Pizza Hut, you enrage me

Let's start with a hypothetical. Let's say you are running a national restaurant chain which specializes in a meal most often consumed at dinner.

Consider this question as we move on: What time would you establish as closing time for such an establishment?

Further, let's say that on one particular day, you have decided to donate some of your profits that day to help in the rebuilding of a regional disaster area. You're probably expecting a larger crowd than normal, right? You've just given every indecicive person in the country an added reason to buy from you, and they'll feel good about themselves for doing it. You are going to make a killing today.

Now, after considering the quesion posed above, consider it again, only adjusting for the knowledge that on this special day, your demand will be unusually high. You will be more popular than every other similar competing restaurant on this day.

And let's say Joe Regular gets home from work at about 7 p.m. He's thinking about watching the NBA playoffs, which begin at 8 p.m., and he's thinking about having a pizza. And maybe he checks his e-mail, watches SportsCenter for a while, talks to somebody on the phone and, right around 8, decides he's ready to place his order.

Do you think it would be a good idea, a good business plan, to a) be open, b) answer the phone, and c) take this Joe's order?

I would, but I'm not running Pizza Hut. Maybe they know something I don't.