Last year, Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria donated $115,000 to No Kid Hungry with help from diners in the Tampa area and beyond — and the Halo Awards noticed. The annual celebration of corporate social responsibility has recognized Grimaldi’s in its Small Business Category, presenting the Brooklyn-born pizza chain with the silver award.
Grimaldi’s partnership with No Kid Hungry, which is going on five years, asks patrons to donate $5 or $10 to receive a $5- or $10-off coupon for their next visit. The chain’s 2017 contribution — raised through the Dine Out promo that ran at all of its restaurants Sept. 1 to 30 — allows the nonprofit to provide 1,150,000 additional meals to kids facing childhood hunger nationwide.
Alaska Fertilizer and Cornell Lab of Ornithology beat out Grimaldi’s for gold in the Small Business Category, but the chain’s silver achievement isn’t any less admirable. Twenty-eight honors, spread out across 14 categories, were distributed during the Halo Awards, hosted by Engage for Good at the organization’s 16th annual conference in Chicago.
According to a statement from Eric Greenwald, president and COO of Grimaldi’s, the restaurant biz talks a lot about return on investment.
“I have a simple one for you: the investment in passion, time, and energy in ending childhood hunger here in America. The return is amazing,” Greenwald said. “On average, over the past four years, we’ve seen a seven to 10 percent increase in same-store sales from the Dine-Out promotion.”
Operating locally at WestShore Plaza, Grimaldi’s is known for its signature crispy, smoky thin-crust pies as much as its “secret” sauce. The chain with 49 restaurants in 16 states serves traditional pizza — a sort of nod to Naples, Italy — in an upscale-meets-casual and family-friendly setting.
This article appears in Jun 21-28, 2018.
