Amid rising concerns of a potential World War III as Iran launches hundreds of airstrikes targeting Israeli territory, Americans have turned their attention to a pizza shop near the Pentagon.
According to The Sun US on the 15th (local time), the search volume for Papa John’s, a pizza shop located near the Pentagon, drastically increased on the 13th, following consecutive reports of impending Iranian airstrikes.
Why did Americans search for a pizza shop so much? It’s because of the Pizza Meter (Pizza Index). As the threat of war and other crises escalate, government-building employees tend to stay longer at the office, increasing pizza orders. Thus, the increase in pizza orders can serve as a virtual indicator of the seriousness of the crisis.
This started with a 1991 statement by Frank Meeks, who ran 60 Domino’s Pizza stores in the Washington, D.C. area, during an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
In that interview, he said, “At 2 AM, the news media have gone to bed, so they wouldn’t know if a major event was happening, but all the delivery people are out there,” and “the night before Iraq invaded Kuwait, over 20 pizzas were delivered to the CIA.”
Following his remarks, the Pizza Meter was coined as more people began paying attention to pizza orders near government buildings ahead of war crises. Indeed, just before the Gulf War, pizza orders entered the White House surged from about 50 to 125. As attention focused on pizza orders, the U.S. government refrained from placing many delivery orders with one company, and staff also started to pick up pizzas themselves.
The recent conflict between Iran and Israel has led to increased mentions of World War III, causing netizens to pay attention again to pizza orders. One netizen on X (formerly Twitter) said, “War never changes, and neither does the need for pizza in a crisis.” Speculation increased, and Wikipedia even published an article about the Pizza Meter, later deleted, raising more doubts.
Meanwhile, Iran has been conducting massive airstrikes targeting mainland Israel since the night of the 13th. Throughout the night, approximately 300 drones and missiles were launched toward Israel, with 99% being intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome and other air defense systems.
In response, the Israeli government has expressed a strong stance against Iran’s unprecedented airstrikes yet has not taken any actual military action. According to local media Times of Israel (TOI), citing Israeli officials, the plan is to “keep Iran guessing about what Israel’s response will be, and to keep them anxious.”
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