pizzeria
Americannoun
-
pizzerias
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pizzeria
1940–45; < Italian, equivalent to pizz ( a ) pizza + -eria -ery
Explanation
Craving a baked crust topped with sauce, vegetables, and melty mozzarella? You might want to visit a pizzeria, a shop where pizzas are made! A restaurant that makes and sells pizzas is a pizzeria. While the name may sound Italian, it's an American invention dating from the 1940s, influenced by the word cafeteria. Though they weren't referred to this way until the mid-20th century, the earliest pizzerias opened in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York in 1905. Since then, Americans have embraced pizzerias, consuming about three billion pizzas per year by some estimates.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The meal wasn’t as good as the pizza I had for just a handful of euros, and I went back to the pizzeria, hungry for more.
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
Leg-spinner Crishan Kalugamage works in a pizzeria in Tuscany and topped up his three wickets against Nepal with the dismissals of England's Tom Banton and Sam Curran.
From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026
The suspect had travelled to New York City for a job opportunity from Mankato, Minnesota, and had been working at a local pizzeria, according to the law enforcement source.
From BBC ● Jan. 29, 2026
Soon even the humblest burgh in the hinterland could lay claim to a flourishing pizzeria.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
Chicken loved the pizzeria that gave them balls of fresh dough to play with, but their doors were locked until dinnertime.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
The transformation is visible everywhere: from supermarket shelves stocked with ultra-processed foods to pizzerias selling slices piled high with chips, sausages and fried snacks.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
The company changed its name to Restaurant Depot in the 1990s and started serving more food operators across the U.S. including caterers, pizzerias and delis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
Before, his customers were primarily pizzerias or grilled-meat restaurants, who cook over coals; now they are families.
From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026
All those urban expressways did little for New Haven except establish its famous pizzerias as an easy pit stop for motorists leaving New York for points northeast.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2025
They had a lot of pizzerias along this street.
From "The Stars Beneath Our Feet" by David Barclay Moore
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
