00:00Today's game-changer, the first slice that changed America.
00:03Welcome to Lombardi's Pizza, 1905.
00:06Before TikTok, before Wi-Fi, before pineapple on pizza debates ruined families.
00:11This was the first legally licensed pizzeria in the United States.
00:15Now, Italian immigrants had been making and selling pizza in New York for years,
00:19often right out of their homes or small grocery stores, just without a business license.
00:24Then, Gennaro Lombardi changed the game.
00:26In 1905, he applied for and got a commercial license from the city of New York
00:31to operate his pizzeria right here at 53 1⁄2 Spring Street.
00:35That made Lombardi's the first officially licensed pizzeria in America,
00:39meaning it wasn't just delicious, but it met all the health, tax, and business regulations of the time.
00:45And he didn't just make pizza, he invented a blueprint.
00:49From Lombardi's came generations of pizzaiolos, Totonos, Patsis, Grimaldis,
00:54all tracing their doughy DNA back to this very kitchen.
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