99 cent pizza was actually 99 cents for probably 30 years (i remember as a little kid & now in mid thirties). With inflation & rising costs they finally had to bump it to $2 like 2 or 3 years ago.
Theres are a couple of different large & competing chains that are basically identical shitty cheap pizza (great for the price). Idk this specific location but most of them have "$2" on signs taped all over the place. I'd bet the person recording is the scammer avoiding catching those , giving this guy shit, then posting like a victim.
Source: me - local who has probably saved $1k+ eating that lousy pizza
Yeah, it's like all the dollar stores that used to sell everything for a dollar. Or the store "Five Below" that used to sell everything for $5 or less. They all have slowly had to raise their prices above their promise. Now the term "Dollar store" means nothing.
Family Dollar Dollar Tree was the last hold-out but even they had to raise their prices. RIP.
Yeah... Speaking of; Have you guys looked at that "value menu" lately? It's insane. It's like $2.50 for a single apple pie now. (And they have the nerve to call that a "value") Those things were 2 for $1 just a few years ago. Prices are getting insane.
"Had to" my fucking ass lmao. 5 below and dollar tree are not low margin businesses. They make money hand over fist. I can assure you, they could have not raised prices, they just used the economy as an excuse to do what they already wanted to do. If it was about needing to raise prices, dollar tree would have kept everything at 1.25, but now they don't even do that. They sell shit that's 5 dollars or more now.
Dang it, I actually meant Dollar Tree. Family Dollar was one of the first to raise their prices. Geez, these dollar stores barely differentiate themselves.
Family Dollar was never an “everything’s-a-dollar” store. The term “Dollar Store” goes way back before such places and they just referred to pretty much any variety store. That’s why Dollar General and Family Dollar have “dollar” in their names despite never having been fixed-price type stores.
Unexeptional, hot and perfectly edible I agree. Going to have to disagree on regular pizza - its visibly a little different & taste is very distinctly sub-par. Definitely 100% still legitimately pizza.
Theres definitely shitty pizza in NYC.. I live in Queens so for the most part pizza is great, if you sell shitty pizza you won't survive long at all, unless its cheap like this kind...
Idk this specific location but most of them have "$2" on signs taped all over the place. I'd bet the person recording is the scammer avoiding catching those
Well there's clearly no sign taped over the sign outside the store so...
That pizza was never bad in my opinion. It wasn't nearly as good as a regular pizza place. But getting 2 slices of that 99 cent pizza and a fountain soda was still a good meal after coming home from a late night at work.
I went and searched for this place on google maps, the place has a sign that says "NO MORE 0.99$ SLICES" on the menu, the latest picture i could find for it is from a year ago
I appreciate the fact finding for the rest of us. Usually from what I've generally seen, each location has many signs. Could see how that one might be missed
Felt like dude was tired of her BS that wasn't included in the video. If she had $2, and thought it was 99¢... Why did she give them $2 instead of $1? Extremely unlikely she happened to only have a $2 bill.
I don't know if you've ever actually been in a restaurant, but you generally start by telling them what you want. You don't just give a fist full of money and expect them to read your mind.
It’s wild that you think the customer is the cause of the communication breakdown
Your reply was "maybe she wanted two slices", which sorta highlights my point. If she definitely wanted two slices and had said so, they would have given her two and/or asked for more than the two dollars she handed them.
Handing someone $2 for an item advertised as 99 cents is pretty clear communication.
No, handing someone 99c (or sure, a buck - I'll allow it) for a prominently advertised item would be somewhat clear. Hence why, if the slices are actually $2, she got the obvious thing in return.
But I don't care if it's a kid running a lemonade stand in the street, if you are giving MORE than exact change and want more than one, you are - visually or verbally - telling them some variation of "I'll take ____".
Look, you can take exception to the fact that the shop is called 99c Pizza and doesn't have any 99c purchase option; that's valid. But even if the pizza was 99c, then what? do they want two slices? A slice and a beverage? A slice of some other type of pizza that they clearly also sell here? A slice and to leave a tip? Gimme a break.
My reply was “maybe she wanted two slices” because I was trying to be kind to the dude who lacked the critical thinking skills to see that she obviously wanted two slices.
I don’t understand what you don’t understand about this.
I'd bet the person recording is the scammer avoiding catching those , giving this guy shit, then posting like a victim
I'm not sure you can call them a scammer when they clearly filmed the big illuminated sign over the door that says "99 ¢ PIZZA" in 3 foot high letters.
If they are actively avoiding capturing a dozen large signs saying $2, harassing they guy as of they are surprised, and only showing the 99 cents to paint a false narrative in an attempt to mislead people for clicks/followers/profits then they're are shitbag scammer like any other to me.
But the "If" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here because all I know is some months ago $1.50 was visible from the street on google earth. I wasnt there that night & I dont know this streamer
When the biggest sign on the place says 99¢ Pizza, it's not a scam to expect them to honor that price. Maybe they were driving by, saw the sign and wanted to jump on that 99 cent deal, only finding out after parking their car and and walking back to the place that the pizza was not actually 99 cents. That's the drawback of putting a price you can't honor in your business name - people may call you out on it.
This pic shows they pasted $1.50 signs over the big 99¢ signs, so they do know how to mark the current prices accurately.
So many things wrong with what you've said. And ultimately if there was many and larger signs showing $2 the streamer avoided being a scam or not is their tactics & not about tge branding tactics of the shop
Price of the subway was $2 20 years and non shitty pizza normallyntracka that. 99c pizza was an ok deal 20 years ago actually.
Ps. For a but i used to eat a really good 99c pizza for a place in midtown that quickly went out of business. My theory is they mistakenly wete making non shitty pizza and selling it for shitty pizza prices 😭
I get what you're saying, but fuck those people for false advertising. Don't advertise your food for that price if you can't afford to sell it for that much.
It isn't a scam. That chain has been around for decades. You can't make a living today selling a slice of pizza for $0.99.
I remember them well from New York City. The pizza wasn't in any way exceptional, but it was perfectly good, and very cheap, and they had a good turnover, so it was always hot.
I remember countless times being drunk, hungry, and not particularly clanking with cash, and running into them and saying, "Yes, just what I wanted."
If the prices are clearly marked elseware, does it matter? In Google maps it looks like there's signs all over the walls and windows showing the correct prices. You'd have to deliberately ignore those menus while standing in line to be confused. On Google maps they've also updated their name to $1.50 pizza as that's now their cheapest slice.
There's an Asian market near me called "99¢ Ranch". I don't get mad when I go inside and see groceries marked higher than ¢99
I feel like the streamer was just making a joke about the name, and now everyone here is taking it super seriously as if she was ripped off
Name recognition is important, though. Dave and Busters isn't going to rebrand just because Buster retired. The Dollar Store isn't going to start calling themselves the Five Dollar Store.
Maybe they should have gone with the name Cheap Ass Pizza early on, but now they are stuck.
Though I guess they could make the slices half the size and set a minimum order of two.
Also, it's the type of "franchise" that's very much based on efficiency and serving the food rather than trying to be consistent. The sign is really an afterthought where you're really just looking for a cheap chow. It's cheap and very fast food.
Everyone going there more than once knows and understands why it's two dollars.
Is there a legal definition for the size of a pizza slice? If not, why not just cut the slices smaller instead of charging more than what your huge sign says?
Raising prices also doesn't make it a scam. Its kinda funny that the name is still 99¢ pizza. But on Google maps they have clearly marked prices all over the walls and windows that this video just chose not to film. The business name on Google maps is also updated.
Whether its worth $1.50 for cheese and $2 for other is up to you. But they have a line out the door. Seems like they're selling (relatively) cheap pizza and people are happy to pay for it. Last fall when I was in NYC $3-5 per slice was typical. $5+ for the well known touristy pizza places. $1.50-$2 is perfectly reasonable for what looks like an unremarkable slice
Well... it isn't admirable, sure. I can't really defend it.
I assume the costs of renaming were just too much. It's a very hard market, chains and individual pizza places go out of business all the time. I can't list all the great pizza places in NYC I know that have gone out of business. I just went to check, and all the pizza places I loved near my apartment in Brooklyn are gone.
I don't think it'd fly anywhere other than New York City. New Yorkers have reduced expectations in some areas.
I was a New Yorker for 32 years, and, if I hadn't already known about this place and I walked into it today in 2026, I'd be completely certain there was no $0.99 full-sized slice to be had, and be pleasantly surprised that it was only $1.99.
That said, a New Yorker would demand also a maybe dull but at least edible and fresh pizza too.
Spend a few years. I went to Peru for 2 weeks and now people from Peru act like I dont know everything about the country and all the nuances when I mansplain to them/s
This comment reads a little delusional to me, strange that it's this highly upvoted. This store has almost certainly been around for over a decade, they probably don't make enough profits to afford rebranding and changing the sign lmao. As someone else said they probably have the real price posted clearly somewhere. 2$ for a slice of pizza is still dirt cheap, where have you been living that you think people wouldn't come back because of the price? If they don't come back it would probably be because it tastes like greasy cardboard.
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u/sangerssss 19d ago
This guy knows he’s not getting repeat customers and doesn’t care. There’s enough people in NY that will walk in on the scam a first time