South Bend Tribune, 2/6/2005
A day in the life of a pizza delivery driver that we did as part of our Super Bowl coverage. The Super Bowl is the busiest pizza delivery day of the year.

The Pizza Guy

By Jeremy D. Bonfiglio
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND — Russ Mehler is waiting on a train.

A cloud of exhaust rises between car bumpers as the freight clanks on the cold metal tracks crossing South Logan Street.

He looks down at the digital display on the in-dash stereo just as the numbers change to 6:36. The glow of red brake lights fills the interior of his Ford Taurus.

By now, more than an hour into his shift, Mehler’s immune to the smell of melted cheese and tomato sauce wafting through this tiny space.

“I once had a guy around Christmas open the door wearing garland,” Mehler says. “Wearing nothing but garland,” he clarifies as the caravan of cars slowly moves ahead. “I could hear a girl laughing in the background, so I just assumed he lost a bet.”

Pizza delivery drivers aren’t your ordinary service workers. They’re unwitting students of human behavior.

Small children shout choruses of “Pizza’s here! Pizza’s here!”

Intoxicated adults offer to share their beer as a gesture of gratitude.

Each run, each open door is a chance to witness humanity’s uncensored moments.

“There’s something about delivery drivers. I don’t know what it is,” Mehler says. “We all have stories. There’s not nude people every day, but there’s something to it. Unfortunately, 99.9 percent of the time, you get the guy dressed in the garland.”

6 p.m.

For an hour, the phones at Papa John’s on South Ironwood Drive have been ringing without mercy.
It’s a typical Friday night in January. A half-dozen workers form an assembly line putting sauce, cheese and pepperoni on dough spread across thin circular pans.

Drivers assemble boxes in a back corner. Large boxes. Small boxes. Boxes for “Big Papa.” Boxes for “Papa’s Wings.”

“So far, we’ve gone through about 600 boxes,” manager Claudia Cochran says. “By the end of the night, we will go through 1,000 or more.”

Drivers enter the store and check the stacks. They drop off money before loading pizzas into insulated bags and leaving again.

“In and out in 17 minutes,” shouts one driver, while another mops up the melted snow he tracked in minutes before.

It’s a dress rehearsal for Super Bowl Sunday — the pizza industry’s busiest day.

Pizza Hut alone sells nearly 2 million pies nationwide during the NFL championship game. Domino’s Pizza sells about 1.2 million, a 42 percent increase over its typical Sunday sales. Papa John’s estimates its Super Bowl earnings are 48 percent higher than on any other Sunday.

“It’s a mandatory night for drivers,” Mehler says. “We’re actually told when we are hired that we’ll be working the Super Bowl.”

6:25 p.m.

At 35, Mehler is a veteran of the pizza wars. His boyish, round face is hardened by a sly grin and tired eyes.

Long gone is the 18-year-old just looking to make a few bucks — Mehler now delivers pizza to help support his family, and to pay bills and his tuition at Indiana University South Bend, where he’s studying computers.

“There’s a misconception that all delivery drivers are kids,” Mehler says. “I’m pretty much the average age. People who are delivering are usually in school or they’re people with a second job. We’re not all doing it because we love pizza.”

Mehler’s currently in his second stint as a driver for Papa John’s. He’s also worked for Godfather’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Edwardo’s. His typical shift begins at 5 p.m. and lasts until 2 a.m. or later, which he works four nights a week.

“We try to get out by 3, but it doesn’t always work out that way,” Mehler says.

Maneuvering through side streets and back alleyways, he reaches a stop, approaches a small white house, delivers two large pizzas and quickly returns to his Taurus with a better than average tip.

“It could to be a good night,” he says, tucking the extra $5 away as he pulls out onto South Logan Street. “I’ve had a lot of people talking about the weather, about the storm we’re supposed to get tonight. People seem to order when there’s a storm coming.”

6:45 p.m.

The industry doesn’t issue 30-minute guarantees anymore. Too many accidents and too many driver deaths have changed such policies.

But the public perception remains.

Many drivers still take risks or share fast routes to be “on time.” It’s how they earn tips — a driver’s main source of income.

“When I started, it was all about the Domino’s 30-minutes-or-less guarantee,” Mehler says. “I think people still expect that. They are more patient with a $5,000 computer that won’t turn on than they are a $10 pizza that’s five minutes late.”

Most pizza deliveries take a half-hour to 45 minutes or longer.

“It isn’t the driving. It’s getting them made,” Mehler says. “If I’m taking five (orders) to Irish Hills, how long does that take? A couple of minutes.”

Errant house numbers. Broken doorbells. No lights. Guard dogs and ice-covered stairs are just some of the obstacles that await.

“Most addresses follow some logic — not all — but most,” Mehler says, pulling out a spotlight to check for an address.

On one South Bend street, house numbers jump out of sequence. In Mishawaka, a corner has even numbers on both sides of the street. A street sign is missing.

“I’ve seen a lot of people who said they know the area very well. They start driving, and they realize they don’t know it as well as they thought they did,” Mehler says. “We have 600 streets just in our delivery area.”

Some patrons aren’t home when the driver arrives; they call from work with the confidence they’ll “beat him there.”

Customers sometimes wait in the shower, the back yard, or at a neighbor’s house.

“My biggest pet peeve?” Mehler says. “It has to be when people go about their business inside without even acknowledging that I’m outside waiting.”

7:25 p.m.

Mehler stands on a porch as a customer inside the house searches for his checkbook.

“Sometimes I think we just blend into the background,” he says. “I’ve seen people with illegal substances on a coffee table and they don’t try to hide it. They don’t think anything about opening the door and letting me see anything.”

Guns, drugs, alcohol, parties, strippers and police. All drivers share common tales.

“I think that’s the nature of the service industry,” he says. “There seems to be one delivery every few weeks that stands out for some reason.”

Such as the stripper who stopped in the middle of her act to pay for her order …

“I delivered to the Glo Worm one night, and the stripper didn’t have enough money, so she started pulling singles out of her G string,” Mehler says.

Or the police officers on the bypass …

“I got one order that just said ‘Go West on bypass,’ ” Mehler says. “I get to this accident where two cops are waiting for the tow truck to pull the wreckage off the road. I still wonder what people in traffic thought when I pulled up and was waved through.”

Or the busted teenagers …

“I walked up to the door of this party, and the police were walking up behind me,” Mehler says. “The officer told the kid: ‘You better take care of this guy first so we don’t have to add theft to the list.’ ”

8:15 p.m.

As the dinner surge slows and streets empty, a voice on the radio says the snowstorm is now over LaPorte.

The only other cars on the road seem to be police officers and other pizza drivers.

There’s a sense that those delivering are looking out for one another.

The casual, knowing nods exchanged at the call boxes of local college dormitories hints at the camaraderie between them.

“Once you have that commonality, it happens from there,” Mehler says, “no matter what that commonality is.”

He has one more stop before heading back to the store. Mehler recognizes the house.

“These people don’t tip,” he says before exiting the car.

To his surprise, he gets $2, an average tip. Stunned, he says, “It must be the weather.”

9 p.m.

Mehler flips radio stations, searching for a good song as he heads back to the store.

“It can get boring. You do spend a lot of time in the car by yourself,” says Mehler, who estimates he drives 100 miles each shift. “It takes a certain kind of person, I guess, to do this.”

Inside Papa John’s, the phones are silent. It’s a chance to take a breath, a break. A worker huddles against the building as she smokes a cigarette. Drivers warm themselves by the ovens, awaiting the late-night surge that so often becomes fodder for stories.

“You always get beer tips,” Mehler says. “Not that there haven’t been nights where a beer doesn’t sound good, but it’s not too kosher while you’re driving. At least they are good for a laugh.”

Mehler is more excited about the storm. By the end of the night, more than 8 inches will fall.

“I love driving through snowstorms,” he says. “It’s one of those quirky things, I guess. Watching the snow fall over the car, it’s just one of those things.”