SULLIVAN COUNTY- Anthony Mongiello of Sullivan County is the patented inventor of the stuffed crust pizza and he says that his invention was ripped off by Pizza Hut. According to Mongiello, Pizza Hut refuses to credit him for the invention.
“You really can’t fight big business, David and Goliath situations really exist,” he said.
Mongiello was a young man from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn when he accidentally made his discovery while he was making is first pizza.
“This dough was growing, and growing, and growing, and it was diminishing the size of the pizza itself with the sauce and the cheese,” he recalled. “I felt embarrassed, but I took it out, it was cooked, and it looked like there was a zeppole or a calzone all around the pizza. So, it was good. We cut it, and we ate it. As I bit into the side of this zeppole looking crust, and I watched it open after I bitten into it, I said if there were something inside here, this would be decision. And that was truly how stuffed crust pizza was born.”
His patent application was very detailed and took into consideration every possible variable that filling a pizza crust could have, but that didn’t stop Pizza Hut.
“So I have a patent, I have a trademark, I feel like I am protected, I’m ready to go, and wow, was I mistaken,” he said.
Mongiello says he is not bitter, he only wants recognition from Pizza Hut as the inventor.
“No one will ever take away the fact that I created that product, and I’m the reason that Pizza Hut has it today,” he said.
Mongiello’s story is featured in a newly released documentary on Amazon Prime called “Stolen Dough.”
