I just saw a feature about them on the Food Channel the other night. How is their pizza? Gourmet, mid-level or Domino’s type?
What caught my interest was how they season the outer crust. Anyone here tried it? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
I compete with a pretty successful Howies francisee and their pizza is terrible. They have always offered cheap carryout specials, like 14" 1topping for 4.24, but have now gone to a little ceasers Hot and Now concept with $5 cheese or pep always ready. As far as their flavored crust, it really doesn’t make a crappy product any better. Their “oven baked subs” on the other hand are pretty good.
They got everyone’s attention with those flavored crusts. It is their point of separation in the marketplace. I know lots of people who buy their pies in Atlanta simply because of that crust thing. I like the idea, but not enough to buy mediocre (at best) pizza for crust flavoring. I can put connamon sugar on it myself 
Where is this HH that is offering Hot and Now located?
Hungry Howie Ranks in my bottom 5 worst pizzas I have ever had.
Flavored crusts have been around for 20 yrs.
When I was younger and worked for Caesars they ran crust flavoring which consisted of poppy seed, sesame seed or parm…
As for execution, we would garlic butter the crust after the pie was out and shake with parm for the garlic/parm and the others we would use a slight bit of water to dampen the crust and then shake the sesame or poppy on the outside after pizza was out.
That said, the popularity of the garlic/parm crust was like 90/10 to any other flavors or styles combined.
It makes a greasy or sticky crust and I dont think it is that great to be honest with you and I concurr with others here, Hungry Howies is a joke, some of the worst pizza around. I get their expensive mailers all the time and I never get even tempted to try the food again.
Where are you guys at? In my area HH is pretty big. Product is good, maybe because it’s closer to HQ? They are based out of Michigan.
I have a HH about 1/4 of a mile from me. I think their product is decent. The unit out here is run by good people who care so I’ve always had respect for their place.
Im in MI, worked for them for 5 years. As far as sales they are ok but nothing huge. They use the cheapest of the cheap for everything.
HH is a well established chain. In fact they are the 10-11 largest chain according to revenue in the nation (which means the world). They pioneered the flavored crust, and still control this category today — 20 years after the fact.
I like how the previous poster has mentioned that they “compete” with a “pretty successful” franchisee who has “terrible” pizza. What a misleading point - if ever. Perhaps, sir, you are not in the right business if you “compete” with awful pizza. They have NOT always offered cheap carry-out specials. They still have respectable prices, but due to the flailing MI economy, they have adjusted prices to convince people to part with their money. Couple that with a rising cheese price and increasing min wage, and you have the worst state to do small business in MI – especially pizza. Blecch!!! The margins are the worst ever, and consumers are so price sensitive which is what has lead to a Pizza Pricing War.
Just like any “chain”, there are going to be dog stores, and if you are near one of these stores, I feel bad for you. HH has a very tasty product which can more or less be slapped together and still taste very good. As for the franchisees that are selling Hot-and-Ready pizzas, they are doing an injustice upon the product itself and the people who have to eat it.
there is exactly ONE hungry howies in the suburb where i grew up.
to me, it always ranked last among the pizza delivery options; the crust was always too doughy and gummy, not enough sauce, and the cheese fell off the slice before you could eat it.
but i have to say that the flavored crusts are exactly what sticks in your mind and makes you want to order from them again. the new flavors kinda made up for the rest of the pizza.
be kind to hungry howie. he provides the perfect hangover cure.
The injustice is that people are dumb enough to eat crap pizza like HH and little caesars period. My guess is you own a HH.
A little harsh, don’t you think? We’re all pizza guys (and gals) here. No need to resort to childish insults. THe reason why we’re all here is because we love pizza, and every one of us believes that ours is the best. If we didn’t, we would go work with the other guy. I happen to prefer HH, but I also recognize that there are a lot of other good pizzas out there. I’m sure that every one of us has had a really good LC at one point, and a really bad “gourmet” indy pizza. It doesn’t make us “dumb” Mr. Guest. It means that we have different tastes, and if it wasn’t for different tastes, we would all be in trouble, because the price war would be the only war.