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Pizza, pie, za. Melty, cheesy glory that has been the centerpiece of parties,
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gatherings, and hoop nannies since the dawn of time, probably. But the one question
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that always gets asked is how many pizzas should I order, followed by two mediums,
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one large, just a bunch of personals? Well, fret not, because we have found the
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answer, loyal theorists. Hello Internet, welcome to Food Theory, the show that puts
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the pizza in pizazz. You may not know this about me, but I love pizza.
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No, no, no. I don't think you understood me. I love pizza. New Haven Style is my
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goat, but I will chow down on just about any style of slice. And as a zafisionato,
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if you will, I will mops. Nobody cares, Tom. Nobody cares. Where was I?
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As a zafisionato, it is my go -to party food. Birthday party? Pizza. Super Bowl?
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Pizza. Wednesday night? Pizza. But like I mentioned, for some reason, there's always
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the dilemma of how many a person should order. I mean, don't get me wrong, if it's
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just me, it's a large one with a punch bowl full of coconut ladle. But when it
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comes down to the *****, huh? Oh, don't get me that, I can hear you typing. If
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you've never done it, get a pie and a ladle, and thank me ladle. Ha! Back to the
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point. Everyone always asks how many pizzas, and usually default to large when
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considering sizes, and you would think that large is a pretty big duh, but no.
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Cause you know what we're about here, and if you don't hit that subscribe button so
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you get to know what we're about, but on food theory, we're about the whole
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picture. Not just a slice. Because here's the thing, large may not be the best bang
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for your buck, so stick around to the end of the video because next time you have
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a get together, you won't have to wonder what size of pizza or how many pizzas to
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get ever again. But no matter what you do order, just make sure it's not Papa
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John's. So how do we go about figuring this out? Well first things first, let's get
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on the same page as to which places we're talking about here. We're ruling out all
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local chains because, let's face it, there's thousands upon thousands in the country
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and it would take a small army or me forcing Tom to scour the country with a fine
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toothed comb for months and months, which on second thought sounds hilarious, but
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ideas for another time. We're essentially sticking with the big three, Pizza Hut,
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Domino's, and Papa John's, because of how widely available they are to just about
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everyone, and they have small, medium, and large sizes. Now that we know the
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players, the next thing we're going to tackle is the simplest question, how many
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pizzas? Because that's where everything starts. You settle in with three of your
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buddies for a night of magic gathering, and while you shuffle up cards, you order
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pizza. But things get complicated, because what if there's not just four of you?
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Maybe there's six, because two of you brought your begrudging partners to sit there
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and stare at a game they could not care less about for three hours, but you
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promised them pizza. What do you do then? To answer this, we need to know how much
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each person will eat, and this is assuming that everyone is down for cheese or the
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same topping and someone doesn't want a hyper -specific anchovy and pineapple pizza.
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Luckily, we're not alone in exploring this topic, and most polls and surveys find
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that the average amount of slices eaten per person in a sitting ranges between three
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and five. That range accounts for hunger level and the different dietary needs of
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different people. So, splitting it down the middle, an average of four slices per
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person, lands us in a comfortable position that minimizes both pizza waste and pizza
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want, meaning how much people are left wanting pizza by the end of it. It gives us
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a clean half -pizza measurement per person. Now, that half -pizza is regardless of
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size because both medium and large at all of the three chains come with 8 slices.
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But that doesn't answer the question of how many pizzas just yet because we're still
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dealing with two different sizes. How many medium pizzas versus how many large pizzas
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are two very different questions. So which is it? The answer actually comes down to
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a bit of psychology. See, those four slices, the half pizza, is a really nice round
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number. Makes it easy to know how many pizzas just get one pizza for every two
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people. But size matters. Psychologically speaking, it's strictly in regards to pizza,
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but it's all thanks to what's known as the unit bias. This is the idea that people
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tend to break things down into smaller units, whether it's a slice or a scoop in a
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pinch of food, and see that as the "normal" amount to eat, regardless of the actual
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size. On one hand, this means you might eat an entire pizza presented to you that
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way because your brain says one pizza equals one meal. But in a gathering setting,
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unit bias actually works in the opposite way. Your brain doesn't see one whole
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pizza, but rather smaller, more manageable slices. What does this mean for us, the
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pizza -orderers in our dilemma? Well, remember that nice round average of four slices?
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That's just an average. If you get a medium pizza with smaller slices, thanks to
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unit bias, people will tend to eat more and hit that upper range of five slices
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per person. This puts us in an awkward position because now, that one medium pizza
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can't be evenly Distributed you want unit bias to work for you and get large pizzas
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because the larger slices will keep people at that for slice Distribution which ends
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up being good for everyone because four slices of a large pizza is actually way
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more pizza than five slices of a Medium pizza when you factor in the area So not
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only do you get an easy calculation for how many large pizzas you should get but
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your guests are actually getting more food in the Process if you really want to get
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all mathematical about it This is your equation, where x is the amount of people
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you're having over. Those fancy little brackets just mean round it up. But that's
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only half of the question answered, because we actually have to pay for these pizzas
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so we need to see if large is also worth it from a price perspective. Let's face
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it, pizza is expensive and money don't grow on trees. To figure that out, we need
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to find out how much pizza we're getting per dollar spent. Lucky for us, each of
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the big 3's medium and large sizes are standardized. Medium clocks in at 12 inches
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and large is 14. If you remember your math class from, let's say, middle school,
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you might recall that the area of a circle is pi times radius squared, and
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calculating the area of both pies gives us a 40 square inch difference between the
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two pizzas, with the medium giving us 113 .09 square inches and large coming out to
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153 .94 square inches. See, two inches is actually a lot.
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That's what I meant earlier when I said that half of a large pizza is more pizza
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than five slices of medium. You're getting more pizza area. So far in this episode,
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we've been mostly focused on gatherings, shindigs, and hoot nannies. But what if,
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like Jason Derulo, you're riding solo? Yeah, I'm not gonna leave you hanging for
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that answer. It's just a tad more annoying. Because the small pizza is where we see
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pizza hut have to be the difficult one and offer a six inch personal size where
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the other two have a 10 inch small pizza. So I guess when it comes to size,
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Domino's and Papa John's do out pizza the hut, since their smalls give 78 .54 square
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inches of pie to Pizza Hut's measly 28 .27. To be fair, though, the hut's small is
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just so much cuter. Like I mentioned, small pizza doesn't really enter into the
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equation of getting pizzas for gatherings. But, fun fact, one small pizza from
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Domino's or Papa John's is roughly the same area as half of a large pizza.
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Unfortunately though, no matter which way you slice it, it doesn't make sense to get
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small pizzas for groups. What this means for you is if you're getting pizza solo,
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opt for the small. Back to the other two sizes, the area by itself doesn't tell us
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everything we need to know because the large sizes also come with a higher price
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tag. And that may be our breaking point in the decision -making process. But a
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challenge is nothing to theorists. And yes, I said theorists because I pulled in one
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of our wonderful writers, Mike, to roll up his sleeves with me and dive into some
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number crunching. Misery loves company. Not gonna bore you with just how many states
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and cities, big and small, we started carry out orders for to find out prices, but
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it rhymes with a Schmidt ton. To find out how much pizza you're actually getting
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per dollar spent, we took the area of the pizza and divided it by the cost. What
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we found is that despite prices varying throughout the country, the end results
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didn't change, so you might be paying more or less depending on where you are, but
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the relative value is consistent throughout the country. So what did our power
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rankings end up looking like? Dominating the number one in two spots is Domino's,
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and it's not even close. At a whopping 11 inches and 10 .29 inches of pizza per
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dollar for the large and medium respectively, it blew the other two out of the
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water. Bronze medal goes to Pizza Hut with 9 63 inches of pizza per dollar and
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finally in fourth place. We see Papa John's and buy a mile at 8 .81 inches In
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fact, they're large pizza barely beat Domino's small pizza and Pizza Hut's medium in
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terms of value I should mention that this is strictly from a pizza size and price
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perspective though I'm not here to argue whether one pizza tastes better than the
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other I'm just here to help you find out how many and the best bang for your buck
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Now Papa John's does have an XL, which would be in the third place slot, except it
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throws our slice proportion all out of whack, so you'd have to get an odd amount
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of pizza that would leave people hungry or you with too many leftovers for a much
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higher price point. Thing is, price isn't the end all be all, right? Papa John's
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prides itself on its better ingredients, so naturally there would be a higher price
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for that quality. Now, again, we're not looking at subjective taste here. If you
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just like Papa John's more or Domino's dominates your taste buds, that's the ultimate
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deciding factor. But as far as value, if you're paying for better ingredients, then
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it would make sense that you would get more of those ingredients on the pizza. And
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since everybody knows the best part of pizza is the sauce and the cheese and any
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toppings you may get, you'll want to have more of that than crust. So we ordered
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pizza from the three chains to see the exact ratio of topping to crust to see if
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this would would shake up the rankings. Unfortunately, for John, Papa, things only
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got worse once we busted out the measuring tape. Dominoes continued to widen its
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lead with an average of 1 inch thick crust and 6 inches of cheese and sauce. Pizza
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Hut did slightly worse with a 1 .5 inch crust, meaning 5 .5 inches of cheese and
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sauce, but Papa John'sā¦ when I opened that box, I could immediately tell that
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something was wrong. And the tape, Both the measuring kind and this b -roll confirms
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it. Jekuz! Papa John! Jekuz! Your 14 -inch pizza is actually only 13 inches.
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Not only that, but the crust ranged from 1 .25 to 1 .5 inches, meaning the cheese
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and the sauce part of the slice was a measly 5. To put this lie into perspective,
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Domino's crust only makes up roughly 27 % of the entire pizza, slightly over a
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quarter. That's a reasonable amount. But Papa John's crust takes up 40%. So not only
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are you getting lied to about the size of the pizza, but you're getting nearly half
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of that pizza as just crust. Meaning, despite paying more for the better ingredients,
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you're getting less of them than any of the other pizzas. It makes sense for Papa
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John's because they want to minimize their cost per pizza, and because they pay more
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for fresher ingredients, if they put as much as Domino's or pizza hut, they'd either
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have to hike their prices up more or take a loss on their pizzas. And obviously,
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that's not good for business. At the end of the day, what that means for us,
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though, is a higher price for less. Unless you're a crust -fiend, in which case,
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power to you, you psychopath. But me, I will stand firm against the lies of John,
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if that's even his real name. Or if he's even a papa, I don't know anymore. So
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now, you'll never again have to wonder what size or how many pieces to get, whether
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it's just you and the ladle, or the whole gang. And unless you're looking to munch
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on mostly higher quality dough, stay away from Papa John's and their sad little
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pepper they throw in the box. But hey, that's just the theory. Ah, food theory! Bon
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appetit. And hey, speaking of price, if you want to see why 5 Guys has gotten so
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expensive, make sure to click the link on the screen now. And as always, I'll see
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you next week.
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