What Do 99-Cent Slices Mean For The Subway Fare-Pizza Index?

For years Clyde Haberman at the NY Times, and others, have noted the New York Pizza Connection, in which the average price of a slice around town invariably evens out to about the cost of a trip on the subway. So what to make of all the 99-cent pizza joints that have been opening up in the past few years? In the wake of Gray's Papaya joining the fray, and more and more slices hitting the $2.75 mark, it seems a good time to look at the numbers.

The thing is that making pizza—if you want to go the cheap route—can be really, really cheap. That's why there are so many bars (The Alligator Lounge, Crocodile Lounge, and the Charleston to name three) that will happily give you a free pie with the cheapest of drink orders. In the end the labor costs plus flour, water, cheese and tomato sauce are going to be not that far from the costs of stocking snacks like peanuts and popcorn (and are far better at luring in poor and hungry imbibers). According to a food-services consulting firm "the wholesale food cost of a dollar slice of pizza is roughly 40 to 45 cents. That's high. The average food cost for the pizza industry is more like 25% to 30% of the selling price, he said." The price of a pie at a free pizza joint can be even less.

Which means there is still profit to be made, and so the same logic that has brought free pizza to bars is behind the 99-cent-and-below slice revolution that has come to town lately in the form of rapidly expanding mini-chains like 99-cent Fresh Pizza and 2 Bros. Pizza (not to mention getting old hands like Gray's into the game). In comparison most of the Original Rays and their ilk are charging around $2.75 a slice (which is pricier than a single fare!). But you get what you pay for—a buck slice will get you far less attention to important things like the cheese and sauces.

But what we want to know is what this newish breed of cheap eats means for the Pizza Connection. Is it no longer relevant? Is this new trend just a blip? Or maybe these dollar slices are somehow the pizza equivalent of when you use your unlimited Metrocard so much that you start paying far less than the average fare?