The Food That Built America

- americans consume 3 billion of them each year,

spending over $46 billion on it.

It's the most popular food on the planet.

Pizza.

- 350 slices a second are consumed in this country.

- You might like a different kind of pizza than me

but I've never met a person that doesn't love pizza.

- but in 1950s america

it's practically unheard of.

- Can you imagine the united states without pizza?

- american pizza as we know it

wasn't shaped in Italy, new york city, or chicago.

- Screw what it's supposed to be.

It is what we say it is.

- it was created in the midwest

by two sets of entrepreneurial brothers.

Without these two companies

your lives might have been devoid of pizza.

- their battle for supremacy

will introduce pizza to the nation.

- You can walk into a pizza hut anywhere

and it feels like every other pizza hut you've ever been to.

- and revolutionize how we eat at home.

- Domino's, guaranteed delivery in 30 minutes or less.

- The definition of the word pizza

was created by domino's and pizza hut.

- they'll become bitter rivals.

- We'll never stop coming for you.

- and one family will be torn apart.

I don't know about this.

this-

this will be fun.

is "pizza wars."

- it's the late 1950s.

And in the wake of world war ii

the american economy is booming.

More people can afford cars and homes than ever before.

And a growing middle class now spends more time

on the road and less time in the kitchen.

America was expanding.

The building of the suburbs was underway.

The interstate highway system

had created all of these roads.

People were commuting the first time in american history.

- Car culture was going to give birth

to the desire and demand

for convenience food and fast food.

As people are on the go, you're going to have industries

that are looking at this and saying,

"can we produce foods that people can eat on the go?"

so this is going to fuel new innovation.

It's also going to fuel new mores in tastes and demand.

- a bold new generation of entrepreneurs,

like ray kroc, rise up to feed

a nation constantly on the move.

- Well, congratulations, gentlemen.

The american people will never forget the name mcdonald's.

- creating what will become

a nearly $650 billion industry.

- All right, keep it moving, guys.

You're doing great.

- We all take fast food for granted now.

It didn't exist.

A meal was at least an hour of your time.

And when mcdonald's rolled around,

oh my gosh, I can get a hamburger

in a matter of moments?

Don't I have to sit at the table, give my order,

wait for the waitress or waiter to come back?

No, those days were gone.

- igniting a fast food gold rush.

By 1958, mcdonald's has sold its 100 millionth hamburger.

A growing miami chain

has just changed its name to burger king.

Kentucky fried chicken offers a complete family meal

of chicken, dinner rolls, and gravy for $3.50.

And even a donut shop called dunkin' donuts

is sweeping the northeast.

in kansas, a pair of college-aged brothers

believe they have what it takes

to cash in on the fast food boom.

But they're starting at the bottom.

We'll have seating over here,

build out a kitchen in the back.

the older brother,

dan carney is a business school student

with no experience in the restaurant industry.

- How exactly do you plan on running all of this

with your workload at school?

I dropped out.

What?

Problem solved.

- Dan carney really sought to create

a successful life for himself.

He was extremely ambitious and he wanted to be the man.

He wanted to be an executive.

So he struck out on his own.

So what does he do?

Dan carney drops out of school.

- carney has convinced

his younger brother frank to join him,

and with a $600 loan from their mother

they've rented a rundown old bar.

It's perfect.

I know.

That was sarcasm.

I know.

Lighten up, this will be fun.

- carney wants to compete

with industry titans like mcdonald's,

but determined to carve his own path.

He's betting on an obscure dish

he read about in a local magazine.

Most americans at the time have never even heard of it.

it's an italian peasant food called pizza.

- Pizza has its origins in naples, Italy

sometime in the late 17th, early 18th century.

Old dough was being flattened

and topped and baked in bread ovens.

And that became known as pizza napoletana.

Those early pizzas were really peasant food.

- The first pizzeria is opened in america

at the turn of the century in 1905,

lombardi's pizza down in little Italy.

But let's face it,

it's not something that's growing across the nation.

There may be small pizzerias here and there

in different urban areas

where you have a southern italian community,

but it hasn't hit the big time.

- in the 1950s it's still very much an italian product

that most americans didn't understand.

So every article that even mentions pizza

has a description and a short explanation.

They're not assuming anybody knows

what the heck they're talking about.

- The funny thing is, pizza's such an italian culture

and you would think two irish brothers,

they'd come with fish and chips.

I just think like when opportunity is there,

somebody else sees it

and they're able to capitalize on it.

the carney brothers

need to turn a profit to pay their rent

so they're determined to open in just two weeks,

without any idea how to make pizza.

pizza is tough.

And I think if they'd realized

the odds of them being successful

they may not have taken them.

Pizza is not just like frozen patties.

Pizza is a living growing organism.

There's different temperatures, humidities.

Pizza is much harder than it looks.

- desperate to figure out a recipe,

they bring in a part-time chef, john bender,

to help them crack the code.

French bread?

I thought pizza was supposed to be italian.

- We're working with what we got.

- The most important element of a pizza

is without a doubt the crust.

And he had no idea how to make a dough.

So these resourceful guys just made something up.

mm, mm, it's thin.

It needs more time to rise.

No, this is it.

- What, no, it says that it's supposed to be

soft leavened bread, dan.

- Screw what it's supposed to be.

It is what we say it is.

This is better.

It's light, it's crispy.

This is our recipe.

- They just kind of threw ingredients on top of it

and baked it, and that was the blueprint.

It's totally wild that they

just made something up and it worked.

- they discovered for some reason

the taste of french bread is not bad for a pizza.

And of course, they created that in kansas.

And so it makes sense to create something

that locals are gonna like.

Why would you make an authentic pizza like in Italy

when you don't have italians living in your neighborhoods?

Write down what we did?

That's what I'm doing.

- the carney brothers' pizzas appeal

to the midwestern palate,

will someday spawn an $8.5 billion empire

and popularize pizza from coast to coast.

But for now, days away from opening,

they're risking everything on this new unproven food,

desperate that it'll somehow catch on.

800 miles from wichita, another college student

is struggling to pay his way through school.

Orphaned at a young age and with no other family support

tom monaghan and his younger brother, jim,

have taken out a $900 loan to buy a local sandwich shop.

- Tom was determined to become an architect,