Italian immigrant Giovanni Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in 1905 in the Little Italy section of New York. Giovanni Lombardi was the first to acquire mercantile license to sell pizza in United States. By the 1930s, pizzerias had spread across the country.
Pizza spread through Italian neighborhoods in New Jersey, Boston, and New Haven, where Frank Pepe sold a white pizza with olive oil, oregano and anchovies from a street cart before opening Pepe’s Jun 1925.
Only Italians and Italians Americans ate pizza at first but Americans began to eat it in Italian restaurant and pizzerias in the late 1930.
The dish didn’t’ started to gain widespread popularity until after World War II, when troops who were stationed in Italy took their appreciation home and let their families in on the secret of this great new food.
Pizza first appeared in an America cookbook in the 1936 Specialita culinary italiane: 137 Tested Recipes of Famous Italian Foods, which was a fund raising cookbook published in Boston.
From the United States, pizza started travelling again in the Americanized and industrialized fast food form, reaching more and more parts of the globe.
Pizza: From Italy to United States
