An epic story of War and Pizza.
At five A.M. on Wednesday, January 16, 1991, the word flashed out from Washington: war with Iraq was imminent, likely to begin within hours. Sure enough, later that day, the bombs began to fall. The Persian Gulf War was under way.
The early warning came not from a high-placed presidential aide or a ranking military officer, but from a more unlikely source: A pizza man.
Frank Meeks owned sixty Domino’s pizza franchises in the D.C. area. Meeks was famous for keeping a close eye on pizza orders, and the night before the war began he noticed a sharp uptick in the number of late-night pizza orders coming from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department. White House pizza orders went through the roof, with more than fifty pies ordered between ten P.M. and two A.M.
Meeks had seen the same thing happen the night before the invasions of Grenada and Panama. He was sure this meant war, so he called the news media and put out the word. The rest is pizza history.
Will this slice of history prove the ultimate undoing of the republic? Is fast food the soft underbelly of American military might? Will foreign agents start infiltrating Washington pizza joints to see what’s baking in government offices? Are counterintelligence agents ready to swing into action with a “Pizza Interdiction Effort” (PIE) to order up a little Domino’s deception?
Deliver us.
Pizza prognosticators please take note: according to the Domino’s Pizza Team Washington Pizza Meter, the top pizza ordered by the White House in 2003 was a veggie, while the number-one pizza at the Pentagon was a pepperoni.
According to one expert, the moral of the story is this: When the going gets tough, the tough get pizza.
“I DON’T THINK THEY’RE SITTING AROUND WATCHING REDSKINS RERUNS.”
— FRANK MEEKS, ANALYZING A SURGE IN LATE-NIGHT PIZZA ORDERS FROM THE PENTAGON