Pizza wars returns to Main Street Mt. Pleasant Tuesday

MT. PLEASANT - The third annual Pizza Wars, hosted by Main Street Mt. Pleasant, will begin at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 17. The event, which invites local pizzerias to showcase their different pizzas, allows locals to try unlimited pizza samples for $5. Pizza Wars also will be part of the last Market on Main of the year.

Lisa Oetken, the director of Main Street Mt. Pleasant, said that the event has grown year to year and that she anticipates close to 500 people to show up next Tuesday. The event was an offshoot of restaurant week, an idea from Mainstreet Iowa.

'A couple years ago, an article came out that we were 170th in the nation for pizza per capita, and second behind Le Mars in Iowa, so we thought it'd be a good idea to do Pizza Wars,” Oetken said.

Oetken added that currently five local pizzerias are confirmed to participate in the event, with potentially a couple more to join. Casey's Pizza, Breadeaux Pizza, Pizza Hut, Pizza Ranch and Paul Revere's Pizza are in the lineup of shops that people can look forward to tasting.

'The proceeds are split among the restaurants All the pizza places are very community minded, they're always giving out free products … so don't want to put a burden on them,” Oetken said. She also added that during the event, each pizza shop provides anywhere from 15 to 20 large pizzas for locals to taste.

Amy Sanderson from Casey's Pizza said the event is helpful in promoting certain pizzas that locals may not be aware their shop makes.

'We do it because it helps get what kind of pizza we make out to the customers … sometimes we see an increase in orders for our specialty pizzas after the event that not a lot of people know that we have,” Sanderson noted.

In addition to featuring the local pizza shops in town, Oetken noted that the event helps familiarize people with businesses in the downtown area.

'Any time we can get them downtown, we love getting people to see what we have and maybe they'll notice something new that they didn't know about before,” Oetken said.