A Slice of History: Searching for the First Pizza in Indianapolis
- Ed Fujawa
- Jul 25
- 8 min read
I work in downtown Indianapolis, right on Washington Street, and a stone's throw away from the statehouse. Lunch breaks offer a wide variety of establishments, but one that I have been going to since I began practicing law in the fall of 2007 is Pizza Di Tito in the PNC Center (aka the Hyatt, or the hotel with the Eagle’s Nest Restaurant).
Recently while picking up a piece of pizza, I reflected on the nearly 18 years of grabbing a slice at Pizza Di Tito. This led me to wonder when and where was the first pizza sold in Indianapolis, which in turn led down a research rabbit hole to find the first commercial establishment that sold pizza in the Circle City. As described below, there were no easy answers, at least no answers without a caveat: research materials on this question were lacking, and I relied primarily on newspapers. Perhaps down the road additional information will be found, but for now I view this project as fluid, and subject to revision should new information be located.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I scoured newspapers for references to pizza, or some derivation thereof, such as “Italian tomato pie.” I also focused on some of local Italian restaurants with notable and extended histories in Indianapolis, to see when these establishments first featured pizza, mostly through examining their advertisements in local publications.
The first restaurant was Iaria’s, located at 317 South College Avenue. Iaria’s originally began as an Italian grocery store run by Pete Iaria and his family. By the 1930s the grocery had morphed into a tavern type of establishment at 317 S. Noble Street (which was later renamed College) and provided Italian dishes in addition beverages of the adult variety. Advertisements for the establishment in 1938 announced the availability of “Italian spaghetti, Italian stew, beer, wines.”
The tavern appeared lively, and there were some run-ins with local neighbors about the late hours at the tavern, allegations of illegal liquor sales, and noise complaints. In 1943, it was alleged that local authorities did not tackle these nuisances because Clifford F. Beeker, the chief of the Indianapolis Police Department, frequented the tavern and enjoyed their spaghetti dinners.
In 1954 Iaria’s moved into its new building, and current location, on South College Avenue (the family also owned a bowling alley adjacent to the restaurant). An article announcing the new location in the Indianapolis Star on March 29, 1954, mentions that Iaria’s “features Italian foods such as pizza pie along with steaks, chops and other fine foods…”. That next year ads were run promoting the new location and the availability of “pizza pie” among many other items.
The wording in the article above suggests pizza had already been available at Iaria’s although maybe not advertised. Perhaps with the apparent rise in popularity of pizza in post war United States, restaurants began to promote the availability of the dish. I did some field work at Iaria's and sampled the pizza, which was very good (my wife had a seafood pasta which was excellent). While the restaurant has quite a collection of memorabilia on the walls, I did not see anything which would help explore the pizza question.
Of course, it is entirely possible that pizza was served before 1954. The 2001 book “Indiana Favorite Restaurants” by food critic Reid Duffy provided a brief summary of the history of Iaria’s, and references pizza as a dish served by original owners Pete and Antoinette Iaria. However, no date range is given. I emailed Iaria’s about possible access to copies of historic menus or other documents which could assist in this research, but I had not heard back at press time (Friday, July 25, 2025).
The next restaurant I explored was Iozzo’s Garden of Italy, located on south Meridian Street. Per their website, the founder of the original restaurant was Santora "Fred" Iozzo, who owned a chain of Italian grocery stores in the Indianapolis area. He also started what was reputed to be the first full-service Italian restaurant called the Naples Grill in the early 1930s, although I could not find any references to this establishment in local sources.
The Garden of Italy (also often called the Iozzo Cafe) was opened not long after, with the first reference in local newspapers coming in early 1931. The Garden was originally located at 117 1/2 North Illinois, just north of the intersection of Illinois and Market Streets (it would later move to 105 N. Illinois). The restaurant, styled as Iozzo Cafe, is shown in the image below. The restaurant later moved to a location on south Illinois, just south of the Washington Street intersection in the late summer of 1936 (image below is from just before the move).
The restaurant had an interesting history in the 1930s, as it was operated as a restaurant, music hall, bar, and night club, and numerous musical acts frequented the restaurant. Multiple alcohol violations are noted in local newspapers, and the restaurant was the site of several shootings, often involving the owner, Fred Iozzo. One was related to a robbery attempt, where Fred responded by shooting the perpetrators, while others were the results of fights in the restaurant which spiraled out of control. After one fight concluded without gunfire, the participants returned and fired a shotgun through the front of the restaurant.
In October 1940, Fred Iozzo was charged with murder of a 16-year-old named Virgil E. Disher Jr. after he allegedly shot the youth during a late-night fight at the Garden of Italy. Fred's son Dominic Iozzo was also wounded although it was suggested this may have been friendly fire from the bullet that hit Disher after the fight broke out. While Iozzo had been charged with first degree murder, a jury instead found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter in late January 1941, and he received a 1-to-10-year sentence (he would be released in early 1943). He and his family members were also sued by the victim's family for his death. This series of events appears to be the referenced “unfortunate incident” which is mentioned on the restaurant’s website. The restaurant appears to have shut down after its liquor permit was revoked by the state in the wake of the shooting episode. Iozzo's later reopened in 2009 at the location on the south side of downtown and also has a location in Franklin.
Advertisements for the Garden of Italy appearing throughout the 1930s promote a variety of dishes, including Italian spaghetti, bread sticks with butter and “Italian cheese,” and various more traditional American dishes. The ads below are from October 9 and September 18, 1936,
However, pizza, or any variation of pizza, is never mentioned. I contacted Iozzo’s to ask whether they had any old menus from the original restaurant (their website has some images of an old menu), but at the time this blog post was published I had not received a response. The current menu does not have any pizza, although it is full of many other delicious meals (not a paid endorsement, it's just a frequent location for my family gatherings).
The final restaurant I explored was the Milano Inn, which closed a few years ago, having first opened in 1934. An advertisement in the Indianapolis Star announced their opening, and a promotion for “free spaghetti served” from 7 to 9 pm that evening.
Subsequent advertisements included “other Italian delicacies.” Whether they began serving pizza in the 1930s or 1940s is unclear, but in March of 1951, the first Milano Inn advertisement which mentions pizza appeared in the Indianapolis News.
After identifying the pizza dates for the above restaurants, I began to work backwards to see if there were any earlier pizza references. There were in fact several, and the first mentions of pizza that I located in local newspapers appeared in the mid and late 1930s, especially in cooking articles and recipe columns. By the late 1940s, the references begin to be more numerous. In a column titled “Eat-itorially Speaking,” published in the Indianapolis Star on July 29, 1947, the author Dick Stone reported on a dish called “Pico Pizza,” which were small pizzas using English muffins. The article was from a wire report, meaning it was not a local story. A similar wire story was published in the August 31, 1947, Star, titled "Jerry Builds a Pizza," and featured Jerry Colonna, a comedian and actor known for his work with Bob Hope, among many other endeavors. The article explains how Jerry constructed his version of pizza and provided a recipe, Pizza a la Colonna, which used English muffins for the crust.
Additionally, there were a few references of pizza related to World War II, with service members who had been in the Mediterranean theater discussing their experience with pizza. In 1943, Charles Pickard, a soldier from Hamilton County, wrote to his parents about a "home cooked Italian meal" he received in return for repairing an Italian soldier's bicycle (after the Italian Armistice). The first course was macaroni, while the second was described as "a dessert called pizza, cut like a pie, eight inches wide and one inch thick."
On December 13, 1947, the first newspaper ad (that I could locate) advertising pizza, was published in the Star. The ad was for a restaurant called Mercuri’s Italian Village located at 2343 Meridian Street. The ad mentions "pizza pie" in addition to a variety of other Italian dishes.
The restaurant's name was changed to Macri, after a cousin of the owner took over operations in 1951. The Italian Village was a long-standing fixture on Meridian, before it relocated north to a location at 53rd and Keystone in 1976, and then in 1987 to a location in Carmel. The postcard below came from eBay and shows the exterior of the original location on Meridian, as well as the rather decorative interior.
References to pizza began to increase in local newspapers after this, and into the late 1950s. The Milano Inn was advertising “pizza pie” in 1953, and Iaria’s did so by 1955. Newspaper articles continued to write about pizza and provided recipes and directions for making pizza at home. The image below, from the March 11, 1951, issue of the Star is from one of those articles.
Pizza kind of exploded after the 1940s, and numerous other establishments began to offer pizza in the 1950s. Rudy’s Bar at 3131 Shelby Street advertised pizza in 1951. Capri's Pizza (or Isle of Capri) and Tony's Pizza House were also operating, among others. A 1955 article about new pizza equipment installed at Capri, and how the cooking equipment industry was responding to the pizza boom noted that "[t]he rapid spread of popularity for pizza pie in this country has been one of the surprising things in that field."
As discussed above, the information for this blog posting is limited. Pizza, or some version thereof, may have been served in one of the above Italian restaurants, or in an Italian grocery store or cafe which served meals prior to the 1947 advertisement date for the Italian Village. Should additional information be received from the restaurants I contacted, or located during additional research, I will update this post.
Sources
Indianapolis News: December 31, 1931, October 25, 1940, January 7, 1941, March 30, 1951, November 20, 1951, April 15, 1954, August 23, 1990
Indianapolis Star: August 11, 1934, November 15, 1938, January 27, 1941, March 26, 1941, May 28-29, 1943, July 29, 1947, August 31, 1947. December 13, 1947. January 2, 1950, February 4, 1951, March 11, 1951, April 4, 1953, March 29, 1954, March 26, 1955, September 10, 1955,
Indianapolis Times: January 30, 1935, March 8, 1935
Indiana's favorite restaurants: With a Recipe Sampler, Reid Duffy (2001), https://archive.org/details/indianasfavorite0000duff/mode/2up?q=Iaria%27s
Iozzo's Garden of Italy Website, https://iozzos.com/our-story/
Harry Levinson Hats, Feltman and Curme Shoe Store, Illinois Street street scene (Bass #234927-F), Indiana Historical Society, https://images.indianahistory.org/digital/collection/dc012/id/3571/rec/20