A Los Angeles pizzeria is serving an immersive vampire experience to diners under lockdown
- Entrepreneur Josh Sugarman teamed with LA's Ghost Pizza on Vampire Pizza, an immersive monster mystery delivered with a pie of your choice.
- "The idea is that there's a vampire community hidden in LA who have been here for centuries but have had to stay isolated, and now they've found a way to come together," Sugarman told Insider.
- Ornate game kits brought by "delivery vamps" include puzzles and activities, including arts-and-crafts, cooking, and dress-up challenges using household items.
- The first two Vampire Pizza rollouts have sold out, and Sugarman has expanded the business to Las Vegas.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
A Los Angeles pizzeria has teamed up with local artists to deliver an immersive vampire mystery to Angelenos isolating at home.
Interactive-experience developer Josh Sugarman created Vampire Pizza in partnership with Ghost Pizza Kitchen, a New York-style pizzeria on Melrose Avenue.
For $32.99 per person for a party of two or $27.99 per person for a party of four, diners receive a medium pizza, salad, and dessert, along with instructions from Belle, proprietor of the fictional Belle's Family Kitchen.
"The idea is that there's a vampire community hidden in LA who have been here for centuries but have had to stay isolated, and now they've found a way to come together," Sugarman told Insider.
Delivering a slice of mystery
The elaborate game kits are brought by costumed "delivery vamps," though contactless pickup points are also available on Melrose and the Venice Boardwalk. Inside the boxes are puzzles and activities, many with instructions for props using household objects.
The game takes about 60 to 90 minutes to complete and ends with a cliffhanger inviting participants to return for future "chapters."
Vampire Pizza is particularly well-suited for life under quarantine, Sugarman said.
"We're delivering to people the tools to turn regular everyday items into magic," he said. "There's an arts-and-crafts component, there's a dress-up challenge, there's a cooking challenge. There's something for everyone."
He tapped artists put out of work by the pandemic, including creatives from MyCotoo, the company known for HBO's interactive Westworld exhibit at SXSW, and Wild Optimists, the team behind the successful Escape Room in a Box series.
It's worked better than anyone expected, with all 250 kits selling out during the pop-up's four-day launch April 9 to 12. Production was ramped up to 500 kits for the next run, May 1 to 3, but it sold out, too.
"COVID-19 has created a heavy shadow, and it's easy to start to lose faith, but doing this has brought life, joy, and a sense of purpose back to the team," Ghost Pizza Kitchen founder Benjamin Sales told Insider. "After we launched, our sales doubles from the previous week, bringing us back to — and beyond — where we were before COVID."
Ghost Pizza's website traffic has also grown by almost 300%, Sales added, and its social-media following jumped 15%.
"It put us in a spotlight and allowed people to engage with us in such a personal way," he said.
Some pizza companies are thriving under lockdown
Vampire Pizza's success has been welcome news for the wavering restaurant industry, which has lost two-thirds of its workforce since early March, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Pizza restaurants have fared better than others, but national chains have enjoyed the bulk of that success: Papa John's stock price doubled on April 22, hitting $69.79. Domino's has reported near-record profits and projects 7% to 10% growth for April.
Smaller independent pizzerias haven't done as well, and experts predict many will shutter before the pandemic's end.
Ghost Kitchen is actually increasing its production and workforce, though, outsourcing some pie-making to Venice Beach's Big Daddy's Pizza and expanding delivery to the Westside.
A portion of proceeds goes toward the League of Experiential and Immersive Artists emergency fund, but the project is also helping the industry more directly.
"This is LA, so most of our delivery drivers are also actors," Sales says. "They're definitely having fun with it [but] we're helping entertainment industry people who are out of work, too."
He and Sugarman are deep in conversation about how best to scale up. Pizzerias are raising their hands to be considered and customers are nominating their zip codes on the Vampire Pizza website.
Vampire Pizza has just announced a second rollout in Las Vegas, where Sugarman is partnering with Those Guys Pies and local experiential entertainment complex AREA15 for a pop-up experience over Mother's Day weekend.
"What's surprised us most is how enthusiastic people are for us to continue this long-term," Sugarman said. "What we're getting in messages is that this is something that people would want to do, even if there weren't a pandemic."
"The idea was born out of crisis," he added, "but as an innovation, we hope it's here to stay."
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