The first recorded pizza delivery is said to have taken place in Naples, Italy, in 1889, when Queen Margarita

requested a pizza from a purveyor across the city, and this was ostensibly the origin of both

the Margarita pizza and pizza delivery in the region, when they developed a pie that would

be both delicious and deliverable across the city in that way.

The Great Depression, which collapsed economies around the world, seems to have put a damper

on the slow but burgeoning, primarily blue-collar-focused world of food delivery in the United States

at the beginning of the 20th century.

But in 1944, the New York Times wrote a piece in which they explained the concept of pizza

to non-Italian immigrant New Yorkers, and this at the time, relatively unfamiliar and

unpopular American version of this Italian dish, started popping up all

over the place, in part because it was cheaper to make than the then-stapel American casual

fast food option, the hamburger, and in part because it was easier to make in bulk and sell

over time, and easier to make and deliver, something that

was less successful, both economically and practically, with burgers and other existing

American favorites.

The defining moment for modern food delivery, though, was when Americans started moving to suburban areas and mass

post-World War II. Previously, delivery made sense in some limited few circumstances,

but most people in cities where folks actually ate out on a semi-regular basis,

rather than preparing their own meals at home,

as was more likely to be the case in most rural areas. These people in cities could just walk a few

blocks and have access to many different food options. Delivery was kind of redundant within that

context, and it was unnecessary in the opposite rural context.

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