Ian's is giving free pizza to voters and poll workers

Ian's Pizza gave away free pizza to poll workers at all of Madison's 105 polling places Tuesday, and is giving away pizza to voters Tuesday evening, said Nick Martin, Ian's managing partner and part-owner.

"Our goal was to do every polling place in Madison this year," said Martin, noting thar two years ago Ian's, with three restaurants in Madison, delivered free pizza to half of Madison's polling locations.

"And we were like, 'Well, let's see if we can do it. And we actually just finished up, every polling place," he said just before 4 p.m.

Ian's employees delivered two 20-inch mac-and-cheese pizzas to each location, and cut the pizzas into smaller slices, so there were 24 slices for every polling place. "It's kind of thanking poll workers and bringing them lunch on us," Martin said.

The poll-worker giveaway is part of Ian's "Mac the Vote" campaign. For the last few elections, the restaurant also has given away its signature mac-and-cheese slices to voters.

The voter giveaway is happening from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight at the Frances Street location on campus and at its restaurant in the Garver Feed Mill on Madison's East Side.

"It's like, 'Hey, go vote and come have some free food," Martin said, noting that the three Ian's restaurants were closed during the day so the employees could vote.

The Garver giveaway will be a huge party with kids' activities, face painting, balloon animals, live music, and a magician walking around, he said.

All of the restaurants were closed until 5 p.m., with State Street closed all night, too, because its employees did the deliveries to the polling places. "We don't want anyone to have to work all day long," Martin said.

Voters don't need to wear an "I voted sticker" to get the free slice of mac-and-cheese pizza, although that's the way "Mac the Vote" started years ago.

Martin said he looked into it and discovered it was a bad idea. "We are trying to get the vote out, but we're not trying to incentivize it."

It took 15 drivers to pull off the polling-place deliveries. None of the restaurants have 15 drivers, so members of the management team stepped up as did some office staff, and people who normally work inside the restaurants.

"People from other locations were like, 'Yeah, I can take a few," said Martin, who delivered a couple himself.

"Everyone was super gracious, and it was a lot of fun," he said. "People were genuinely grateful and saying, 'Thank you for making this happen.'"

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