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Comment by HankStallone | Hacker News Reader

When I worked for Dominos in the late 80s, it was a lot like this sounds. No dining room, though customers could walk in and order in a small vestibule. The place was as efficient as possible, just ringing phones, an assembly line, cooler and ovens, storage and cleaners in the back, and delivery drivers running in and out.

There seems to be something special about pizza that sets it apart from everything else, that made it seem reasonable to order it delivered from a non-restaurant even back then.

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I think pizza is just virtually indestructible in terms of traveling. Sometimes I see americanized chinese food or those caribbean rotis being sold out of no-seating places likewise. The thing about a non-ghost no-seating establishment is you know they would go out of business eventually if they were truly awful. The ghost kitchens though can spin up new virtual brands endlessly.

It worked because Dominos was a brand name, people knew what to expect before ordering, and they picked up their own food instead of letting a overworked disinterested gig driver deliver it.

Dominos delivered. Pizza has been delivered since the dawn of time.

The pizza was delivered by an actual employee of the pizza place, and there might be a small delivery fee and a tip. Now the gig companies add a delivery fee on top of the inflated menu prices, then ask for a tip before the order will even be picked up. The fees can be 80% or even higher than the in-store price.

Plenty of Chinese takeaways, and a good few “Indian” establishments (takeaway/delivery only, no restaurant) have operated in the same way, without chains or brand names, for decades, at least all over the UK. Many great quality, many poor, but that was part of the fun of moving to a new area, figuring out the good ones from all the menus that got shoved through the letterbox.

Before that, of course, the fish and chip shop is an ancient institution, though they rarely delivered.

Most Domino’s were/are almost always delivery. Yes you can go pick up your pizza but most people don’t.

When I worked there they sold pizza and Coke. That was it. No breadsticks, no wings, no salads. One kind of crust, two size options. And by Coke I mean Coca Cola Classic in 16oz glass bottles. No Diet Coke, no sprite, nothing else. It was pure efficiency by elimination.

The drivers were all employees then, too. Not gig workers. No idea if that’s still the case.

Same here. We added Diet Coke and pan pizzas right at the end of my Domino's career, and that was a big honking deal. I can't imagine what it's like to work at one now.

Giving in to the nostalgia for a moment: there also wasn't a computer in the place. Everything was done on paper order slips and paper bookkeeping. No online ordering, so everyone paid with cash or check. No cell phones, so you couldn't call out to tell a driver he had the wrong address or the wrong pizza; you just had to wait for him to get back. And we still had the 30-minute guarantee, so we raced around like a bunch of maniacs even though the company kept telling us not to. Good times.

Yep, same. The only technology in the store was the desk calculator on the manager's desk.

And no GPS navigation of course. There was a big map of the delivery area on the wall in the back room. If you didn't recognize the address you'd look at that before you left the store and just had to remember the details.

I remember in the early 2000s there was a big push to deshittify delivery pizza. Companies were all advertising how they were now sending out their pizza in insulated bags. Dominos went particularly heavy, advertising a purpose built delivery vehicle with a built in warming oven (not sure if this was ever real or just for advertising) and a big emphasis on how they reformulated the entire menu to taste better.

The vehicle was real. There is (or was) a series on YouTube about someone who bought one that had been salvaged and wanted to repair it for his own use but ended up getting various legal threats from Domino's, claiming he obtained the vehicle illegally or planned to misuse their branding.

Maybe Domino's had another delivery vehicle in the 2000s, but one of the 10 Tritan Domino's delivery vehicles from the '80s sold at auction a few weeks ago for US $45,000.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1984-tritan-a2-3/

When I worked there they had hot boxes drivers would carry in their car. There was an alcohol burner in it that somewhat kept it warm. They switched to insulated bags about a year after I started.

The stores usually had one or two company cars, a hatchback like a Ford Escort, painted up with the Domino’s logo. It was not equipped with any special pizza warmer. But most drivers used their own car. They got an hourly wage, a percentage of the order total if they used their own car, and tips.

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