Tombstone has come a long way since its introduction at a small Wisconsin
bar. But could it really become the official pizza of Halloween?
Tombstone pizza has been in business since 1962, and like many businesses, it's gone through
multiple iterations. The frozen pizza company was started by brothers Joseph Simek and Ronald
Simek. The two lived in Medford, Wisconsin and were operating a bar called The Tombstone Tap.
"I'm your huckleberry."
And why such a morbid name, you ask? The bar was located right outside a cemetery because,
well, something has to go next to a cemetery, right?
Looking to increase revenue, the Simek brothers decided to start selling pizza.
After an unfortunate accident, Joseph was left with a broken leg,
giving him time to perfect the recipe. This resulted in pizza that raked in customers.
People were taken with Tombstone pizza and business majorly increased. In just
a few short years, the brothers were dishing out around 2,000 pizzas a day.
Tombstone pizza, originally sold as a bar snack, was selling remarkably well,
and nearby restaurants started noticing. Looking to get their own slice of the pie,
neighboring eateries purchased frozen pizza from Tombstone,
per Funding Universe, and by 1963 it was available all over the region.
To get its pizza to hungry customers, Tombstone utilized what resources it had. As noted in
The Tombstone Story, the Simek brothers used their 1959 Cadillac as their delivery vehicle.
This unique delivery method didn't last long, though, and by 1966 the brothers took out a
loan for $5,600 to purchase a refrigerated truck for pizza delivery. Tombstone's growth
happened quickly, and by the late 1960s, the company had built its own manufacturing plant
to produce pizzas on a larger scale, according to Reference for Business. Within 15 years,
the company had gone from homemade pizzas sold at a single location to a national operation
with products appearing in both small and major retailers across the country.
Though it operated for many years on its own, after surpassing $100 million in revenue,
major food companies in the United States were interested in the Wisconsin-based pizza maker,
according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In 1986,
just two years after hitting that major revenue mark, Tombstone pizza was acquired by Kraft.
Kraft did not retain ownership of Tombstone for too long and eventually sold the pizza
brand to Nestle. The costs of both sales were left undisclosed, but judging by current data,
purchasing Tombstone was good for both Kraft and Nestle, as frozen pizza is a
multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. What can we say, people love pizza.
You can't deny the power of a good slogan, and for quite some time Tombstone pizza
was known for just that. Customers associated Tombstone with good pizza,
but they also recognized the uniqueness of its name, and the brand capitalized on that.
For many years, Tombstone's slogan was the grim phrase,
"What do you want on your Tombstone?"
It was stated in commercials that featured a man choosing toppings for
his Tombstone pizza instead of a touching tribute to be inscribed on his epitaph.
Though the slogan was catchy and loved by many,
the company had an ad agency review the catchphrase to ensure it wasn't offensive,
as did many brands in the early 1990s, per The New York Times. According to Ad Age, Tombstone ended
up changing its slogan nearly a decade later, opting for the decidedly less macabre phrase,
"Shoulda had that Tombstone."
When the company first introduced a tagline,
though, it had nothing to do with death. Per Nestle, the pizza brand's first slogan was,
There are countless frozen pizza brands in circulation today,
making it difficult to stand out in the field. But once upon a time,
Tombstone was the top provider of frozen pizza in the country, according to Post Crescent.
This didn't last, though, as other frozen pizza brands took the top spot. In 2017,
per Statista, Tombstone's sister brand DiGiorno led sales in the United States,
reaching over $1 billion in revenue.
Tombstone comes in a total of 11 different options, including five cheese, pepperoni,
four meat, and supreme. Its flavors are fairly unremarkable, with its most unique being garlic
bread pepperoni. Tombstone doesn't have a great nutritional value, either, with sodium reaching
570 mg for a five-cheese pizza and its cholesterol at 30 mg. And since, as Pew Research explains,
more Americans are concerned with their health now than they were 20 years ago, that could account
for the surge in other frozen pizza brands' popularity — though it's hard to say for certain.
If you're one of the Americans who's more concerned about your health, rejoice,
because your favorite frozen pizza may soon be a bit healthier. Tombstone's parent company,
Nestle, has been working with the French company NIZO on a special project.
The company, as told by Food Navigator in 2022, shared that it's been searching for a healthier
cheese for its frozen pizza — and it just may have found it. Its item replicates Edam, a semi-hard
Dutch cheese that's often used atop frozen pies. Nestle claims the taste of this new cheese product
is the same as Edam, and that its behavior is almost undistinguishable. A NIZO employee shared,
No word on the exact plans for this product, but a Nestle representative said,
If the product goes over well in Europe, perhaps it'll make its
way across the Atlantic and onto our Tombstone pizzas in the United States.
While consumers often get excited for limited-edition food items,
these products are not always good — a fact Tombstone knows all too well. We appreciate
a bold attempt at a unique flavor, but some simply flop, like Tombstone's Bratwurst and
Diablo flavors. These pizzas appeared in 2015, and as one Nestle employee said,
Unsurprisingly, these two flavors did not make it past the limited edition stage.
Some of Tombstone's limited edition attempts have been a little more fun and a lot less
... interesting. In 2012, to celebrate what we assume is Tombstone's favorite holiday, the brand
re-released its Halloween pizzas. These products weren't uniquely flavored; instead, they featured
illustrations of spooky characters biting into pizza on their labels. The company also gave away
coupons and other special items to lucky customers who interacted on the Tombstone Facebook page.
In 2013, the company tried in earnest to become the Official Pizza of Halloween,
and it used social media to do so. Tombstone employed Deep Focus,
a digital marketing agency, to create chatter around the pizza maker in the month of October.
The agency came up with Bites of Fright, a 31-day campaign in which Tombstone posted
video shorts to various social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and the bygone
Vine — all featuring some nod to the spooky holiday. Per the entry for a Shorty Award,
Bites of Fright was a hit, and Tombstone's social engagement saw a major increase.
The spooky season is still the busiest time of year for the pizza brand on social media. In 2022,
the company posted 11 times on Instagram during the haunted holiday season. By comparison,
Tombstone only posted twice in May and twice in August,
leaving June and July completely dry by social media standards.