Does Raleigh need another pizza restaurant?

Does Raleigh seriously need another pizza restaurant?  At 117 square miles, and well over a hundred establishments that make pizza, you can score a slice at roughly once every square mile.  The newest addition to the rat race of pizza delivery options—Hungry Howie’s, a chain restaurant from Michigan—comes to Oberlin road, on the edge of the Hayes-Barton and Oberlin Village neighborhoods.  It places itself centrally between arguably the two finest pizza establishments in Raleigh: Lilly’s Pizza of Five Points, and Capital Creations which operates out of the Sunset Hills area.

Locally owned businesses, such as Lilly’s and Capital Creations, contribute positively in many ways to their communities that franchises don’t.  Lilly’s is a great example.  Their unique identity strengthens the collective sense of place of Five Points, as well as that of Raleigh as a whole.  The fact that Lilly’s is a small company affords it the opportunity to be more environmentally conscious: most all of the ingredients are fresh and supplied by other independently owned businesses in the area.  This alone creates a significantly greater local multiplier effect in the regional economy.

These cultural, environmental, and economic advantages are not offered by chain establishments.  Hungry Howie’s hokey name and cartoonish identity detract from a sense of place.  The company has set up its own distributing corporation, which does not support local suppliers.  By contributing to the homogenization of the real and built environment, they have no emotional or spiritual connection to the land.

Hungry Howie’s founder Steve Jackson said, “It takes a fierce desire to succeed…elements in our strategy include…customer service and the marketing savvy to compete against the national pizza chains.”  Guess what, Steve?  You ARE one of the national pizza chains.

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