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According to this pizza trivia page hosted by Mama Theresa's restaurant chain, the first pizza delivery occurred in 1889, when Naples pizzeria owner Raffaele Esposito delivered a pizza to the king and queen of Italy, who were in town on a visit. The queen was eager to try the faddish new dish but couldn't deign to visit a pizza joint, so she ordered in. The first pizzeria in North America was opened in 1895 in New York City, but pizza didn't really catch on until after the second World War, when U.S. servicemen came home from Europe gushing over it. Many small pizzerias began offering delivery service with the advent of the car culture in the 1950s, but Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is generally credited with
establishing pizza delivery as a profitable enterprise. In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Tom Monaghan said that in the late '60s, "delivery at the time was pretty minimal, so I decided to focus on that, and it was the best thing I've done. Nobody thought you could make money on delivery. Most places just delivered to get some volume before they could afford to cut out the delivery. But I thought I could do it." He did it -- Domino's now has over 7,000 locations and generates $4 billion in annual sales. He picked the right country to start his business -- Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza a day, or 350 slices per second. The average American ingests 23 pounds of the
stuff a year.
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