St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 81

west area posy MfegtyleBEST copy mm SecondOf Two Sections: More West Area News After Page 6B SportsPage 12-13 MonM Sept it, 1984 SILDUIS POST-DISPATCH rOieese Whiz School Has A Problem At Lunch Pizza Delivery Competition Is Mushrooming 1 I zrrzzj -3 Jerry Naunheim Jr.Post-Dispatch Adam Price, 16, slicing a pizza for home delivery from Pantera's Pizza, 4265 Reavis Barracks Road, Lemay. In a few weeks, Pantera's will begin using a centralized computer system to take delivery orders in this area. By Nordeka English Of ttw Post Dispatch SUN Lunch at Hudson Elementary School in Rock Hill could be a Happy Meal, says Principal David Skelton. That's because Skelton sometimes finds himself traipsing to McDonald's to buy lunch for a child who has forgotten to bring his to school. The cafeteria is not an alternative, because it is currently undergoing renovations.

Skelton said he doesn't mind the occasional trip to a nearby fast-food restaurant He usually takes the opportunity to pick up a snack for himself, he said. The school at 9825 Hudson Avenue is in the Webster Groves School District. The district closed the school in 1978 and rented it to another organization. The district began major remodeling of the entire building this summer in preparation for reopening the school Sept 5. Construction work was supposed to be completed before school started.

But Superintendent Max Wolfram said, "As usual, nothing is quite finished." The cafeteria is not the only problem. Work remains to be done on the classrooms, offices, the gymnasium and parking lot. So workers attend school each day with the 238 pupils to hammer while the children hit the books. Says Skelton, "Instruction and construction are going on simultaneously." He said the noise seems to bother the teachers more than it does the children. But he said, "I don't know if that speaks more to the difference in the generations." The cafeteria work has priority, the principal said.

He estimated the work would be finished In about three weeks. Meanwhile, everyone is brown-bagging it. Some fail-safe methods have been built into the system to ensure that no forgetful child goes without lunch, Skelton said. Some of the children who live nearby go home at lunchtime. A few children call home every day to ask their mothers to tote their lunch box up to the school.

But when that method fails, Skelton or another member of the staff trots up to one of the fast-food restaurants on Manchester Road. He said the staff is lucky, in a way. Manchester is only about two minutes away. And the street is "literally covered with fast-food restaurants." and the man in charge of special projects for Pizza Hut in the St. Louis area.

"We're investigating just like everybody else." Why the big interest in home delivery? Is it because of Domino's? The supermarket pizza business? The demand? "It's a combination of all of the above," says Frank G. Allen, president and chairman of Pantera's Corp. "Up to now, St. Louis has been a Pantera's Pizza market. We want to keep it that way.

"Over the years, St. Louis has been an eat-in and carry-out oriented. There's been a little delivery, but it's been insignificant. "We think that's changing. We haven't wanted to change unless our customer demanded it.

We need to offer this service." Allen says no firm with a half-dozen pizza restaurants could afford believes. "With so much publicity on Domino's, everyone wants part of the pie," he says. Ernest Yarnall, district supervisor for Godfather's, says the success of home delivery depends on how it's managed. He notes the pitfalls of teen-age drivers delivering pizzas in personal cars and the loss of quality that can occur with delivered pizza. "I think there is an interest in home delivery," he says.

"There is a segment out there that Godfather's could capture. The idea is to find out if there can be a return on the investment. It's a heck of a risk." Yarnall compares the competition among pizza chains to that among hamburger restaurants. "Every restaurant chain in the U.S. today is looking for the Golden Egg, that thing to make it number 1," Yarnall says.

Ralph they hit the first snows this winter," Mrs. Imo says. Mrs. Imo says that naturally when someone else comes into the home delivery market, "it will take a portion of our business." But she says that Imo's expects the competition to eventually expand the market. Greg Neichter, a franchisee with Domino's stores in St.

Louis, says he, too, expects the competition for home delivery of pizza to "increase the market for everybody." He credits the increasing number of families where both parents work for the success of home delivery. "The fact that mom and dad are both working has a lot to do with it," Neichter says. News accounts of Domino's growth from 582 stores in 1981 to 1,500 stores this year have helped heat up the competition, Neichter Polo By Carolyn H. Sowers 0 th Pot Dispatch Stiff The bunk you can handle. The deep pan pizza.

The persona pan pizza. Decisions, decisions, decisions. SL LouLsans can choose from more than 200 pizza outlet listings in the 1984 St. Louis Yellow Pages. And Pizzeria openings have mushroomed since those listings were compiled.

As the pizza parlors try to gain a larger slice of the market, St. Louisans will not only enjoy a wider choice, but they'll find more restaurants willing to deliver. For years, the risk of accidents, delays, cold pizza and robberies all kept the larger Pizza chains from serving you at your door. But increased competition from supermarket pizza and other restaurants has Pantera's, Domino's, Godfather's and Pizza Hut either entering the delivery market or giving it strong consideration. Pantera's, which has 38 stores In the metropolitan St.

Louis area, plans to launch a computerized central telephone network In a few weeks, to handle home delivery orders. Representatives of the firm have asked permission from the Creve Coeur Board of Aldermen to establish one of those delivery facilities at 10477 Old Olive Street Road, in the Willow Brook Shopping Center. Domino's, a fast-growing national firm with 1,500 stores that specialize in home delivery of pizza, has just entered the St. Louis market. The firm has seven stores In the metropolitan St.

Louis area and plans for about 40 stores. One store is scheduled to open this week in St. Ann. Although Godfather's Pizza franchisees have yet to institute home delivery In the St Louis area, they say that the subject is under study. Godfather's, which has about 900 stores nationwide, has 14 stores in the area and two more scheduled to open soon.

Franchisees for the firm in some other areas have begun home delivery. Pizza Hut, with about 4,000 stores nationwide and about 56 in metropolitan St. Louis, is also studying home delivery. The firm began testing delivery in markets in Topeka, Augusta, and Allentown, according to an article published April 16 in Advertising Age. "Pizza Hut is interested," says Don Simms, director of personnel St Louis 1 Independent Agency ROLEX AUTHORIZED ROLEX SALES AND SERVICE 715 LOCUST 241-5653 THE DOWNTOWN WATCH DIAMOND SHOP f-ii tin ST.

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Til 4 p.m. 14 "FALL COOLER SIMMER DOWN WITH THE COLORS OF AUTUMN BRONZE YELLOW POMS POMS HARVESTED IN A WICKER BASKET TIED WITH A YELLOW BOW! to spend the several hundred thousand on computers that Pantera's plans to spend for its home-delivery system. "You have to have 35 or 40 restaurants to do that," Allen says. But an owner of Imo's, a local pizza chain that has specialized in home delivery for nearly 21 years, predicts that the larger chains will find the delivery business difficult. "You have people calling in with bad orders, and you have accidents," says Margie Imo, who with her husband, Ed, started Imo's in 1964.

The firm has 16 stores in the St. Louis area. "Keeping good dependable help is hard. You have to deal with younger employees with cars that break down. Maybe they (the other chains) will have more sophisticated help.

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