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by tyingq 1889 days ago
I imagine Sbarro, Orange Julius, Aunt Annies, etc, are probably also struggling.
2 comments

I see a lot of Sbarros at airports. Which is absolutely not to say they're not struggling - they probably very much are - but only to say that they're not a mall-only place.
Was curious so I pulled their list of 571 locations. 204 say either "Mall", "Center" or "Food Court". 18 say "Airport". Raw html if anyone is curious: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/tyingq/0e5701c4cb666cba9d...
FWIW this isn't necessarily indicative of the number of ones in airports. For example "Istanbul Havalimani H-42 HPS Sbarro" only says airport in Turkish and "Aeropuerto Los Cabos" is in Spanish (though maybe these are the exception, not the rule).

Looking at it further, it does go both ways as well - for example "Gurnee Mills" is in a mall.

There also seem to be a surprising number of Sbarros outside of the U.S though they are all listed first in the list.

I actually ate at the Havalimani Sbarro!

It was my first taste of European pizza. It had no tomato sauce inside it. I went to the staff to signal that I wanted sauce in the pizza and they had no clue what I was saying.

That day I came to the shocking realization that that's how the rest of the world ate pizza.

"European pizza"

Interesting. Does this vary across Europe? I lived in Germany for a few years, and ate plenty of pizza with tomato sauce.

Olive Oil > Tomato Sauce on a pizza.
Ouch.

Thanks for looking that up!

Sbarro seems to have redone itself in the last few years so I’ll renounce my previous hatred but I have an unreasonable affection for Orange Julius, even if I have to sit in a DQ drive thru. It’s unpretentious and undemanding. The Jeffrey Archer novel (ok maybe I should say mindless instead of unpretentious) of drinks.
A car oasis that used to be along my commute has a Sbarro that serves breakfast, and it's pretty great. Scrambled eggs, sausage links, potatoes, and several different breakfast calzones. I often stopped there in the mornings.
Yes, the ones on the PA turnpike have redone themselves to great effect.