Ian’s Pizza provided free pizza to poll workers at all 108 polling places in Madison on Tuesday, and is continuing the giveaway for voters Tuesday evening, according to Nick Martin, managing partner and part-owner of Ian’s Pizza.
“Our goal this year was to cover every polling place in Madison,” said Martin. Two years ago, Ian’s served free pizza to half of the city’s polling locations, with just three restaurants. This year, they managed to serve all of them.
By 4 p.m., Ian’s employees had delivered two 20-inch mac-and-cheese pizzas to each polling location. The pizzas were sliced into 24 pieces to ensure each location had enough to serve poll workers. “It’s our way of thanking poll workers and bringing them lunch,” Martin said.
The poll-worker giveaway is part of Ian’s “Mac the Vote” campaign. For several elections, the restaurant has also handed out its signature mac-and-cheese slices to voters.
From 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, free pizza will be available to voters at Ian’s Frances Street location on campus and at the Garver Feed Mill on Madison’s East Side.
“It’s like, ‘Go vote, and then come have some free food,’” Martin said. The three Ian’s restaurants were closed during the day so employees could vote.
The Garver Feed Mill event will feature a party atmosphere with kids’ activities, face painting, balloon animals, live music, and a magician.
To ensure no employee worked all day, all the restaurants were closed until 5 p.m., and State Street remained closed for the night. “We don’t want anyone to have to work all day long,” Martin explained.
Voters don’t need to wear an “I voted” sticker to get a free slice of pizza, although that was the original rule when the campaign began.
The deliveries to polling places involved 15 drivers. Since none of the restaurants have that many drivers, management staff, office workers, and others pitched in. Martin even delivered some pizzas himself.
“Everyone was super gracious, and it was a lot of fun,” Martin said. “People were genuinely grateful and said, ‘Thank you for making this happen.’”
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