Canberra City Dominos, located beneath Lena Karmel Lodge, has confirmed that pizza orders skyrocket during university exam periods.
“Although I can’t give you exact numbers, I can tell you my observations,” the manager of the franchise explains. “I’ve been here for four years. And every year, we are quieter in the holiday periods and we are monumentally crazier in exam time.”
“During the holidays we can actually get stuff done. At Christmas, when all the students are away, I can actually take a holiday and not feel guilty. The other stores can’t do that because they have customer demand all year round.”
But during exam times, the manager says that the restaurant often becomes both a food staple and social hub for sun-deprived studiers. “Students come down in their onesies, their bare feet and their bras and they’ll just eat… Just this morning, a guy came down in track pants and bare feet, even though it was cold. His hair looked like a cockatoo and he got an 11:00am pepperoni pizza for breakfast.”
It was also confirmed that the franchise receives more orders than any other store in the ACT. Although turnover works out to be roughly equal to other stores– thanks to the $21.95 minimum delivery fee – between ANU students and the various social events on campus, the actual number of pizza orders processed at the Canberra City store is much higher.
The manager explains, “we sell more pizzas and they [other Dominos stores] get higher prices. It’s just different customer patterns, because students love a good $5 pizza.”
When asked whether students can sometimes be a nuisance, the manager laughs. “For some reason, a lot of students like to sit on our tables. And I say to them, ‘If you put your bum on the place where your mother served food you would be in trouble.’ Please, just sit on one of the 60 seats I provide for you!”
“I wouldn’t change it though,” he says. “We actually like the involvement from the students.” He said they regularly get students coming in on the way to the clubs, “dressed to the nines” and that they are really “quite cute” despite their drunkenness. “We just get smashed, but we have a scream because they really are lovely people.”
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