How World War II Helped Pizza Become A Beloved American Staple

It's no secret that the United States loves pizza. According to the USDA, on any given day, about 11% of all Americans eat pizza (that's around 37 million people). We eat pizza for lunch, we eat it for dinner, and about one-third of us even eat pizza for breakfast. But it wasn't always like this. 

While pizza made its way to the United States via Italian immigrants in the early 1900s, it didn't soar in popularity until the 1940s after soldiers came back from being stationed in Italy during World War II. Since then, pizza has evolved into more than a dozen different styles across the country. 

Pizza is now considered a staple, and even more than that, a comfort food for millions of Americans. In fact, a 2016 survey of more than 2,000 American adults found that the majority consider pizza their top comfort food. And a poll near the end of 2020 found that the food people turned to for comfort the most during lockdown was, you guessed it, pizza. So how did it go from a fringe food eaten by immigrants to everybody's favorite staple?

The first license to make and sell pizza in the United States was given to Gennaro Lombardi in 1905 in New York City. One of the many reasons why New York City pizza is so unique is because it was the first. Lombardi's was a grocery store in an Italian neighborhood that set the tone for several other pizza shops that popped up over the next few decades. In 1912, a shop opened in New Jersey; 1925 brought one to Connecticut; and 1929 saw another NYC shop open in Greenwich Village.

Pizza wasn't confined to the New York area for very long. In the pre-war 1930s, pizza made its way to Boston, and San Francisco, followed by the birth of Chicago pizza in 1943. However, for the first 40 years of pizza in the United States the food was only really consumed by Italians and low-income folks living in urban areas where Italian immigrants had settled. It did gain a bit of popularity in bars and taverns, especially after the end of prohibition in the 1930s as folks gravitated to pizza to consume with alcohol. But at this point, while pizza was well-liked where it was, it wasn't eaten in every household and it certainly wasn't found everywhere.

The war is the catalyst that changed the fate of pizza in America. In 1943, about 150,000 British and American troops were stationed in Southern Italy fighting as allies against Hitler's forces for two years. These troops ate Italian pizza and loved it. In Southern Italy, oregano abounds and the U.S. Army was eating loads of it. This was mostly thanks to one of the food suppliers to the army, Hector Boiardi (who later adapted his last name to Boyardee). When soldiers came home, that was the taste they were craving. From 1948 to 1956, sales of oregano in the United States rose by more than 5,000% and the demand for Italian food took off. 

Pizza received another boost in 1945 when GI Ira Nevin returned from Italy to his oven-building family in New York. The Nevin family business built the first gas-fired, ceramic-deck Bakers Pride pizza oven, which were then easily mass-produced and replaced brick-and-coal ovens, making it possible for anyone with a pizza-loving dream to open up shop.

For the next 15 years, mom-and-pop pizzerias and taverns took off in the United States and, in 1958, a company called Pizza Hut opened in Wichita, Kansas, followed a year later by Little Ceasar's, in Michigan, and a year after that, Domino's set up in Michigan, too. From 1960 to 2000, the tides shifted, and popular pizza chains outnumbered independently owned pizzerias, although there still are many independent restaurants, taverns, and pizza joints who serve their own pizza. And here in the U.S., we take comfort in each and every one.