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Comment by jfim | Hacker News Reader

> Yet somehow local pizza shops have been able to do it for decades.

Pizza is a really high margin business. From this article [0]:

> Consider the ingredients – flour, yeast, water, sauce, cheese and toppings. None of these are expensive, particularly when purchased wholesale. To build a small cheese pizza the cheese is the most expensive ingredient at $0.60, with the dough adding about $0.24 and the sauce $0.05. That adds up to $0.89 for a basic cheese pizza that could be sold for many times that amount. [...] One estimate of the cost of a meat pizza with pepperoni and sausage is $1.90 for food costs and an average retail cost of $14.00, which translates to a 636 percent markup.

[0] https://smallbusiness.chron.com/much-profit-margin-pizza-621...

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You beat me to it. The economics of pizza are uniquely good. Spending 30% on the cost of delivery does not matter in that case.

It's crazy how much pizza costs in USA

In Italy pizza costs a third of that

I've been to Italy a lot, and while I'm sure the are places that charge 4 euros for a pizza (just as there are places that charge $5 for a pizza in the US), most restaurants I've been to charge at least 7-10 euros.

Secondly, pizzas in the US tend to be larger than pizzas in Italy.

As I've said "if you sit at a restaurant add a couple of euros" on average it's around 7-8 euros

We were talking retail prices though.

Also, we don't pay mandatory tips at the restaurant

Pizza size is a function of cooking then uniformly, large pizzas are considered a bit tacky here (not judging anybody, just trying to explain why pizza in Italy is smaller, it's actually a feature)

You can get a whole pizza for $5?

I can get a whole "not too bad for Italian standards" marinara for 3.5 euros and a very good margherita for 5-6.

For traditional toppings like mushrooms, pepperoni, sausages or anchovies add something between 0.5 and 1.5 euros.

That's for a take out or a delivery (it might sound strange but pizza being delivered costs a little bit less per sé, because it's considered of a lower quality, pizza should be eaten fresh from the oven, but add the delivery fee and the prices are more or less the same)

If you sit at a restaurant, it's usually a couple euros more.

And I'm talking about the prices I actually pay in Rome, in the city centre, I live at 5 minutes walking distance from the Colosseum.

Yes 5 euros when ordered in person.

On deliveroo, 7-9 euros for something that’s easily 3x higher quality and taste than in the US

https://deliveroo.it/it/menu/firenze/bellosguardo/pizzeria-o...

Those pizzas are a lot smaller than US pizzas judging by the knife and fork though.

Size does not matter

You will find a great variety of pizza sizes, from the giants to the tiny, I for example prefer smaller pizzas, I don't like feeling bloated after eating a big one, but the price is always the same (more or less, you can pay 15 euros for a pizza in Italy, but it's not the norm )

If you refer to the fact that pizza is usually shared in US, we have a different kind of pizza for that, it's called pizza al taglio (sliced pizza, but it's not really the same thing) and you can have an entire pan for 12-18 euros, but at least 4-5 people can feed on it and you can have different toppings

The US has chains like Little Cesar's, or even Domino's that sell single topping pizzas for $5.

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