Remember When Little Caesars Had Spaghetti Buckets On Its Menu?
The catchphrase "Pizza! Pizza!" makes the star of Little Caesars' menu pretty clear. Once upon a time, however, the Detroit-based chain offered customers another popular staple in Italian cuisine.
The year was 1993, and Little Caesars was ramping up its menu with a few new items (via MoneyINC). These included a pizza with a french fry crust and spaghetti, the latter of which was served to customers in a unique and slightly comical way. Whether the order was small, medium, or large, the pasta dish was served in buckets rather than aluminum tins. The largest of these buckets appeared to be roughly the same size and shape as those gallon-sized ice cream tubs at the grocery store.
Priced at less than $10, the Big! Big! Bucket of spaghetti was advertised as containing enough food to serve up to five people, though the noodles and red sauce weren't ready to eat straight from the handled plastic container. Per the instructions written on the side of the pail, after opening the tub, customers were meant to take out the layer of breadsticks that came with the meal, and then portion out the noodles onto individual plates. Once all the pasta was plated, customers then had to remove a "separator" from the bucket, revealing sauce that they could then ladle over the bare noodles.
Spaghetti buckets didn't last very long
Many people have fond memories of Little Caesars' spaghetti and the bucket it came in. On a Reddit thread about the item, one user said, "I remember really liking the spaghetti. Some of the best I've known and my brother is half Italian." Others recalled using the bucket for other tasks like storing toys, while another Redditor, who identified themselves as an employee of Little Caesars during the spaghetti days, praised the ingenious packaging and the spaghetti sauce, which they described as being "kind of sweet ... [with] some meat in it."
Little Caesar's Spaghetti Bucket (1993-circa 1994): A plastic bucket containing breadsticks, pasta, and sauce, available in sizes little, medium, or "Big! Big!" pic.twitter.com/zkP6hSfIKP
— Discontinued Foods! (@Snack_Memories) October 26, 2022
Still, some netizens admitted to having no memories of the pizza chain's brief venture into pasta — though considering Little Caesars only offered the spaghetti bucket until 1994, as estimated by a tweet from @Snack_Memories, that's hardly surprising. So, what was behind the spaghetti bucket's quick discontinuation? Despite its relatively low price tag and quirky packaging, a 1998 article from Crain's Detroit Business cited low sales as the culprit. This claim was accompanied by complaints from franchisees about the cost of the equipment needed to make the dish.
Unfortunately, re-creating the chain's spaghetti may prove difficult, as there isn't too much info about the recipe online. There are, however, a few Little Caesars spaghetti buckets available on eBay for those who still want to experience eating pasta out of a plastic pail.