PLANO, Texas -- Pizza Hut will begin offering delivery of packaged beer from nearly 300 more of its restaurants in mid-January.
This second expansion of the program will extend the offer to restaurants across Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and additional locations in California and Arizona. The rollout is a brand priority, the chain said, with Pizza Hut aiming to grow beer delivery capabilities to 1,000 restaurants across new markets by summer 2019.
The announcement is purposely timed ahead of Super Bowl LIII, one of the busiest days of the year for Pizza Hut, the company said. According to a recent survey, 86% of Americans plan to serve both pizza and beer at their upcoming Super Bowl party this year.
"As the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, we've been celebrating football fans all season long, so it only makes sense for us to bring more customers the beloved combo of pizza and beer ahead of the Super Bowl," said Marianne Radley, chief brand officer for Pizza Hut. "We are proud to be pioneers of beer delivery and are well-poised to take on more markets in the coming year."
In December 2017, Pizza Hut launched its beer delivery pilot program in Arizona and expanded to parts of California five months later. Now, in 2019, with strong franchise partner participation, the company is in seven different states with additional markets forthcoming.
"Beer delivery is a game-changing lever that we'll continue to pull in order to deliver oven-hot pizzas with ice-cold beer to customers watching and celebrating their favorite teams," said Nicolas Burquier, chief customer and operations officer for Pizza Hut.
Qualifying orders must meet delivery minimum requirements and be placed through PizzaHut.com, the Pizza Hut mobile app for iPhone and Android or via phone. Delivery fees apply.
Plano, Texas-based Pizza Hut is a subsidiary of Yum Brands Inc. Founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kan., Pizza Hut operates more than 16,800 restaurants in more than 100 countries.
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