If you're feeling nostalgic about pizza, or you just enjoy taking random trips down memory lane, there are now four pizza museums (yes, four!)–two permanent and two pop-up–that are ready to amp up your love for pizza.
The most recent pizza museum to open is the Pizza Hut Museum. Dan and Frank Carney, the co-founders of Pizza Hut, were students at Wichita State University when they opened their first Pizza Hut in 1958. The first Pizza Hut store was moved to the campus of WSU in 1986, serving as the headquarters for WSU's Association for Collegiate Entrepreneurs. The location was transformed earlier this year and turned into a Pizza Hut museum that opened last week. Along with a rotating collection of Pizza Hut memorabilia, is a copy of the original sauce recipe from 1958, written on a napkin by Carney. Carney was at the opening of the museum, according to The Wichita Eagle, sharing that he had tried pizza while in the service, but it took the beer joint's landlady to suggest that he start a restaurant to serve the popular new dish. (See video here.)
In October of this year, youth media company Nameless Network is hosting The Museum of Pizza, a pop-up event being held in a "secret location" from October 13 to 28 in New York City, according to the event listing page. The page says the event is "a place to take amazing photos and absorb every wonder of our larger-than-life, immersive installations. A space to bask in multi-sensory, psychedelic pizza joy." Who doesn't love some psychedelic pizza joy, am I right?
If you're in the Philly area, drop in to what most consider the original pizza museum–Pizza Brain. Opened in 2012, Pizza Brain combines delicious and creative pizzas in an environment of classic pizza memorabilia. Watch a PMQ video interview with the owners from 2014 here.
If you prefer instant gratification in the form of online pizza memorabilia photos, the US Pizza Museum, an online and pop-up museum dedicated to pizza and run by Kendall Bruns, debuted in 2015 and regularly hosts events in and around Chicago. You can view Brun's pizza collection online and see the museum's upcoming event schedule on the museum's website.
Have you visited a pizza museum yet? Do you plan to this year?
