Tonight I was getting into a 1/2 and 1/2 BBQ Chicken/Tuscan Chicken pie from a local chain out here called Mary's Pizza Shack when I realized how rare it was to see a pizza chain with a feminine name.
So I looked up the Wikipedia page on US Pizza chains and went through the 50 pizza chains with more than 50 locations. To my bemusement there are 12 pizza chains with "male" names, 38 with ungendered names, and exactly 0 with "female" names.
If it was just an Italian name I wasn't immediately sure of (Imo's pizza, Saprino's Pizzeria, Monical's Pizza) I gave it a pass.
Here are the 12 that were for sure male:
Hunt Brothers Pizza
Little Caesars *(While I knew Caesar is a dude, I also relied on the fact that the mascot has substantial chest hair)
Papa John's Pizza
Papa Murphy's
Marco's Pizza
Chuck E. Cheese
Godfather's Pizza
Hungry Howie's Pizza
Mountain Mike's Pizza
Peter Piper Pizza
Papa Gino's
Lou Malnati's Pizzeria
It got me thinking if there were other food types that were as gendered. It seems that baking mixes are mostly female (Sarah Lee, Betty Crocker), but you also have Duncan Hines and (while missing genitalia) the Pillsbury Doughboy. Given the large number of pizza chains, I would argue that pizza brands are more heavily associated with male names than any other foodtype brands.
I wonder why that is. Essentially making pizza is more akin to baking (with it's host of female brands) than anything else. So why are there no large female pizza chains? Is it some Italian heritage where the men make the pizza and that's held over for a century in the minds of the public that would scoff at the idea of eating a pizza with a women's name on the box? Are more dudes working in pizzerias and therefore more likely to start their own chain of pizzerias?
Who really knows, but I can tell you Mary's Pizza Shack was excellent, and I'd say it's second best of the 8 "male" pizza places on the list that I've tried.
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