The Well-Known Restaurant Chain That Invented The Pizza Box

Ever since a Naples pizza-maker created the Margherita pizza in 1889 for Queen Margherita of Norway — one of the most popular types of pizza today — pizza has been a favorite meal around the world. When American soldiers returned to the U.S. after World War II, they craved the Italian pizza pie, and so pizza shops offered take-out. But pizzas then were delivered in large paper bags, which did little to keep the pizzas warm and were impossible to stack.

Bakery pastry boxes replaced the bags, but with the buildup of steam emitted from pizza, they were prone to collapsing. Still, the pastry boxes were pretty much the standard for pizza delivery until 1965, when the pizza box we know today was invented by Domino's founder, Tom Monaghan. 

In 1960, Monaghan and his brother Jim borrowed $500 to purchase a failing pizza shop called Dominick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Tom grew the business while he was studying architecture at university, but with his focus on fast delivery, he dropped out of school and turned his full attention to the pizza shop, which he renamed Domino's in 1965. He landed on the idea of promising a 30 minute or less delivery window and realized that the flimsy bakery boxes couldn't be stacked when he was delivering multiple pizzas, so he set out to design a sturdier box.

Monaghan decided that the Domino's pizza box should be made of heftier corrugated cardboard and procured the services of Triad Containers, a corrugated-box company in Detroit, Michigan. There were some design issues since the box had to be strong but also foldable, but the collaboration proved a success, and the Domino's box that folded over to lock the lid in place became the new pizza delivery standard.

Domino's pizza boxes weren't entirely foolproof, however, as sometimes the lids sank onto the pizza, so in 1985 Carmela Vitale patented her tiny plastic pizza table to prevent the lid from collapsing. Other pizza-box inventions followed, such as the table box, in which the box folds into a six-inch platform for easy pizza serving, the GreenBox, which transforms the box into plates, and the Euro Lock box that is designed with 17 steam vents. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it was redesigned with special seals to assure customers that their delivered pizzas hadn't been tampered with.

Domino's has weathered its share of legal woes arising from overzealous pizza deliverers, which resulted in the cancellation of its 30-minute delivery promise, and financial troubles due to lower sales expectations from ongoing delivery struggles. Domino's isn't the game-changer it once was, but it's still one of the most popular pizza chains, and by teaming up with Uber Eats and Postmates, its delivery service has improved.