Little Caesars® Pizza Premieres New $5 HOT-N-READY® Lunch Combo

DETROIT, Feb. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Little Caesars® Pizza, the largest carry-out pizza chain in America and home of the $5 HOT-N-READY® pizza, today introduced its new $5 Lunch Combo, available HOT-N-READY every day from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at participating locations, plus tax. Launching nationwide starting February 3, the $5 Lunch Combo features four slices of Little Caesars popular Detroit-style DEEP!DEEP!™ Dish pizza, paired with a 20-ounce Pepsi product.

The affordable $5 price and the instant availability of the Lunch Combo HOT-N-READY—with no calling, waiting or online ordering required—positions Little Caesars as the new lunchtime option for customers who love pizza but historically have been challenged by long wait times, unsuitable portion sizes and the high cost of restaurant offerings.

"Our $5 Lunch Combo delivers real value and is more affordable than other lunch combos," said Little Caesars President and CEO David Scrivano. "Four delicious slices of our DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza, paired with an ice-cold, 20-ounce Pepsi product, will more than satisfy any large appetite," he said. "This is an amazing deal within both the pizza segment and the entire quick service restaurant industry. We expect our $5 Lunch Combo to become an attractive alternative to other fast food combos and for Little Caesars to become a destination location for lunch."

The $5 Lunch Combo builds on the April 1, 2013 launch of the Little Caesars DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza, the most successful product introduction in the company's 54-year history. The eight-piece DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza is now a fixture on Little Caesars menus nationwide for only $8 plus tax, at participating locations.

"Seeing value meals and combos in the marketplace for anywhere from $6.25 on up, we feel that our offering is a tremendous value," said Little Caesars Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Edward Gleich. "Our $5 price point makes lunch more affordable and provides customers with a delicious, different and satisfying alternative to what they're used to getting," he said. "A typical drive-thru experience averages just over three minutes.* Our $5 Lunch Combo gets customers in and out of our restaurant in around 30 seconds, so they can get back to work and avoid the standard burger and fries."

Little Caesars Pizza is the first national chain to introduce Detroit-style deep dish pizza to its core menu in all 50 states. The DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza's unforgettable taste starts with hand-made dough, baked in custom, deep dish pans that create a unique, crispy-on-the-bottom, soft-and-chewy-on-the-inside crust. Topped from coast-to-coast with fresh, premium mozzarella and Muenster cheese, the DEEP!DEEP! Dish is baked to a crispy, crunchy, caramelized cheese edge.

The DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza is a Detroit-style pizza—a rectangular pizza that gets its crispy-crunchy edge and chewy inside texture from baking in a custom metal pan coated with buttery garlic and olive oil. Styled after the assembly line trays first used to make deep dish pizza in the Motor City years ago, the modern adaptation of this pan is made in the USA exclusively for Little Caesars and is designed to deliver the same Detroit-style crunch.

Joining the Little Caesars popular $5 original round pepperoni or cheese HOT-N-READY Classic pizza, the $5 Lunch Combo is the most recent addition to the HOT-N-READY lineup of products, which also includes the full-size DEEP!DEEP! Dish pizza, Crazy Bread®, Caesar Wings® and other delicious selections.

About Little Caesars Pizza

Little Caesars® Pizza, known for its HOT-N-READY® pizza and famed Crazy Bread®, is the largest carry-out pizza chain in America and the fastest growing pizza chain in the world.** Named "Best Value in America"*** for the seventh year in a row, Little Caesars products are made with quality ingredients, like fresh, never frozen, mozzarella and Muenster cheese, dough made fresh daily in every store and sauce made from California crushed tomatoes.

For franchisee candidates, Little Caesars is rapidly expanding in prime markets throughout the world, providing an opportunity for independence in a franchise system. In addition, Little Caesars offers strong brand awareness with one of the most recognized and appealing characters in the country, Little Caesar.

Little Caesars Pizza founders Michael and Marian Ilitch opened their first restaurant in Garden City, Michigan in 1959. In addition to Little Caesars Pizza, Michael and Marian Ilitch's companies in the food, sports and entertainment industries include: the Detroit Red Wings, Olympia Entertainment, Olympia Development, Blue Line Foodservice Distribution, Champion Foods, Ilitch Holdings, Inc., Uptown Entertainment, Little Caesars Pizza Kit Fundraising Program, and a variety of venues within these entities. Michael Ilitch owns the Detroit Tigers. Marian Ilitch owns MotorCity Casino Hotel. For more information about Little Caesars, visit www.LittleCaesars.com or call 1-800-553-5776.

* QSR Magazine's Drive-Thru Performance Study: Average Service Time, 2013.

**Fastest growing pizza chain in the world – based on net number of stores added 2008-2012.

*** "Highest-Rated Chain – Value for the Money" based on a nationwide survey of quick-service restaurant consumers conducted by Sandelman & Associates, 2007- 2013.

PEPSI and the Pepsi Globe design are registered trademarks of PepsiCo, Inc.

SOURCE Little Caesars Pizza