Deliveries continue despite commotion

By David Brunner
Staff Writer

Ordering pizza Sunday night was no more difficult than usual. Delivering it, however, meant negotiating the crazy atmosphere of the post-game commotion. No one knows that better than Ryan Nukem, a delivery driver for Papa John's Pizza.

"We were never on time (Sunday)," Nukem said. "It was hard to get around and sometimes people would not come out to get their pizza because of the tear gas."

Papa John's Pizza maintained its service with only temporary interruptions to Cary Quadrangle but other delivery drivers, such as those for Mad Mushroom Pizza, had delayed schedules throughout the night.

Raul Perez, the manager of Mad Mushroom Pizza, said that the blocked streets caused most of the delays.

"When Stadium (Avenue) was shut down, we started telling all of our customers that the food would be late," Perez said. "Stadium is our main route and that caused us a lot of problems."

Other businesses, such as Dominos Pizza, were almost forced to close early.

Germain Flores, the general manager for Dominos Pizza, said, "We had a dumpster-fire here at about 10:30 p.m. that I was afraid was going to close us down, but it was taken care of."

The small service interruptions were not the worst of it Nukem said. The volatile atmosphere on the street was his biggest concern.

"I spent most of the night driving through or around fires and bumping people with my car who acted like they owned the road," Nukem said. "It was very intense … all I could do was fasten my seatbelt, lock my doors and make sure that I had my cell phone with me, but the tear gas was unavoidable.

"My eyes would water so bad sometimes that I could not see the road. Someone should do something about (the tear gas); that was very dangerous for drivers."

Tom McKinney, the general manager at Papa John's Pizza, had confidence in his drivers, but was still worried about the environment that they had to deal with.

"The drivers can take care of themselves," McKinney said. "They know what a dangerous situation is and when not to go there. Most of them also had cell phones so that if a problem or a delay would come up, they were ready."

Flores said that despite all the commotion, his drivers took the night in stride.

"Many drivers would take shirts with them to cover their faces with while on delivery," Flores said.

Darold Lewis, a senior driver for Papa John's Pizza, said, "Our job is dangerous anyway. We have to rush the deliveries, deal with drunk drivers; we never know who or where we are delivering to and now we have to deal with riots. I didn't work on Sunday, but I worked the riots in 1999 and I remember it. It was hell."

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