Delivery is a service that we expect from pizza places. It’s weird if a pizza place doesn’t offer delivery. Although having pizza brought straight to your door seems like a no-brainer today, it only became commonplace relatively recently. So while you’re waiting for your food from Brickhouse Pizza North to arrive, why not learn a little about it by checking out these four fun facts!
The Queen of Italy received the first pizza delivery.
The county of Italy, as we know it today, didn’t exist until 1861. Before then, it was a collection of individual city-states. After the country was united into one nation, King Umberto I made visits to the major cities. In 1889, he came with his wife, Queen Margherita, to Naples, the birthplace of pizza. They were eager to try the local food and asked for some to be brought to them. Chefs in the city obliged, and one of the dishes they brought was pizza. Queen Margherita liked it so much that they named the Margherita pizza after her.
It really took off after World War Two.
During the Second World War, many American soldiers were stationed throughout Europe, including Italy. One of the few bright spots of their experience was getting to enjoy the local cuisine. When they returned home, they missed those foods, especially pizza. Pizzerias already existed in America thanks to Italian immigrants, but many more popped up all over the country due to the demand. In some big cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, pizzerias offered delivery. The service was a hit and quickly spread across the country.
The cardboard pizza box changed the game.
It’s hard to think of pizza arriving in anything other than a corrugated cardboard pizza box, but that didn’t arrive on the scene until 1960. Pizzerias were having a problem with soggy deliveries, so Tom Monaghan, the founder of Dominoes, set out to solve it. His solution was the corrugated cardboard pizza box. It allowed delivery drivers to stack the pizzas without obstructing airflow. No more soggy pizza!
Online ordering is older than you think.
We think of online ordering as a new-ish thing, but it’s actually been around since 1997. That’s when the first pizza-ordering website went live. At first, many people thought it was fake, but once they were convinced, it really caught on. Now that smartphones are everywhere ordering apps have made it even easier.
