The Ninja Turtles are coming for your wallet!
Crowds of hungry tourists and soccer fans waited up to an hour this weekend to fork over $52 for a large two topping pie at the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizzeria on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.
“The prices are insane,” Lorraine McCreery, a visitor from Illinois, told The Sun. “But my kids really wanted to come.”
With $39 cheese pies, $6.50 slices and $6 sodas, the turtles may be running the priciest pizzeria this side of Brooklyn. McCreery, of course, had plenty of cheeper and more convenient options –– including Stefano’s just one block down, where the same two topping pie would cost just $32.95. But no other slice shop comes with the immersive blacklit dining experience, ’90s character artwork and exclusive Hollywood merch.
The 3000 square foot TMNT restaurant has been in “soft open” mode all week with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony and grand opening planned for next Saturday. When the doors swing open at 11 a.m., the first 100 paying customers will receive exclusive, limited-edition TMNT memorabilia. Appearances from Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo have also been promised.
But that may not be enough to get some locals in the door. Over the weekend a thread on Reddit was already calling out the eatery’s “theme park prices.”
“It seems that they’re marketing toward the international tourists who don’t know how much things cost or domestic tourists who do it once for the experience, vs. the neighborhood,” user Individual-Papaya-27 commented. Redditor Sleejayy also groaned: “I was excited for this place but now I’m outraged and I hate it. Jesus… just a shameless tourist trap for silly people instead of a cool fan service with a solid brand. 50 dollars for a F——G PIZZA is dystopian as hell.”
The restaurant, which was announced last year, was developed through a licensing partnership with Paramount Products & Experiences and the Lunchbox Group. At the helm is entrepreneur Andy Nguyen who has previously created One Piece Cafe in Little Tokyo in collaboration with Toei Animation and the Sonic the Hedgehog Speed Cafe in Atlanta.
The Santa Monica location is one of three TMNT pizzerias currently in the works. Additional outlets are set to open in Monterrey, Mexico, and São Paulo, Brazil.
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