Domino’s pizza kicked out of Italy

New Jersey takes its pizza more seriously than its politics. We know our pizza. We know it’s as good or better than NYC pizza. We know pizza in any other part of the country is a joke. It’s barely pizza-adjacent. And Chicago deep dish? Fughettaboutit.

We also know that maybe in a pinch a chain pizza will be OK, but we always love our go-to mom-and-pop pizza joints most.

Guess who apparently agrees?

Italy.

Domino’s pizza, the biggest national pizza chain in the United States, is being thrown out of Italy like an unwelcome drunk uncle.

They’ve tried to make a go of it in the birthplace of pizza since 2015. Now they’re down to just 13 locations there and according to Bloomberg, market forces are throwing the American chain out of the country.

Getty Images

Domino’s is admitting defeat. They’re throwing in the towel. Just like here in the Dirty Jerz, it seems competition from local restaurants offering pizza in Italy was fierce.

Domino’s peaked in Italy in 2020 but as the pandemic brought more restaurants there doing deliveries it cut into their business. That, and the fact that Italy never quite took to the American chain version of pizza like Domino’s had hoped it would. They envisioned literally hundreds of locations. Dare to dream.

Read more on the business end of this here.

Just for fun, here’s a video of an Italian woman trying Domino’s pizza for the first time. It…doesn’t end well.

So is New Jersey big enough to keep chain pizza alive? So far so good. There are more than 100 Domino’s locations here. There are more than 70 Pizza Hut locations.

So someone’s eating it. But is it like a player having a girl on the side? She’ll do in a pinch, but your Saturday Night girl will always be your local pizza joint?

Then there’s your frozen pizzas. Are these cardboard frisbees even worth mentioning? Yet there they sit in freezer case after freezer case in every grocery store in the state. Again, they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t selling. But how? Why?

My theory is only transplants from the Midwest buy these because they think it’s what pizza actually is. Meanwhile, we native residents know frozen pizza is worse than dog food.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now.

Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.

Every NJ pizza joint Barstool's Dave Portnoy has reviewed

Dave Portnoy, commonly known as El Presidente, is the founder of Barstool Sports. Somewhere along the way, he decided to start reviewing local pizzerias, and the concept took off. Here is every New Jersey pizzeria Dave has stopped in, along with the score he gave them.

UP NEXT: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

Here's where NJ legal weed is sold

The number of recreational cannabis dispensaries continues to grow, with close to two dozen state approvals given since the first adult recreational sales in the state back in April. Here is where the open sites are located.