Pizza is sold all over the world; you can buy it in virtually every major city. Recently it has been introduced to countries with no previous experience of eating Western food; even there it has been an instant success. The most recent example is when Pyongyang, North Korea, got its first pizzeria there were queues around the block.
The very first pizzeria was opened in 1830, in Naples, Italy. It was the Pizzeria Brandi, which is still in business today. In 1889, Raffaele Esposito made the first Margarita pizza there, in honour of Margarita of Savoy the queen of Italy. It was made with mozzarella cheese, basil and tomato sauce to reflect the colours of the Italian flag.
Gennaro Lombardi opened the first American pizzeria in Little Italy, Manhattan in 1905. He originally opened the premises as an Italian grocery store in 1897, but installed a pizza oven in 1905 and gave over part of the premises to a pizzeria. The pizzeria closed in 1984, but Lombardi's Grandson opened a new pizzeria just down the street from the original, in 1994. It is also called Lombardi's.
In the UK pizza was not sold to the public until 1934 when Olivelli's Restaurant, Store St, London, WC1 added pizza to their menu. None of the Italian restaurants that were already open in the UK had pizza on their menu at that time. Olivelli's remained a restaurant, but changed hands several times over the years. In 1993, Giovanni Salamone renovated the premises and opened it as the first in the Pizza Paradiso Olivelli chain of restaurants.
Pizza Hut is the largest chain of pizzerias in the world. They have 34,000 shops or outlets in 100 countries. The first Pizza Hut was opened by Frank and Dan Carney in Wichita, Kansas in 1958. By 1972, they had 1,000 restaurants in the chain. In 1973, Pizza Hut went international with restaurants in Japan, Canada & England opening during that year. The first UK Pizza Hut opened in Islington, London.
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