Italy rejects Domino’s pizza, chain will close all its restaurants there.

 American pizza chain Domino’s will soon exit the motherland of pizza.

No, not New Jersey or New York.

Italy.

Domino’s is leaving pizza’s birthplace because of the poor reception from locals. The Ann Arbor-based company recently announced plans to close the last of its 29 locations in Italy according to Bloomberg.

The popular U.S. pizza chain debuted in Italy in 2015 through a franchising agreement with ePizza SpA.

Domino’s originally planned to open 880 locations in the country, but competition from local pizza shops curbed those plans. According to Bloomberg, one way traditional Italian pizzerias combated Domino’s presence was by ramping up deliveries and signing deals with third-party delivery services during the pandemic.

“We attribute the issue to the significantly increased level of competition in the food delivery market with both organized chains and ‘mom & pop’ restaurants delivering food, to service and restaurants reopening post pandemic and consumers out and about with revenge spending,” ePizza SpA said in a report to investors.

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Quotes from locals in Italy:

“Who is Domino? Do you know him?

 Here? In Rome?

So they wanted to take pizza to where it was invented?!”

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“No point in opening it,

American pizza for Italians? Doesn’t make sense. Maybe for tourists.

Like me going to England and making fish and chips.” 

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“I submit to you…novantanove formaggio! The ninety-nine cheese pizza.”

–Michelangelo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 

fyi – the term ‘pizza’ was first recorded in the 10th century in a latin manuscript from the southern italian town of gata in lazio, on the border of campania.

 

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credits: christopher burch, n.j. com, domino’s pizza, bloomberg