Adventures in Pie Tops: Pizza Hut’s Magical Pizza Shoes

At the beginning of March, we wrote a snarky little news post about Pizza Hut, as our food section is wont to do. The editorial intern composing the piece wrote what we were all thinking—Pizza Hut is making high-top sneakers that can order pizza at the touch of a button, and thus we want a pair of those shoes. This was before the TV commercials starring Grant Hill began airing, back in those mostly forgotten days when shoe-delivered pizza seemed like the fever dream of a techno-apocalypse straight out of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan. No, the intern writer didn’t necessarily have the power to make such a portentous offer when she wrote we would make Pizza Hut the “official pizza of Paste” in exchange for a pair of Pie Tops, but it hardly seemed to matter. It’s not as if we were going to receive one of the only 64 pairs of Pie Tops in existence.

And then Pizza Hut responded. And before we knew what was happening, we were looking at the above pair of sneakers in the Paste office. “This is really happening, people,” I announced to my coworkers. “I’ve heard that these sneakers have the ability to level mountains and lay waste to entire regions. Or, at the very least, cause a supreme pizza to appear in this location in 30 minutes or less.”

A deal is a deal, and thus we must proclaim Pizza Hut to be the official pizza of Paste. Until Dominos or Papa Johns is able to invent a propeller beanie that sends both pizza and breadsticks to our office simultaneously, they will retain this austere position. Never let it be said that we are beyond temptation by corporate entities. More accurately, let it be said that the price of our attention is a pair of magical shoes that can give life-giving pizza at the touch of a button.

How The Magical Pizza Shoes Actually Work

Let it be known: I am woefully unqualified to review these shoes in any kind of way relevant to fashion. I am a 30-year-old man who owns three pairs of shoes in my home: Gym shoes, brown shoes and—wait for it—black shoes. These serve my “not getting frostbite on my feet” purposes fairly well. As such, I don’t think I’ve ever worn a pair of high tops before, so when I say that these are a little odd to wear, that doesn’t really carry any weight with it. Being a tall male, I was told through my childhood that it was my civic duty to play basketball, but my subsequent manifestation of zero basketball talent dashed those dreams (and dreams of high-top ownership) quite thoroughly. I will, however, provide proof that these things definitely went onto my feet.

Beyond fashion sense, the Pie Tops are (mostly) functional for their actual, pizza-acquiring purposes. Setup simply involves downloading a phone app, where you can set a default address, a default pizza order, and synch to your Pie Tops via Bluetooth. Our initial attempts to order didn’t immediately work, but the culprit was my own technological luddite-ism more than anything, as the app was presumably written with more recent phone generations in mind. After some help from Pizza Hut HQ, we got the flow of shoe-initiated pizza started.

Pros:

– Technically convenient, once the parameters are set. Once everything is set up (address, payment method, etc), ordering a pizza means clicking the shoe tongue, hitting “confirm” on your phone and waiting.

– The pizzas. It had honestly been a while since the last time I tasted Pizza Hut, but I have no complaints about yesterday’s Pepperoni Lover’s or today’s Supreme pie. I have paid considerably more for worse pizza.

– The fact that everyone who catches a glimpse of your Pie Tops immediately becomes insanely jealous of your Pie Tops.

Cons:

– The shoes are designed to only order one large pizza at a time. So if you’re ordering for yourself and a couple friends: Okie dokie. If you’re trying to feed a crowd, these shoes are not going to be able to place that order.

– The fact that everyone who catches a glimpse of your Pie Tops immediately begins plotting your downfall to obtain your Pie Tops.

Pizza Hut specifically created only 64 pairs of these shoes to match the 64 teams in the March Madness bracket, but judging solely from the response on my own Facebook wall, there are a lot more people out there who would kill to get their hands on a pair. Perhaps a limited run for public sale would be a good idea?

In the meantime, the title of “official bourbon of Paste” is still available, if anyone from Pappy Van Winkle is listening.