TLDR: After tracking topping waste and special-order requests across four Brothers Pizza locations over two years, we identified seven toppings kids reliably eat — and three popular ones they almost always pick off.

By Anthony Marino · Head Pizzaiolo, Brothers Pizza · Last updated May 24, 2026

Context

Every Friday and Saturday night, we run family rush across our four locations — York, Gettysburg, Hanover, and McSherrystown. At peak, we're pushing out 80 to 100 pies an hour. A significant chunk of those orders come from families, and a significant chunk of those families include kids under twelve.

For years, I watched the same scene play out at the pickup counter: a parent orders a loaded pie — pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, onions — and thirty minutes later the mushrooms and peppers are in a neat pile on a paper plate while the kid eats the bare crust.

That's wasted food, a mildly irritated parent, and a kid who learned that pizza comes with an obstacle course.

So in the fall of 2023, I asked our shift supervisors at all four stores to start logging two things: which toppings from split-topping orders got left uneaten by tables that clearly included children (boosters, kid cups, crayons — the usual tells), and which custom "make it simple" requests came specifically on kids' orders. We tracked this through the spring of 2025 — eighteen months of real order data, not a survey.

This article is what we found.

The Decision

We had three options for handling the kid-topping problem. First, do nothing — parents figure it out. Second, create a dedicated kids' menu with pre-set simple pies. Third, document the data and publish genuine guidance so families could make better decisions before they ordered.

We rejected option two fast. A separate kids' menu felt condescending, and frankly the last thing we want to do is print a menu that implies a ten-year-old can't eat real pizza. Kids can eat real pizza. They just have strong opinions about what goes on it.

Option three won. We already publish practical guidance on our food and menu pages, and this fit naturally. Our goal wasn't a marketing exercise — it was cutting down on the waste we see every weekend.

The Process

Months 1–3 (October–December 2023): Shift supervisors at York and McSherrystown started the informal log. We used a simple paper tally sheet at each station — one column for "topping left behind," one column for "special request: remove X." No tech. Just observation.

Months 4–6 (January–March 2024): Gettysburg and Hanover joined the tracking. By February, we had enough data to see the first clear pattern: mushrooms and green peppers were the two most-left-behind toppings at family tables, by a wide margin. Pepperoni was almost never left behind.

Months 7–12 (April–September 2024): We expanded the log to include positive signals — toppings kids at family tables specifically requested when parents let them choose. Pepperoni led. Mozzarella sticks ordered alongside a plain cheese slice showed up 34% more at family tables than non-family tables. Interesting, but not directly a topping insight.

Months 13–18 (October 2024–March 2025): We started grouping the data by age range based on what the parents told us when they ordered ("one for the kids, plain or with pepperoni"). This was rougher data but directionally useful.

The Numbers

Topping % of family orders where it was chosen % of time it was left uneaten Net "kid acceptance rate"
Pepperoni 78% 4% 96%
Extra cheese (mozzarella) 65% 2% 98%
Sausage crumbles 41% 11% 89%
Ham 29% 9% 91%
Pineapple 24% 18% 82%
Mushrooms 38% 61% 39%
Green peppers 33% 58% 42%
Onions 27% 72% 28%
Black olives 19% 54% 46%
Jalapeños 8% 83% 17%

Those numbers are based on combined logs from all four locations. The pattern was consistent across York, Gettysburg, Hanover, and McSherrystown — which tells me this isn't a local quirk. Kids picking off mushrooms is a universal truth.

What Went Wrong

Mistake 1 — We underestimated pineapple's divisiveness. We assumed pineapple would score like pepperoni. It didn't. The 18% leave-behind rate is low enough that pineapple still qualifies as a "kid-friendly" topping, but it was more polarizing than we expected. Some kids love it. Some refuse to touch the slice if pineapple has touched it. The variance was high. Cost: a few wasted pies and some puzzled parents who took our early informal advice too literally.

Mistake 2 — Sausage crumbles vs. sausage slices mattered. When we first started logging, we didn't distinguish between sausage crumbles (which we use on our standard sausage pies) and whole rounds of Italian sausage that some families request. Kids accepted crumbles readily. Larger sausage pieces had a much higher rejection rate — around 31%. We had to go back and re-examine two months of data. Cost: two weeks of rework.

Setback — Holiday season compression. November and December 2023 were unusually busy at our York location with school party orders and sports team pickups (shoutout to the York Revolution youth league parents who kept us hopping). The volume made careful observation harder, and we consider that data noisier than the rest. We nearly dropped those months from the analysis entirely.

What Worked

1. Separating "ordered" from "eaten" was the whole insight. Every pizza operation knows which toppings sell. Nobody tracks which ones end up in the trash. That gap is where the real kid-friendliness data lives. As soon as we split the two columns, the mushroom problem became obvious.

2. Keeping toppings familiar in shape and color. Kids at family tables accepted toppings that looked like what they expected. Pepperoni is red, round, slightly crispy at the edge. It looks like pizza. Mushrooms after baking at 575°F turn dark, shrink, and get slippery. That texture and color shift is the real rejection driver — not just the flavor.

3. Cheese quantity was underrated. Extra mozzarella had the highest acceptance rate in our data — 98%. A generous cheese pull on a slice is as close to a guaranteed win as we found. When we tell parents "just add extra cheese," they sometimes look skeptical. But the data doesn't lie.

The Result

At the end of eighteen months, we had a clear, evidence-based list of toppings that kids actually eat versus toppings that create work for parents and waste for us. Starting situation: no data, lots of anecdote. Final outcome: a ranked list from 96% acceptance (pepperoni) to 17% acceptance (jalapeños), built from real order behavior at four locations.

The practical output for families is straightforward:

Build your kid's pizza from these:

Skip these on the kids' half of any split pie:

If you're ordering from our McSherrystown location for a birthday or team party, ask for a split pie: half pepperoni and extra cheese, half whatever the adults want. We do these constantly. The kitchen at McSherrystown handles split toppings without any upcharge.

What I'd Do Differently

Start tracking texture notes from day one. We captured what toppings were left behind but didn't systematically capture why — texture, flavor, or appearance. That would have taken the analysis from "here's what kids eat" to "here's why they eat it," which is more useful for anyone building a new recipe or a kids' party menu from scratch.

I'd also have distinguished between the 5-and-under crowd and the 8-to-12 crowd earlier. A five-year-old and a ten-year-old have meaningfully different palates. Our data blurs that line.

Key Takeaways for Anyone Doing This at Home or Ordering for a Party

Extra cheese is always right. A 98% acceptance rate means it's the safest bet you have. Don't ration it.

Pepperoni and ham are your workhorses. Between them, they cover nearly every kid who eats meat. The 96% and 91% acceptance rates held consistent from October 2023 through March 2025, across all four of our locations.

Mushrooms are a trap. They're the third-most-ordered topping in our family data and the topping most consistently left uneaten. Adults like them. Kids eat around them. Don't add them to the kids' half.

Split pies are your friend. Every Brothers Pizza location does split toppings. Use them. Put the kid-friendly toppings on one half, whatever the adults want on the other. We see this order constantly from York to Gettysburg to Hanover.

Sausage crumble texture matters. Small, evenly distributed crumbles are fine. A big round sausage disc that takes over a slice triggers rejection. If you're making pizza at home, cut or crumble your sausage before it goes on.

If you want to see what a well-built family pie looks like in practice, our menu page shows the standard builds we use across all four locations. And if you're feeding a team or a school group, check our coupons page — we run regular family-size deals that make the split-pie approach pretty affordable.

We go through close to 600 lbs of dough on a typical Friday night across all locations. A lot of that dough ends up under family orders. Getting those orders right — so the kids actually eat instead of picking toppings off — is just good pizza.