The Pizza Index predicts the Pentagon's covert operations. What you need to know
Tracking the activity of government agencies in Washington by the dynamics of pizza orders has migrated from jokes to one of the working tools of American journalists, and Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth said that sometimes he specifically orders a lot of pizza to confuse monitoring resources. The last spike in shipments was registered on January 3 and 5, before and shortly after the U.S. operation in Venezuela, when the pizza index increased by 700% and 1,250%, respectively. How the pizza index works and what other unofficial indexes have become widespread is in the Izvestia article.
"Pizza Index"
• This informal index is also called the pizza meter or the Pentagon pizza theory. It is assumed that a sharp surge in overnight orders at fast food restaurants in the area of government buildings where the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House are located may indicate the preparation of military operations or major political crises. This phenomenon was noted on August 1, 1990, on the eve of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which marked the beginning of the Gulf War, before the outbreak of the Iraq War in 2003, and before a number of other events.
• There are several versions of the appearance of this indicator. According to one of them, the pizza index appeared during the Cold War, when Soviet intelligence officers tracked sudden spikes in orders in order to be prepared for possible enemy military operations. According to another version, the index appeared in the early 1980s thanks to Frank Mix, who franchised 43 Domino's pizza restaurants in Washington. He drew attention to the surge in orders from government residences on the eve of major military operations and told reporters about it.
What events did the pizza index predict?
• The U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983 to overthrow the Marxist regime, which resulted in the execution of the head of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, and his pregnant wife, as well as the heads of ministries. According to Frank Meeks, pizza orders to the Pentagon doubled on the eve of the operation.
• The invasion of Panama to overthrow the country's leader, General Manuel Noriega, who refused to renegotiate previous agreements and grant the United States control of the Panama Canal. Noriega was overthrown as a result of a military operation on December 24, 1989. The night before, the number of pizza deliveries to the Pentagon doubled, and delivery workers drew attention to increased security measures and increased activity of government personnel.
• Operation Desert Storm in January 1991 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. From January 7 to January 15, night pizza deliveries to the Pentagon increased from three to 101, and the White House ordered 55 pizzas in four hours on the night of January 15-16. The peak of orders coincided with preparations for the Gulf War: it was after these events that journalists became interested in the pizza Index.
• The attempted impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton and the military operation in Iraq in December 1998. The Washington Post journalists noted a triple increase in pizza orders to the White House, Congress and the Pentagon, which lasted from December 16 to December 19 and forced pizzerias to develop their own "contingency plan." It was during this period that the United States and Great Britain attacked the administrative and industrial infrastructure of Iraq in order to weaken the regime of Saddam Hussein (we discussed more about this and other US military operations here). At the same time, there were congressional hearings on the impeachment of US President Bill Clinton in connection with his perjury about a scandalous relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
• The Israeli attack on Iran on June 13, 2025. An hour before the strikes, the specially created Pentagon Pizza Report resource, which tracks activity in fast food restaurants near government buildings in Washington, announced a surge in activity in almost all pizzerias near the Pentagon. The information was obtained from Google maps in real time.
The reliability of the "pizza index"
• The pizza index has a logical rationale: during major crises or the preparation of serious military operations, there are more employees in government buildings than usual. Working overtime, they order food delivery at fast food restaurants located nearby, and the demand for products increases significantly.
• The index is used as an exercise in training intelligence analysts. His example shows that information can be obtained from unexpected sources, and even the analysis of open data makes it possible to identify the prerequisites for political, military or economic events. The Pizza Index teaches students to identify patterns and anomalies in people's daily behavior and collect information.
• The Pizza Index cannot be considered a real forecasting tool. Knowing about the impending crisis, analysts can interpret data biased and ignore facts that contradict the "pizza theory." In addition, with the expansion of the network of eateries and delivery services, statistics on the growth in demand for pizza are becoming less convincing, and the sources on which the analysis relies cannot be called accurate.
• The US intelligence agencies are aware of the existence of the "pizza index", which is also called the "Washington Legend", and have learned how to counteract it. In 2011, when US special forces conducted a secret operation to capture and eliminate terrorist Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, food orders were deliberately distributed among several suppliers, and the internal kitchens of government buildings were used so that analysts could not track activity on external indicators.
Other indexes
Enthusiasts also use the Gay Bar Index to track the Pentagon's activity (the LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia). Located next to the building of the Ministry of War, the iconic American institution Freddie's Beach Bar is popular with Pentagon staff, including high-ranking officers, and the drop in attendance may indicate that employees of the Ministry of War are working overtime. In particular, the abnormally low attendance was announced on the eve of the Israeli strikes on Iran on June 13, 2025.
• With the help of such indexes, it is possible to track major events not only in politics and economics. For example, the Waffle House Index, named after the popular American chain of 24-hour fast food restaurants located on the coasts of the southern United States, has become an unofficial tool for determining the strength of a hurricane. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Waffle House adopted its own disaster management strategy and provided facilities with electric generators, which made it possible not to close restaurants during the storm. The Waffle House Index includes three danger levels: green (there is electricity and a full menu), yellow (supply from backup generators and a limited menu) and red (the restaurant is closed due to serious damage and risk to staff). The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses this index to assess the severity of the effects of hurricanes along with the Saffir-Simpson wind scale.
• The Jimmy Griffin Snowstorm Index, proposed by WKBW-TV in New York State, tracks the intensity of snowfall in beer cans. The comic index appeared in 2014 in memory of the former mayor of the city, James Griffin, who invited residents on the eve of the 1985 storm to "stay at home and take a pack of beer and watch a good football match." According to the Griffin Scale, one can of beer corresponds to three inches (7.62 cm) of the expected snow cover height.
• The Big Mac index is used to estimate the value of a currency. The Economist journalist Pam Woodall in 1986 was looking for an example for her article to illustrate how purchasing power in different countries reflects the real value of national currencies against the dollar. The burger was chosen because McDonald's restaurants exist in different countries and offer the same menu, and the composition of the big mac reflects the consumer basket in miniature, since it contains bread, meat and vegetables. The Economist publishes an estimate of the Big Mac index twice a year: in January 2022, it showed that the Russian ruble is undervalued by 65.4%. The index is not considered completely objective, but it has become widespread: burgers are trying to calculate wages, Starbucks coffee and IKEA shelving are used as analogues, and in some African countries, the KFC index is used by analogy with the big Mac index.
• The book's readability is measured by the Hawking Index (HI). In 2014, mathematician Jordan Ellenberg proposed a playful scale by which you can determine whether a book is read to the end. The index was named after Stephen Hawking's work "A Brief History of Time" as an example of a book that is often bought but rarely read to the end. The calculations were based on the citations made by readers in the Amazon e—book service - the further the notes were taken from the beginning, the more readers were involved. The rating published by The Wall Street Journal in 2014 showed that the most widely read book was the novel "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt (98.5% HI), and the most boring was Hillary Clinton's memoir "Hard Choice" (1.9% HI).
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