Now there are, but not at the time the article was written. DC has had an amazing culinary renaissance, with Jose Andres leading the way, but at the time it was mostly noted for steak houses for lobbyists.

Even today, the immediate vicinity of the Capitol and office buildings is kinda weak on food. There's a nice set of restaurants on Pennsylvania Avenue, but the food trucks are all over at L'Enfant, and the real mass of restaurants require a trip to Penn Quarter/the-area-formerly-Chinatown-but-now-all-chains.

I do, however, highly recommend We The Pizza a few blocks away. Silly name, but really fantastic fancy-artisan-pizza by noted local chef Spike Mendelsohn.

> DC has had an amazing culinary renaissance, with Jose Andres leading the way, but at the time it was mostly noted for steak houses for lobbyists

It’s not a renaissance if there was nothing there of any quality before. For a rebirth there men’ needs to have been a birth.

They had an emergency pizza analyst on site and Domino's had the best price/performance and quantity/delivery time ratios at the time.

And once again, everything broken in government starts with procurement.

Don’t shade on Domino’s. They have worked hard on getting from least-common-denominator pizza to halfway-Ok pizza.

Dominos is dirt cheap. Around me a large pizza from an independent pizzeria can be $30 or more, while dominos will sell a large pizza for under $10.

Of course, the quality is as low as the price, but some people aren't sensitive to pizza quality.

Because you need 30 pizzas with cheese, pepperoni and mushroom delivered in 55 minutes after the lunch plans got shifted to deal with a crisis.

Yes, there are better. But quantity and JIT delivery are virtues of their own.

Manny and Olga's is so bad as to not qualify as food. I've heard that We The Pizza is where they get it on the Hill, now. Andy's is great.

>Why on earth would you order Domino's?

Bravo, someone's finally asking the right questions around here.

To play devil's advocate, perhaps GP's rationale had to do with the fact that when you freeze cardboard, it still tastes like cardboard when thawed. There's very little loss there.

Sounded like they order everywhere, local artisan pizza places as well as national chains. I imagine Domino's was just an easier target to interview. Or maybe the effect is easier to notice if you can aggregate the sales from a large number of restaurants - so large chains have an advantage here compared to individual restaurants or small chains.

... or maybe the article was sponsored by Domino's, who knows :)

Yeah. The article quotes the guy who owns sixty dominoes stores in DC. He's going to have much more data at hand than a mom and pop store.

He probably also has accounts set up for various departments, whereas a small shop would probably just tell an office to use a corporate card, and have more difficulty tracking the order volume.

the office catering equivalent of "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"?

Manny and Olga's is gross.

Those in the know hit up Wiseguy.

Never had a domino's - heard people say they're expensive but good but you disagree? Ur views welcome (am in the UK if that makes any difference).

The cost is on par (and sometimes under) frozen pizzas from the grocery store. The quality is okay, if you have a fairly low standard for what you want out of your pizza. The thin crust is utterly terrible. Honestly, I'd rather get a frozen pizza and cook it myself given the option, or going literally anywhere else for pizza (except maybe Little Caesar's).

Dominos is very cheap if you order one of the items they have on perpetual sale, but very expensive for the quality otherwise.

In the US, they're known for having lots of coupons and specials, and being cheap. The cheese has a weird consistency, to me at least.

They're the McDonald's of pizza restaurants.

Pretty sure I've never had a maccy D's either, but I get what you're saying, thanks.

For me, it’s cheap, consistent, guilty pleasure!