Barberton pizza shop delivers with Halloween hearse
A few pizza patrons around Barberton received a little more spice with their slice as Halloween approached this year.
A little more tease with their cheese, you could say.
A little more poppin’ with the toppin’.
The “extra” arrived courtesy of East of Chicago owner Jeremy Clemetsen, who used a hearse to make some deliveries last month.
During the dastardly deliveries, Clemetsen said he wore a face covering with a skull and sometimes was accompanied by Halloween-attired helpers. A coffin was placed menacingly in the back of the vehicle.
Clemetsen, who has a reputation for putting witty messages on his sign at the Barberton store, said he came up with the idea while thinking of promotions for his establishment. His friend owned a hearse and Halloween was coming up. And it was National Pizza Month.
They came together like pepperoni and cheese.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you let me take your hearse and use it for delivering on the weekends?’ ” Clemetsen said.
His friend obliged, and customers who requested the service received their pizzas with the fright for no extra cost.
It wasn’t the only Halloween-themed promotion Clemetson cooked up last month.
At the beginning of October, he left 30 red balloons tied to 30 pizza boxes stuffed with coupons around the city. The red balloons, he said, were a nod to the Stephen King character Pennywise, an evil clown in a silver suit featured in movies and the novel “It.”
That promotion was successful, he said – maybe even better than the hearse deliveries.
Alan Ashworth can be reached at 330-996-3859 or emailed at aashworth@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @newsalanbeaconj.