• August 20, 1990
• Vol. 34
• No. 7

When the Going Gets Tough in Washington, Who Do the Tough Call in a Crisis? Pizza Mogul Frank Meeks

The news was bad. Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Oil prices were surging, stock markets sinking. Yellow lights burned at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—and at the Pentagon and the State Department. Limousines bearing powerful men with grim looks swished through the streets of a tense capital. Vans were speeding into the night too. There was more than tension in the Washington air that night—there were the distinctive aromas of oregano and tomato sauce. "Whenever there's a crisis," says Frank Meeks, "our business in downtown Washington triples."

Meeks is a kind of oil dealer—although the only reserves he has access to are in cooking varieties. Meeks, 33, holds the Domino's Pizza franchise in Washington, a 40-store empire that includes a strategically placed outlet at 12th and K streets, only five blocks from the White House. He knows that a surge in late-night deliveries to the capital's power centers is almost a foolproof signal of a 12-slice crisis.

Normally, pizza deliveries to Washington's offices all but cease after 10 P.M. on any weekday. But in the wee hours of Wednesday, Aug. 1, as the nation's leaders mobilized, Meeks's people were delivering more than 50 pies to the White House, some 200 to the Pentagon and 75 to State. "Our people came back to the stores and said, 'Something's up; something big is going to happen.' " says Meeks.

Pizza consumption as a barometer of tense nights in Washington apparently dates back to the 1983 Grenada invasion, when a sudden doubling of orders was first noted. "And before [the U.S.] went into Panama," Meeks says, "I got a call from my people in the middle of the night saying, 'We're going to invade somebody.' "

According to Meeks, the White House packs away more pizza than any other federal body, "and the people there tip better." Meeks says the change of administrations has brought a corresponding change in tastes. "They spent a lot more on pizza toppings during the Reagan years," he says. "They would have eaten caviar on their pizza if we had it. The Bush people are more down-to-earth with their pizza; they want the standard pepperoni and sausage."

So hold the anchovies. And skip the broccoli.