Anthony Cloud

Staff Writer

As the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers prepare to collide on Sunday, local restaurants prepare for the impending rush during America’s unofficial holiday. Super Bowl Sunday is widely known for the food, as well as the wild and crazy Super Bowl commercials.

The food items that tend to get the most attention during Super Bowl weekend are pizza and wings.

“It can be overwhelming at times,” said Will Brooks, shift leader at Papa John’s in Middlesboro. According to Brooks, his Middlesboro location received eight cases of wings this week and ordered more on Friday.

Brooks stated the restaurant orders a lot of wings during the Super Bowl based on statistics from previous years. “We order based on previous experiences,” said Brooks.

In addition to ordering plenty of wings, Papa John’s also schedules all of its workers to come in to work on Super Bowl Sunday.

“We are busy all day long,” said Brooks. “We get orders throughout the day.”

According to Brooks, the restaurant gets really busy just before halftime as people prepare for the break in the game.

Samantha Mason, general manager of Little Caesars in Pineville, stated her restaurant is the busiest about three hours before the game.

“We are preparing to get swamped,” said Mason.

Much like Papa John’s and many other pizza restaurants, Mason said Little Caesars orders more food and keeps more food on hand in preparation for the Super Bowl rush. They base how much food to order using a projection system.

Little Caesars also schedules more employees to work during Super Bowl Sunday.

Pizza Huts across the United States are typically busy during the unofficial holiday as well. According to stats for statisticbrain.com, there were approximately two million pizzas sold during the Super Bowl last year in all Pizza Hut locations combined.

The website also states 120,000 employees worked during Super Bowl Sunday last year.

Anthony Cloud can be reached via email at acloud@civitasmedia.com or by phone at 606-248-1010, ext. 208.