For starters, it's made by Imo’s Pizza.
Second, the pizza contains sausage and bacon, but no pizza sauce. And fresh eggs, a little Italian dressing on the shell, oh, and Provel cheese.
If we’ve alienated any pizza lovers with such a blasphemous description, that’s unfortunate, because the Egg-ceptional pizza (above) is arguably the best item the 98-store company offers.
Bear with us. First, the history lesson.
This particular egg pizza was created about 1990 by the Imo's franchisee in Alton, Il. In those days, a dam of Provel cheese kept the eggs from oozing off Imo's trademark thin shell. Proprietary sausage was added, and more Provel. Additional toppings could be added, if desired. The pie was then topped with bacon, a scatter of grated cheese, and sent through a conveyor oven. The pizza sold well in Alton and later that decade was adopted company wide.
But it never really caught on. It was the classic, taste-it-and-see item that not enough people tasted. Part of the problem was that it was a breakfast-y item — no argument there — and Imo’s was not open for breakfast.
Photo by Kevin A. Roberts
Fast forward to 2016, when eating "breakfast for dinner" was de rigueur, as was "breakfast served all day" (thanks in no small part to McDonald’s).
Carl Imo (right), the heir apparent to the family business, confessed his love of the egg pizza to SLM in this November 2015 Q&A, calling it “the biggest sleeper item we have,” hinting that he was going to reintroduce it in 2016 with a renewed marketing push. That effort is currently underway, along with the introduction of online ordering and a loyalty program. Whatever the reason, Imo boasts that sales are up "across the board" so far in 2016, and that includes the Egg-ceptional pizza.
Imo realized that “breakfast food is a proven trend” and thinks the Egg-ceptional pizza is the perfect breakfast item. It's priced the same as Imos' other specialty pizzas and should be available at all store locations. Imo admitted it’s his new favorite pizza and that "everyone who tries it, likes it."
(Full disclosure: The author was a former Imo’s franchisee and an advocate of this pizza from day one. At the time he chided his employees for squiggling honey, of all things, over the top of the cooked pie—until he tried it. Now, it’s a honey drizzle on some of them, sriracha sauce on others.)
