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Photo courtesy Blondie and Brownie.
Pizza lovers and bargain hunters created a mob scene outside Patsy's Pizza 75th Anniversary yesterday, lining up for hours to take advantage of a one-day only rollback to 1933 prices. One could theoretically get a grilled 12 oz steak served with pasta marinara or vegetables for 90 cents, assuming one had the day off work and could wait on line for the better part of the day. So many showed up that the NYPD was summoned to set up barricades and corral the hungry roustabouts.
But a great many on line were finally turned away with nothing to show for their not-so-precious time, as Blondie and Brownie reports. Though Patsy's had promised the deal would be in effect until 10 p.m., at some point a Patsy's employee changed the signs to indicate a 7 p.m. cut-off. In the end, anyone who queued up after 3:30 p.m. was basically screwed, as one irate tipster tells Eater: "The police cut the line around 5 p.m. and said everyone on line at that point would be served... At 7, the police came out and said they were done serving. That it wasn't the owners fault, the chefs refused to cook past 7. And the chef's work for who exactly?"
That sure burns, but as is occasionally the case, a commenter puts the debacle in perspective: "Unless you are homeless you should not wait three hours for 60-CENT pizza. Congratulations on saving ten bucks! The only thing people should be understandably upset about is their own odd priorities."
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Lining up for cheap/free food specials is generally stupid. For example, spending an hour in a line for Ben & Jerry's free cone day. That's an hour of your life spent for a $3 ice cream cone (if that), which means you value your time at less than half of minimum wage. I dunno about these folks, but I charge a hell of a lot more than that for an hour of my time.
I'm sure the pizza's good, but waiting in line for several hours just to pay sixty cents for it? Retarded. Go someplace else, pay the ten bucks, and save 58 minutes of your time to do something more productive.
Promoting 1933 prices in the middle of another economic downturn was clever but stupid. That's just inviting trouble and hungry masses. That kind of mob scene takes away from the quaintness of the thing.
Look at those fucking pigs! We need a revolution here! Anarchy man! Sorry, wrong story. I was looking for the Pandamonium article
What they should have done is offer random door prizes where winners would get the discounted prices.
I completely agree with you, #1. It's not worth the time. which is why i couldn't believe that I found myself waiting on line for a nice big cup of free frozen yogurt at that place on Hanover Square 2 weeks ago!! at least it was only an 10 minute wait. and it was DELICIOUS!
I entertained this idea for about two seconds. Then I realized I would have to stand in line for hours and that I didn't need to pay $1 for a full meal at Patsy's. I had leftovers instead, which were free! That commenter is absolutely right. Not worth it unless you absolutely have a need for it.
Though I see this as a little different from free cone days. It's one thing to stand in line with friends and wait for scoops to be handed out (takes maybe 2 min/scoop), and another entirely to wait for a finite number of tables to be turned over at 1 hour/table. That's just insane.
Time = money only when you'd be charging for your time. If instead you would've been sitting on your ass watching TV, well, then you've made money by saving $10 on a meal.
So if you scheduled a day off to get a pizza, well yeah you're a fool. But if you had the week off already (like many people do these last weeks of summer) and decided to head on over then have fun on line!
What about the 1933 nostalgia? Can't put a price on that, except for the fact that you're still an idiot for using that as a reason.
Certainly, your time is only monetarily valuable when you're charging for it, but frankly I consider even something as empty as sitting in front of the tv to be a better use of my time than waiting in line.
My general rule of thumb in this city is that if there's a line, it's not worth it -- there's always something else around the corner that's just as good, with no wait. Goes for pizza, frozen yogurt, bars, restaurants, whatever. Waiting in line drives me nuts.
Something else was going on in the 1933... oh yea, the great depression. If only those rich bastards on Wall St. would through themselves out a window today for nostalgia's sake.
Lines are for suckers.
I get paid 200-300 bucks an hour for consult work. this would cost me 800 bucks a slice. What do you expect they would do in harlem?
Seems like this was designed to make just a few people happy. Namely, the pigs who in the spirit of Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect cut the line at 5:00PM ready for the shift change. I feel so much safer knowing they were troughing pizza - why weren't they out looking for the scum who choked the old lady in an elevator yesterday? Instead of Patsy's Pizza, serve them their pensions and get rid of the pricks!
My sister, brother-in-law, and I ambled over around 7:30 to see if we might get seated (thinking that the promotion was until 10pm), only to encounter a mob of other disappointed would-be-customers. Good to know that it was basically hopeless post 3:30... that means we didn't just miss the cutoff!
Um..they weren't out looking for the mugger because it is a totally different precinct (and borough), genius.
They were trying to hijack the line from Artichoke?
This was sort of a good idea, but they forgot that hipsters LOOOOVE long lines, and that the general population seems to think that they are somehow OWED cheap pizza. This free or cheap food promotion idea has been increasing all over the city and just makes for more sour grapes than good business.
It's not like they couldn't have predicted this would happen. Sounds to me like another brilliant promotion by yet one more genius college graduate with a degree in marketeering.
What I find amusing is that 1933 is mentioned and voila! babyhitler appears.