Toronto's Pizza History

Toronto's pizza history runs through two distinct, genuinely local threads — not a generic Ontario food story, but two specific businesses that started in this city.

Vesuvio: Toronto's first pizzeria

Vesuvio Pizzeria and Spaghetti House, in the Junction, is widely credited as Toronto's first pizzeria, opened in the late 1950s by Rocco Pugliese and his four sons. One son, Dominic, had lived in New York City and learned pizza-making there from a baker who ran a shop called Vesuvio — which is where the name came from, giving Toronto's original pizza style a New York lineage rather than a Chicago or Neapolitan one. Vesuvio closed permanently in 2020 after more than six decades in business, a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, but is still widely credited with training a wide swath of the pizzaiolos who went on to open their own Toronto pizzerias.

Pizza Pizza: a national chain founded here

Pizza Pizza, one of Canada's largest pizza chains, was founded by Michael Overs, who opened the first location on December 31, 1967, at Wellesley and Parliament streets in downtown Toronto. It expanded across the Toronto area through the 1970s before growing province- and country-wide — giving Toronto a second, distinct claim: the birthplace of one of the country's dominant pizza-delivery brands, alongside an influential independent pizzeria lineage.

Sources

• CBC News — Vesuvio Pizzeria Permanently Closing After 63 Years Due to COVID-19
• BlogTO — Toronto Pizzeria Open Since 1957 Announces It's Permanently Closing