This Budget Pizza Chain Sold Giant Pasta Buckets In The '90s — We Wish It Would Bring Them Back

Ah, the '90s, when food trends like sun-dried tomatoes were everywhere and on everything, and stuffed-crusts, with their contentious origins, became the hottest thing in the pizza business. And while stuffed-crust pizzas are still around, one pizza chain sold a short-lived item we wish it would bring back: Little Caesars, which introduced a giant-sized bucket of spaghetti in 1993. At 3.5 pounds, it was appropriately called the Big! Big! Bucket of Spaghetti and could, according to the ads, feed up to five people. Best of all, it typically cost under $9 and even less on Wednesdays when you could get this behemoth of carbs for just $5.99. The economics alone seem like a good reason to bring it back.

The dish came in a large plastic bucket with a handle that read "Spaghetti! Spaghetti!" in red and green on the side. The container was microwave safe and had three compartments. The top layer was for the free garlicky and cheesy crazy bread (aka breadsticks), the middle compartment had the spaghetti, and the bottom layer contained the pasta sauce. You could choose either marinara or bolognese made with ground beef. Little Caesars eventually introduced smaller versions, but, c'mon, the giant bucket was obviously the only way to go.

Although Little Caesar's Big! Big! Bucket of Spaghetti seemed like a good deal, and some people still fondly remember it (like us), the dish didn't last. Several factors likely led Little Caesar's to kill it off around 1998 (although it continued to be sold in some locations for a period after that). At the time, the chain was struggling to compete with Pizza Hut and Domino's, and the giant bucket of pasta wasn't a hot seller. One Reddit user who claimed to have worked at Little Caesar's back then recalled that the dish didn't sell well and the workers didn't like having to prepare it. Many franchisees also complained they had a lot of the frozen spaghetti and sauce lying around, according to a Detroit Free Press article from October 1998.

While the giant-sized tub of pasta may be gone for good, the actual buckets remain and are now collectibles. And if you're really feeling nostalgic, you can check out some of the TV ads for the item, like the commercial featuring an older woman sharing Little Caesar's spaghetti with an orangutan. Yes, the '90s were a different time for sure. While the Big! Big! Bucket of Spaghetti may be gone for good, like other dearly departed fast-food items such as Taco Bell's Mexi-nuggets, we wish that Little Caesar's would consider bringing it back.