Hungry Howie’s streamlines third-party delivery for franchisees
A pizza retailer with innovative crust is adopting a new solution to manage delivery across its franchise stores.
Hungry Howie’s, which originated flavored crust pizza, is adopting the Cartwheel Hybrid Delivery platform following a successful pilot. The pizza chain is progressing with a phased rollout across its nearly 500-location system, with all locations targeted to be live by the second quarter of 2027.
Cartwheel technology gives Hungry Howie’s franchisees a single view of in-house and third-party delivery, with fulfillment provided by the DoorDash Drive white label delivery platform. Hybrid Delivery prioritizes in-house fleets based on configurable factors such as proximity to the store, order value and driver availability, then automatically routes to third-party drivers when demand peaks.
Franchise operators can see every driver in real time from one place, while automated rules handle the manual work required to coordinate delivery capacity. Third-party deliveries managed by the system still carry Hungry Howie's branded real-time tracking, promotional banners and post-delivery feedback prompts, keeping customer experience consistent no matter which fleet handles the order and helping give operators clear visibility into delivery performance.
In addition, Cartwheel's AI-powered auto-dispatch cuts routing decisions from up to 10 minutes manually to less than a second. The platform orchestrates orders across national delivery providers based on brand-defined priorities including fastest, lowest-cost or preferred provider, and connects restaurants with more than 50 local catering delivery providers.
“We continue to see real value in maintaining a direct relationship with our guests and investing in our in-house delivery capabilities,” said Moe Shrikian, executive VP and general counsel at Hungry Howie’s. “Third-party delivery provides important additional reach and flexibility, and Cartwheel helps us bring these approaches together while maintaining a consistent guest experience as we modernize our delivery operations.”
Cartwheel is part of the Toast partner ecosystem, and Hungry Howie’s deployment of the solution builds on an implementation of a comprehensive, pizza-specific Toast tech stack the retailer initiated in May 2026. Hungry Howie’s is deploying Toast restaurant POS terminals and kitchen display systems, as well as the vendor’s multi-location management and payment processing solutions.
[READ MORE: Hungry Howie’s modernizing enterprise operations]
In addition, Hungry Howie’s plans to implement the Toast IQ conversational artificial intelligence assistant. Cartwheel connects directly into the Toast restaurant technology platform.
This enterprise modernization effort also includes a partnership with DoorDash which the retailer launched in July 2026 that will see DoorDash support Hungry Howie's owned channels while also maintaining its presence on the DoorDash app.
"As technology advances at an unprecedented pace, enterprise pizza brands are accelerating their move from legacy systems to modern, integrated technology stacks built around best-of-breed partners,” said Alex Vasilkin, co-founder and CEO of Cartwheel.
Madison Heights, Mich.-based Hungry Howie’s has been in business for more than 50 years and operates nearly 500 stores in 18 states across the U.S. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in San Francisco, DoorDash provides on-demand delivery services in 25 countries across the globe.
