National Pizza Day Is Friday, February 9th

Whether thin crust, deep dish, Chicago style or anything in between, nearly every American loves pizza!

National Pizza Day is celebrated each year on February 9th! With origins in Italy dating back to 1889 honoring the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the first margherita pizza was created for her by Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito. As the story is told he created the pizza and dressed it up to resemble the Italian flag with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil! We still consume margharita pizza today along with a lot of variations!

We place all kinds of things on top of pizza - pepperoni, sausage, pineapple, bacon, green peppers, mushrooms, olives, anchovies, lettuce and of course loads and loads of cheese! According to a survey from National Day Calendar, pepperoni is the topping of choice, it's on 36% of all the pizzas created.

When it comes to restaurant style or frozen pizza - we prefer the piping hotness of the restaurant pizza and nearly a third of us are eating it once a week. An astounding three billion plus pizzas are sold in the US alone each year with another billion frozen pizzas being consumed. On average we eat 23 pounds of pizza a year according to National Day Calendar! When it comes to eating pizza, only 3% can stop at one slice! National Today says 42% of us eat three slices each time, 25% always eat four or more while 22% can eat the whole thing!

From the National Today survey, Pizza Hut is the most popular brand in the US followed by Papa John's, Domino's, Papa Murphy and Little Caesar's.

The survey's don't mention the increasing popularity of the mighty sweet dessert pizza! It's not just the savory that's being placed on the dough, sweet things are too! At the pizza buffet we can treat ourselves to dessert pizza that covered in chocolate chips, cherries, apples, powdered sugar and my favorite Oreo cookie!

To celebrate National Pizza Day, Offers.com has compiled a list of some great deals that are being offered by pizza chains this Friday. Check the site for some great deals from Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa Murphy's, Pizza Inn, Cici's Pizza, Chuck E. Cheese's and more!