MAKE THAT TO GO

Bye-Bye, American Pie: Domino’s Pizza Shuts Down in Italy

Somehow, the American pizza maker just couldn’t win the hearts of Italians.

ROME—In a move that many will consider in good taste, American pizza maker Domino’s is closing the last of its 29 branches in Italy after a dismal appearance on the Italy’s rather hard-to-beat food scene.

Twitter applauded the news with one user summing it up: “went all the way to Italy to taste a slice of Domino's #SaidNoOneEver.” Another bid farewell: “Goodbye, please never come back with your atrocious imitations of pizza: we don’t need them, we have the real deal, we invented it!”

The Daily Beast predicted this fiasco when the American pie maker first opened, scoffing at the idealism of Alessandro Lazzaroni, who led the charge. “Domino’s is a global brand, with American roots, and we’re proud to be able to introduce it to the Italian people—with a twist,” he said then. “We will be using a recipe created by us, using locally-sourced wheat. Everything else is purely Italian.” While they did use Italian products, their plan to reinvent Italian pizza with their own recipe clearly wasn’t what Italians were looking for—or, it seems—what tourists wanted either.

Domino’s had high hopes when it opened its first branch in 2015, with plans to open 880 stores and bring what was then almost unheard of home delivery service to the nation. But the pandemic opened up new avenues for food delivery, and soon Italians realized their own pizza tastes just as good delivered to the door.

Unlike McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and—alas—Starbucks, which have had success in this cuisine-crazy country, Domino’s offered nothing Italians wanted, especially American-style toppings like pineapple, cheese-stuffed crust and pepperoni (close to the Italian word for peppers).

Domino’s entered the Italian market with ePizza SpA, which had relied on home delivery. “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 told investors in late 2021 when it became clear things were starting to fizzle, according to Bloomberg.

The company ePizza filed for protection against creditors in April that expired on July 1, leaving them $10.8 million in debt the company is now up for grabs among its creditors.

Domino’s has had success in other countries, and currently has strong business in 85 nations. Italy would have surely been a feather in the company’s cap had it succeeded. Instead, not even the crust is left on this ill-advised venture.

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Barbie Latza Nadeau

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