Pizza saver

A pizza saver is made of plastic and has three legs, sometimes four. They are often white, and the common practice is to place one pizza saver in the center of the pizza before the box lid is closed for delivery. The pizza saver is not re-used and is typically discarded by the patron, although some people have found secondary uses for them [2] such as egg holders when turned upside down.[1]

In 1985, Carmela Vitale of Dix Hills, New York, was issued a patent for a plastic three-legged tripod stool that would sit in the middle of the box and keep the top from sagging into pizza, cakes or other foods kept in a box.[1][3] Vitale called her invention a "package saver" and used that term also as the title of her patent, but it has since been renamed the "pizza saver" since that has become its most common use.[1] The patent was filed on February 10, 1983, and issued on February 12, 1985.[4]

These devices were sometimes repurposed by children as tables around which appropriately sized dolls or action figures could be seated, such as the popular G.I. Joe action figures of the 1980s.

A patent for the same device, named "SEPI" (commonly known as "guardapizza" or "cosito de la pizza"), was filed ten years earlier, in 1974, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Claudio Daniel Troglia. However, the patent was not renewed.[5][6]

Variations on the device have since been invented by other people, such as a disposable plastic spatula whose handle holds the box top up; and a plastic tripod, like the designs by Vitale and Troglia, but with one of the legs serrated like a knife, making for easy cutting of stuck cheese and bread.[1] Some pizzerias have eliminated the use of plastic pizza savers by returning to the old method of simply baking a bread ball into the center of their pizzas.

Given the identity of the device as a "table", in summer 2018, Boston Pizza ran a promotional campaign in Canada that turned the pizza table into a patio set, adding miniature plastic chairs alongside the table.[7] In March 2020, Pizza Hut Hong Kong announced that it had partnered with furniture retailer IKEA on a joint venture. IKEA launched a new side table called a SÄVA, so named after its resemblance to a pizza saver. The table would be boxed in packaging resembling a pizza box, and the building instructions included a suggestion to order a Swedish meatball pizza from Pizza Hut, which would contain the same meatballs served in IKEA restaurants.[8]