I just had a quick dinner at Cici’s Pizza, a place you go for the value, not necessarily the taste. While sitting at my table and tossing my crust onto another plate, I looked up and noticed something interesting… the bus boy was carrying a whole tray full of crust! I’m generally a pretty big fan of bread, but I rarely eat my crust. Apparently, a lot of people choose not to eat their crust. I started looking around and noticed that everyone had one plate piled high with pizza, and another plate piled high with discarded crust.

This begs the question: could Cici’s improve their margins by putting more cheese on the pizza, thereby reducing the amount of dough that is wasted on unwanted crust, thereby causing diners to eat fewer slices because they are eating more of the slice? If I have to eat 5 slices because I discard almost 1/4 of every slice, wouldn’t it make sense to find a way to get me to eat more of each slice? Maybe cheese is more expensive that dough, but if people are eating more slices, they’re having to use more cheese anyway. Another cheap solution might be to add garlic butter like most of their competitors do. I generally eat my crust if I have some garlic butter to dip it in, and this option might make people finish their crust and eat fewer slices. My survey of one and observation of a few tells my common sense that surely there’s a way to improve things in this situation! Do you toss your crust?