Little Caesars owner Matt Penney is preparing for the return-to-school rush. Penney says he sells thousands of pizzas a week to elementary school students from his restaurants.It’s not only coloured pencils and calculator sales that go through the roof as the start of school approaches, pizza shop owners also have the date circled on their calendars.
School sales are a big part of his business, he said, adding that the pizza business overall is busiest in fall and spring. Penney said it’s mostly elementary schools that get pizzas delivered since junior high and high schools tend to have their own cafeteria.“More and more schools are using an intermediary called Healthy Hunger. That’s an online service where restaurants that do school business put their menus that are available for catered school menus. Every parent can log in to that site….and they can go in and order for a week, or order for the full year, and pay online.
“It’s difficult all around, we’re not different from any other restaurant. Without immigration I don’t know how we’d handle the stores, to be quite honest,” he said. “When you hire immigrants, they’re there primarily for hours to get their papers in order, they want to become citizens and you have to provide full-time employment, which eliminates hours available for other people.
The number of staff at Xtreme goes from five to seven for the return of university students, a market MacLeod describes as competitive.