagonizing some of its franchisees by insisting that they all get on this unified point of sale platform. When did they do this, When was that decision made? And how strategic? Like, you know, obviously at the time years ago, they may not have anticipated, uh, the existence of an Amazon Echo or ordering on an Amazon to Echo, But what what was their strategic thinking at the time in terms of what that will what

that would enable them to do? Well? I think they saw the like when they did this, everybody sort of knew that the Internet was gonna we were all going

to be ordering on the Internet. Now, we didn't see the idea of of the echo or or anything like that, we're ordering on TV or ordering on your car, but people had a pretty good idea that we were going to be doing a lot more ordering on the internet, and that's sort of where they wanted to go, and you know, they you know, wanted to to control that process. But it was definitely a really big risk and it

did anger a lot of franchisees at it. It went was Dominoes founded, and then when did they sort of make this leap? You know, that was I'm not sure that the exact year of when they did it, but goes back many years and it dates back before there before their IPL So this is now many year process

that it took franchise ease to do. Interesting do you sorry, I don't know if you were covering the food industry around the time of the I p O, But do you remember what the like, what the business narrative or the investment story actually was around that time? What was Domino's telling investors was the growth story back in two thousand four? Well, I mean at the time it was sort of you know, between two thousand four and roughly two thousand and eight. They were sort of this you know,

I mean they were just this well established franchise model. Um. I think they're most of their growth was in international markets,

not in the United States. It was largely considered you know, an established legacy brand by the time they went public in two thousand four, so it's it's not your classic I mean, they've been around for decades by the time they went public, you know, so they were probably something more akin to a Wendy's for instance, where you know, Wendy's has a well established international market, but that's where it's growth is going to be in the future years,

but it's in the United States. It's you know, it's it's growth is basically was basically behind them. Nobody and I would argue Dominoes, nobody saw what what was coming, So that that raised an interesting question. So, okay, they had made the strategic decision prior to having gone public they were going to sort of really build in the potential for the use of tech. But at the time they went public still they were not being thought of

really like that. They were just like, you know, sort of mature company like a Wendy where it's like, okay, it's a business. It makes money, but it's mature and it's kind of boring. And so this sort of gets us to the crux of what we were talking about earlier, which is that yet, despite this perception of them being boring, the stock is up about twenty eight fold since the type po and really it's almost like matched Google since then, tick for tick. When did perceptions of the company start

to change? When did people start to realize like, Okay, there's like they're really executing extremely well, they're growing really well, They're just this is an exciting company and not just an old line food Jim. Yeah, the big turning point for them from a public perception standpoint was when they

advertised that their old pizza was carible. All right, I remember that, Yeah, that is this is one of the few restaurant companies where we could really say that there was this absolute moment when everything sort of turned for them, for them in the public, in the public's eye. And you know, that was around the two thousand, two thousand

and eight, two thousand nine time frame. Going into that um and I remember writing at one point wondering whether people were getting tired of pizza because all the pizza chains were sort of struggling at and including Dominoes. In fact, Domino's, uh you know, Domino's had done a securitization around the time, and uh you know, so they were heavily in debt around at the time of the Layman Brothers collapse, and so you know, they were one of those companies that

you actively wondered would survive over during the recession. But what they did was they decided to reformulate their pizza recipe. They then advertised that their old pizza was junk then and actually had comments from customers on their advertisements that their whole pizza was terrible. And then they told people that we've got we've got this new recipe, you should come and try it to them. That is sort of

the base of their comeback. That fixing the food and making it better and more palatable to the customer base was the first step towards towards their actual comeback. So that that was sort of the turning point in the public's perception. When did they start doing the delivery insurance or pizza insurance, Well, I think that was they did

that last year. Wait, what is that I did pizza? Well, they started, they started they offered started offering last year where if they if something happens with your delivery delivery order, um, you could get you know, something for you could get it for free. Um. And then they extended it to carry out because that's where they see their growth in the future years is with carry out orders. But it's a lot of that is just to sort of establish

their their delivery bona fides against their party delivery. So they had that marketing campaign and I remember that now that you mentioned it. To take our old pizza is bad, the new pizza is good? Is it a lot better? Like? I don't I ordered Dominos a couple of weeks ago, though it is pretty good, but I remember it being bad. But I don't remember. Was there like an agreed upon like what did they do differently? How did they actually make the pizza better from the old recipe in the

new recipe? Oh, they their crust is better. I think it's it's the crust is a lot more flavorful, if I recall correctly. The sauce was also changed. Yeah, you know, I do don't remember exactly, but their pizza used to be just awful. I mean it, without question, it was it was it was just a terrible product that absolutely earned the cardboard reputation, and it's definitely a better product,

and it's it's just a little bit spici. But yeah, in two thousand and ten, I'm looking, I'm looking at the numbers, and they did fourteen point three percent comps in the first quarter of two thou after that was introduced. So if we fast forward to now, clearly pizza pizza delivery is enjoying a resurgence during the coronavirus shutdown, but we've also seen a surge in just food delivery in general. How does pizza compete against the third party food delivery

companies in this environment? Well, first off, on price. So one of the challenges I think the long term challenges the third party delivery is that it costs you a lot of money to get that order. Pizza chains do that much more efficiently and they control the process then than in a third party situation. So for instance, if you order chicken wings, for instance, and you order through a third party delivery app, you're probably gonna pay fifty six more than if you were to go pick it up.

For instance, that price is a big deal. Pizza tends to you're you're still paying more if you order domino is delivered then if you order carry out, but the value is still a major, major, major selling point. It's one of the quietly one of the biggest reasons why pizzas historically so popular. Is it again, it's just fundamentally cheap to to to feed your family with it, so

because they control the process. Like if you think about the delivery system in pizza restaurants or Chinese for that matter, anybody that does self delivery, or like Jimmy John's, you know, you do it from a hubb in spoke model. You have your delivery drivers at the restaurant, the people order from the restaurant, and then the delivery drivers go out to the homes to deliver the food. In a third

party system, it's just a lot more jumble. You're going your people are ordering either from the restaurant on order or from the third party delivery app, and then those orders go to independent contractors that may be close to the restaurant or they may be a couple of miles away, and then they're going, so they're all these points they're going.

It's just a much more jumbled mess, and it's much more difficult to do that efficiently, and that's probably a bigger reason why third party delivery doesn't make the money that say domino stuff. So it's really, in your view, it's about that having the people there, having them go out the job of pizza come right back, and a sort of consistency and the efficiency that you can get from having that entire infrastructure just devoted to your restaurant,

to your product. And the third party entities, the delivery companies and you know, rub hubs and door dashes and all these other ones, they just can't compete with that efficiency in your view. No, so they really can't compete from from an efficiency standpoint. And then the other thing is that you you know, Domino's controls all of that process.

So and it's a simple explanation if you order from Dominoes and go back to that delivery insurance situation, If you order from Dominos or Pizza Hut or Papa John's for that matter, and something is wrong with your pizza, you can contact Dominoes or Pizza Hut or whatever, and you know, you know, Dominoes will get that pizza to you for free. You'll get your pizza I ordered. I remember I ordered. I wanted pie delivered to my house.

I was craving pie. It was terrible. And I ordered from a family dining restaurant and and we ordered dinner and a couple of pies. And we got the order and the food came, the pie wasn't there, and so I contacted the delivery provider and all I got was my money back. I didn't want the money. I want

to pie. And so I mean, it's so the problem to me is that Dominoes can just control that quality a lot better than third party delivery can and eventually, you know, right now, you have a captive audience sort of spee. People are at home and they really want food, and delivery is still a fairly safe way to get your food in a pandemic. But eventually quality really will take over and consumers aren't going to give them a

break to the extent. And and you know, that's one area where third party delivery companies have to fix is get that quality down a lot better. Okay, So, given that Domino's has this very competitive delivery business where they have a lot of efficiencies built into it that allows them to compete quite effectively with third party food delivery services. Why are they looking at carry out as a potential growth area, as you mentioned, because a certain percentage of

customers hate delivery. M that's basically it. So um, they explain it as there is a you know, I mean, like I think it's roughly two thirds of consumers are perfectly fine having food delivered to to umu to their home. But then there's like thirty dish some some substantial percentage of consumers that don't like delivery. I'm actually one of those consumers. I really don't like having food delivered to my home. I would much rather go and control the

process and go pick it up. Um. Is that is that? Is that just like a sense of control thing? Or is it you worry that the food is going to come in for you're not going to get what you want? Or yeah I'm a control freak. Yeah, I'm an admitted control I don't like Um, you know, I I can go pick it up when I know it's ready, get it as hot as I can. I don't have to wait for somebody who may or may not get to my house is quickly as as they should. And uh.

And also the fact that like I know I'll get I could at least check my bag to see if my pies are there. I'm sensing pie is important to you if I well, I mean, well, when you want pie, man, you have to have pies. And I think the Dominos has seen that, you know they, I mean, they're they're

very data heavy company. They use data for every single decision that they have, and so they know that there is this percentage of consumers that just do not like delivery, and that's the consumer that historically they've never really targeted. And in recent years they've just really been pushing for that particular group quite a bit, which is sort of sustained um. That's helped them sustained growth in the past couple of years, as as their delivery businesses offtened while

all these third party delivery companies started to emerge. Do you see any hope for those third party companies? Like is there a path in your view to sustainable profitability or is there just like do they really need to potentially rethink things? I mean, I was on TV talking to Jim Chaino's who was very skeptical these companies, like, look, they didn't make money during the boom times. Now businesses up a lot but they're still not making money. He

was talking about grubhub in particular. Is there a path here, in your view, for that third party model to work well? I think people want food. I mean a certain percentage of consumers want food delivered to their home and are willing to pay for it. And as long as that market exists, they'll figure out a way to make it work. Now,

how that looks remains to be seen. I know that there's still a lot of people out there looking at delivery and trying to figure out how to make it work, whether it's an entirely different model of some sort, whether it's a lot of consolidation, and then maybe like rubhub, they use it as a loss leader to sort of established their overall business. To me, I you know, that's that's a really really good question to me. As long as that market exists, somebody is going to figure out

how to do it. You know, there are a lot of markets where you can actually get efficiency, you get enough efficiency in that market to where it can work. New York City is a perfect example because everybody is packed in so tightly. That's why it works so well. In China, for instance, everybody is packed in so tightly, you can do a lot of deliveries and short radius. I live in a suburb and it's very difficult to do delivery efficiently there. So I think eventually they figure

it out. It remains to be seen. Could it be plausible that more companies, beyond just pizza companies adopt our own hub and spoke model, maybe with some infrastructure help from a third party company, but have more dedicated drivers, dedicated systems on their own. Is data path or does that not work for most kinds of a company. I think that's that is one route they absolutely could go. And then you could see some companies that sort of help along along those lines, and that maybe third party

in delivery players as well. I mean, I think long term, ultimately a lot of companies bring this stuff in house. You know, we we have seen it with with some some chains that have in house delivery in some form or fashion. Again, as long as that market is there and people wanted, I think that customers, you know, companies are going to figure out a way to do it, and that very well could be the restaurants themselves. Yeah. I think the things that have prevented restaurants from doing

it is things like insurance and um labor. Labor has been a massive barrier towards companies doing their own delivery. That's one of the biggest reasons why they haven't done that more aggressively, uh than you might have expected, given all of the questions with third party delivery and the the existence of that market is like companies that have tried it, like Burger King and others, really struggled when they did it. Um though Panera Bread has their own

delivery and some others. But I think ultimately, because that market is the way it is, I think ultimately you're probably going to see a lot more companies doing self delivery. So you know, when Joe and I started this episode, we mentioned the chart of Google versus Dominoes and how they've both performed very similarly since they actually went public. When you look at that chart, do you think that

performance is justified? Do you think Domino's is as good a company or as much of a tech company as something like Google. Well, I don't think there's much of a tech as much of a tech company as Google at all. No. I mean, they are definitely a tech company without question. Um. They are very technology heavy, but their main product is still that pizza, whereas Google their main product is you is search and advertising and whatever else they they do that I can't think of off

the top of my head. So no, I mean they're not as much of a tech company, but I mean they're you know that. You know, the stock movement is as justified as as anything else. And it's not like Dominoes is going to go away. You know, they were doing. Some of the sales growth that they had in the last few years have been really incredible, and I mean no other company can even come close to what they've done, except maybe Chipotle. So you know, their unit volumes are

much much bigger than their competitors. Um, they rocketed past Pizza Hut to be the largest pizza chain in the in the country and in the world. Um they still have plenty of growth in international markets. They have a very high profit franchise model. I mean yeah, I mean, there's no real reason why they shouldn't have been they shouldn't have gone up as much as it has. It's just been sort of incredible to watch, especially given the fact that somewhere and then two thousand eight timeframe, we

were wondering if they were going to go bankrupt. So before we go, I mean, put on your future hat for futurist hat for a second. We talked about maybe different ways that the third party delivery industry could work. But from a pizza specific standpoint, or for a Domino's specific standpoint, what's the next thing we should be watching for in terms of the strategic future of pizza itself. I mean, you know, it's hard to see, you know,

what they can do from a technology standpoint. There's the thing that's gonna work is that you're no longer when you call a pizza restaurant, you're no longer going to talk to a human being. So that's probably the biggest change that you'll see down the line. And what about driverless card delivery? Is that going to be a big thing? I mean as soon as I think they definitely want to do it. I mean, Domino's has been working on this for for years. You know, they still absolutely play

around with it. They have robots at their company headquarters and things like that. So I mean I think kind of like if they're working on a driverless car technology, they're kind of more like Google than you let up. Yeah, well they work well, maybe they are a little bit more like Google than I really went on. But I mean they do have but they're working now with uh, with a robotics company on on that they've been testing these really more robotic driverless cars and um, so you

could definitely see that. But you're gonna see you know, the the you know in the next couple of years, you know, these automated voice ordering where the digital orders are taken even from from people who old fashioned people who call on the phone. Right. Uh, Jonathan may Is, that was fantastic. Really enjoyed it. I learned a ton about pizza and food and I gotta want your answers to question and I've had for a long time, so I really appreciate you, Johnny. All right, thank you, Thanks Jonathan,

Thanks Jonathan Tracy. I've been eating a lot of pizza like everyone else during this crisis, and I think I'm going to order another pizza because I'm gonna order a Domino's too. Nothing like talking about the efficiencies of a business model to get the cravings going. But yeah, hubband spoke model. Nothing nothing makes me again to be hungrier

than hearing about the hubband spoke moddle delivery. But you know what, I was thinking while we were talking about that, I was actually thinking what would happen if Google went into the pizza delivery business, Like what if they just said, well, we have as much data as anyone, and we do tech as good as anyone else, and the pizza is

kind of an afterthought in this business model. It feels like, well except as you pointed out that domino has really turned it around when they made the pizza itself better, so at least Google would have to execute on the product. True, or they came up with a very good marketing campaign

that worked for them. It's crazy, by the way, Tracy, you should come back just because, like I ordered Dominoes the other day, and I guess I should ask Jonathan about this, But like what they do with crust, like they're in order like Brooklyn thin crust, thin crust, Like there's like there's literally like twelve different crush they have. Like if pizza is getting so advanced, that sounds amazing.

I think the last time I ordered pizza from Dominoes, there were still only two options, which were thin and thick crust. That was pretty much it. I miss it. I would come back. You gotta come back, just for this. Yeah, wait, do you order Dominoes when you're in New York? I'm going to, but I might start I feel if when I'm in the city, I do feel bad about ordering dominos, But maybe I'll start. It's really good. Maybe you'll be so attempted by the efficiencies of the Hubb and Spoke

model that you'll have to. But yeah, a fascinating conversation, something that really like brings a current business trend into focus, I think. And I wasn't aware that pizza had become such a massive thing during the coronavirus shutdown. But Jonathan did a really good did a really good job of explaining why he's great. All right, should we leave it there? Yep, let's do it. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me

on Twitter at Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. And you should follow our guest on Twitter, Jonathan May's He's at Jonathan Mays. Be sure to follow our producer Laura Carlson at Laura and Carlson. Follow the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Levi at Francesco Today and check out all of the Bloomberg podcasts under the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening to