Ever wonder what it’s like to deliver food to strangers’ houses? Well, these pizza delivery drivers reveal what went down at the wildest deliveries yet and it’ll definitely surprise you what kind of stuff they have to deal with on a daily basis. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
“Give It To Me Or Else”
“It was about 8.30 pm and I had just dropped off some pizzas and was walking back to my car when a young guy walked up to me and asked for a light. Told him I didn’t smoke and went to walk around him, and he stepped back in front of me. Now I stand 185 cm and was about 70kg and he was about 165 cm and looked to be 50kg if that. He asked me what was in my Bum Bag. I told him I had some change in there. He told me to give it to him. I laughed and told ‘no.’
He didn’t like that and took another step toward and said, ‘Give it to me or else.’
Because of my size advantage and my secret I had tucked into my shorts behind me, I said ‘Or else what?’
He then pulled out a pocket knife with a blade about 7.5cm and took another step closer. I then proceeded to pull out my 5d cell Mag lite and brought it down onto his collar bone which make a sound, unlike anything I had heard before. When he collapsed to the ground, I stepped around him and proceeded to go and get in my car, and he started screaming I had to take him to hospital.
I laughed and told him where to go. Once I made it back to the shop, I called the police and advised what and where it had happened. The police came to the shop about TWO hours later to interview me and get a statement. They asked me what I had hit him with and I showed them my torch. They said I was lucky It was not a bar or some form of weapon, as I would have been charged with assault.
They told me the guy had robbed about five other delivery drivers in the area and the people I had delivered to were accomplices who set people up. They could never catch the guy because they never had a good description of him.”
Those Are Some Well Trained Dogs
“I will never forget my strangest experience as a pizza delivery driver. It was while driving for Domino’s Pizza in Dayton, Ohio, back in 1980, when Domino’s still had the ’30 Minutes or Free; guarantee.
This was such a stupid policy. If your Domino’s pizza wasn’t at your door within 30 minutes of placing the order by phone, then the pizza was totally FREE. So, the nearby college kids would all call at the same times, ensuring many of the pizzas would be delivered well beyond the half-hour mark.
Since drivers got no tips on a free pizza, they would drive like bats out of heck to beat the clock. Hardly safe. That’s why Domino’s modified the policy to $3.00 off at some point. But not the night of my fateful delivery; this was my last delivery of three different houses, and I only had five minutes left before losing my tip.
This was also one really weird pizza …double meat on the whole pie and NO cheese. Apparently, the customer was lactose intolerant but didn’t mind high cholesterol.
I parked my car, ran up to the address, then stopped abruptly outside a tall wooden fence with a prominent sign that read, ‘Beware of Dog.’ Suddenly, the front door of the house inside the fence opened and an enormous adult black Doberman walked onto the porch. He then stood and didn’t move. Neither did I. Then the door opened again and an extremely large dude with bulging arms came outside and petted the dog on the head.
‘It’s okay, man,’ the man said. ‘The doggie won’t hurt you. Come on in.’
Now common sense should have screamed in my ear, ‘Forget the tip. Tell the guy that company policy forbids you from going inside that gate. Let the guy walk across the yard and retrieve his free pizza and be on your way in one piece.’
But somewhere inside of me, a bolt of bravery made me open the gate and begin briskly walking up to the porch, just ahead of my 30 minute deadline. When I was over halfway to the porch, I stopped once more dead in my tracks as the door opened again. This time, another enormous black adult Doberman stepped outside onto the porch on the other side of the man. I realized at that moment, what I had felt earlier was not bravery; it was actually colossal stupidity. Before I pooped my pants, the guy said, ‘You’re fine. Just keep walking.’
Clearly, this guy was enjoying the situation far too much.
I slowly climbed the three steps of the porch and handed the pizza box to the man.
‘That will be eighteen dollars, please,’ I managed to speak. I was prepared to hear him claim the pizza was late and should be free. Instead, the guy handed me a twenty dollar bill and a five-dollar bill.
‘Keep the change, Little Brother,’ the guy said, a smile on his face. I remember thinking it would be a nice tip if I lived to spend it. That was a lot of money in 1980 for both the pizza and the tip.
As I turned and retreated quickly down the steps and across the yard, I noticed the guy had opened the pizza box and placed it on the ground between the two Dobermans. Then he went into the house. Once outside the gate, I turned and looked on the porch. Neither dog had moved an inch. The guy then returned and opened the door, carrying a large plate. He bent down and pulled several pieces of pizza onto the plate. As he stood up, he saw me and waved. I waved back, and the guy disappeared inside the door. Meanwhile, neither dog had moved. Suddenly, I heard the guy inside the house say something, some kind of command. I didn’t understand it, but the dogs certainly did. They immediately converged on the pizza box and totally devoured the remaining pizza slices in what seemed like only seconds. The Doberman who finished eating first looked up from the pizza box; he noticed me still standing outside the gate of the house. I decided it was time to leave immediately.
I returned to the Domino’s store in one piece and with clean underwear. Nevertheless, I told the store manager that I would not make further deliveries to that particular address. The one experience had been quite sufficient for a lifetime.”
Where Did Tony Go?
“This happened to another pizza delivery guy at the restaurant I delivered for in the early 1970s in Chicago. Let’s call him ‘Tony’.
Tony took several pizzas for delivery and didn’t return within the expected time (more or less 30 minutes). Meanwhile, deliveries were backing up and we were trying to keep up. After he was missing for an hour, the owners and his girlfriend, who happened to be at the pizza place, were really concerned.
The owner called the last place Tony had delivered to, which was a building at the nearby mental hospital and they confirmed that they received their pizzas. Nobody knew what to do.
Eventually, we received a call from the security people at the mental hospital, where they were holding Tony. The mental hospital was actually a large campus on the northwest side of Chicago with at least a couple dozen buildings. It was called Dunning, although the official name was Chicago State Hospital. In its early history, it was called the Cook County Insane Asylum.
It turns out that Tony had dropped his keys somewhere between the building where he delivered the pizzas and his car. He was crawling around on his hands and knees, in the dark, around his car, when a security guard spotted him. The guard questioned him. Tony explained what happened but the security guard didn’t believe him and called in reinforcements. They took him into custody while they tried to figure out which building he had escaped from. After about 30 minutes of failing to find any ward that was missing a patient, they finally decided to indulge Tony, just in case his story was actually true and called the restaurant. Once they reached the restaurant, they were genuinely surprised that Tony had been telling them the truth.
Several guards with flashlights searched and eventually found Tony’s keys in the grass and sent him back with their apologies.”
They Knew What He Was Walking Into
“One Friday afternoon in July, around five pm, I was working at a Domino’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, and it was my turn to deliver the next order.
I grabbed the large pizza off the counter and headed for my car.
The delivery address, written on a slip on the side of the box, was Room 107 at a local economy motel. I didn’t give the location much thought. I routinely took pizzas to neighborhood parks, public swimming pools, shopping malls, hotels, and motels. I figured it was probably some family on a road trip that had just checked in for the night and was ready for dinner.
So I slid the pizza in the passenger seat of my beat-up Chevy and drove about 15 minutes to get to the destination. I parked in the spot right in front of the room the pizza was ordered for. Room 107.
I knocked on the door twice. No response. I waited 30 seconds and knocked twice more.
This time, the door slowly creaked open. But no one was there.
Even though it was light outside, the room was dark. All the blinds and curtains had been closed and there were no lights on except for the dim glow of the TV inside.
I heard a man’s voice say, ‘Come in’ — and so, without thinking, I did. The moment I stepped inside, the door closed behind me. I was a little disoriented so it took me a few moments to assess what I had just walked into.
The man who had called me inside and closed the door behind me now stepped in front of me where I could see him. He was bald and probably in his 60s. He was tall and very large.
He was stumbling around awkwardly. He was clearly wasted and had no clothes on.
I still remember the shock of seeing all this and then realizing the door had been closed behind me.
‘Dang it,’ I thought to myself. My heart was racing.
At that point, I began to notice the room itself. The bed and room were completely trashed. It looked like this guy had been there for days. There were empty Budweiser cans and half-empty Svedka bottles on the bedside table and strewn about the place.
I finally looked to the TV as I was drawn by the sound of a woman’s moans. It was a hardcore adult movie.
I looked at the walls and saw they were draped with images he had torn from adult magazines and taped above the bed and on the room’s other walls. He had even removed the motel’s own wall art to replace it with his own.
I looked back over to the man. He had not once looked me in the eye as he stumbled around the room. He reached into a jacket pocket; before I had a chance to worry around what he might be reaching for, I saw he had a wallet in his hand.
He came over, paid me (including a decent tip), and I left.
As you can imagine, all of this was pretty traumatic for a 21-year-old who hadn’t seen that much in life to that point. But I figured, I would at least have the satisfaction of shocking my co-workers with the story when I got back to Domino’s.
I jumped out of my car the moment the engine stopped, opened the door and yelled out, ‘Guys, you won’t believe … !’
By that point everyone there was already laughing their butts off. They were jumping up and down. High-fiving each other. The guy making pizza spilled his sauce on the floor.
It turns out the creep at the motel had made the exact same order the day before, resulting in an identical experience for the driver. And no one had told me about it.
I had walked into a creeper staycation.
And the whole Domino’s crew had spent the last half hour just waiting for me to get back so they could razz me about it for the next week.”
Rain, Rain, Go Away
“One night, the new cashier put the wrong address for literally every single order I had that night. I was only there for a few hours but had seven to right runs. And no customers would answer their phones. Not a single one that night. Literally had to call every customer to verify their address, because, at one point, I was sent to ‘201 East Lake Drive’ when the customer was at an apartment complex ‘201 Lakeshore Blvd’ for example.
I eventually showed up to the right address to find a lady saying she didn’t order pizza. Even had her look at the receipt to confirm with her the address was correct, but she insisted she hadn’t ordered pizza. Nobody answered the phone, so I took it back to the store.
Mind you, it was also POURING down rain that night. I could barely see the road because the wind was blowing puddles of water, obstructing my view of the road and making it seem like the roads themselves were flooding. I kept missing my turns because it was so dark and rainy.
A lady opened her door as I pulled into her driveway, watched me walk through ankle-deep water, and 15 mph (mile per hour) winds, as I brought her pizza, and she greeted me as if nothing was wrong with this situation. Her order was unpaid, she owed me 16 bucks.
She handed me 20 bucks and said, ‘You can have two bucks.’
I thought, ‘Why she could afford to tip two bucks but not four bucks? The world will never know.’
As I headed back to the store, I hit a decapitated armadillo that was in the road. It wasn’t on purpose, it was too dark to see. Rip (Rest In Peace) little guy.
Then I almost got t-boned by some impatient idiot while going around a round-a-bout. They had plenty of time to see me, but had I been two seconds faster? Well, I might’ve been in the hospital.
But that wasn’t all, I nearly crashed into a HUGE pile of debris from Hurricane Ida that was sitting in the middle of an extremely dark road. Fortunately, I saw it last minute, swerved but wood still scraped up against the side of my car.
As I continued driving, I stopped at a light. My coworker happened to be going the same way, and we were side by side at this light. The light turned green, my wheel got caught in a puddle, causing my car to rev loudly, making me look like an obnoxious driver in front of my coworker.
And finally? My car broke down in the parking lot of my work. The engine was fine, the motor was fine, the alternator was fine. Everything mechanical was fine. What was broken you might ask? The ignition switch. It literally just broke, randomly. No warning, no problems with it before, just all of a sudden my ignition got jammed and I couldn’t turn the key at all. My steering wheel does lock, but I had three coworkers trying to help me start it, and nothing anyone did work.
My car stayed broken down in our parking lot and had to sit there overnight. Not a single thing had gone right that day and night. Had not one run go smoothly.
It was like the universe was giving me the middle finger that night.”
They Put An End To That
“I was working in Denver delivering pizza. The manager gave me a run and asked I drop his wife at home after. New place, never been there before, nice neighborhood.
I walk up to the door, the guy opens it and he’s undressed, towel over his shoulder. He had the money near the door, gave me money, took the pizza and I leave. Guy did give me a good tip.
I get back to the car and the manager’s wife was astounded and asked,’Was he…?’ and I answered, ‘Yep, as the day he was born.’
She had been able to see from the street. No clue what the neighbors saw.
About a week later, we get a call from the same house and the guy specifically requests me to deliver his pizza. This time when he answered the door undressed, he didn’t have the money there by the door and asked if I could bring the pizza in and leave it on the dining room table (first room off the entryway). I go in. I was 22 and fearless, had been taking Aikido, and he looked like he did not lift weights.
He brought me the money, I went to leave and he said, ‘May I ask you a question before you go?’ Sure, I humored him.
‘Twice, when you’ve delivered pizza here I’ve answered the door with no clothes, and you haven’t even batted an eyelash at the fact, why is that?’ he asked.
‘Prior to delivering pizza, I went to school to become a massage therapist. I worked on bodies all the time. You realize a body is a body, and you, sir, don’t have one that’s all that to look at. Good night.’ I walked out.
The third time he called, asking for me again, they sent the guy in the store that’s honestly one of the worst people I’ve ever met, and I didn’t know till after. Seems that the driver, when confronted with an undressed man, flipped out, dropped the pizza, and started screaming at the guy, who quickly closed the door and would not open it again.
We didn’t hear from him for weeks after that, Next time he called the manager took the call, saw the address, and told the guy if he answered the door undressed for any of our drivers the driver was instructed to leave with the pizza and call the police and report him as being a flasher. The store would not put up with the harassment of their drivers. He chose not to order pizza and we never heard from him again while I worked there.”
Stalker Alert
“So a customer called up complaining that last time they ordered, their food was messed up and was promised a credit. There was no credit in the system but what they claimed they got and what they asked for correlated with prior order history so when my 16-year-old shift lead called me asking what to do, I told him to just comp it. He then called back ten minutes later saying the customer was asking for free subs too because those were wrong too, and he said he couldn’t, but took down his name and number for a manager to contact him.
The customer was angry and asked for the shift lead’s name, which he stupidly provided, first and last name. The customer proceeded to Google him and stalk his Facebook profile.
Then the customer asked, ‘You go to X high school?’ As if to intimidate him, then threatened to leave a scathing review online for corporate, demanding to speak to the manager.
He was told the manager was off, and the customer said to my shift lead, ‘I don’t care if he’s not working. He can stop jerking off for a minute and call me.’
I’ve never heard of a customer going this far. I’ve been used to having people try to get your first and last name and intimidate you into giving free food, threatening to call corporate or ‘come up there in person’ and people are soo used to getting their own way that they bully and scare people when they are denied. But stalking a 16-year-old on social media? What in the world? People these days.”
That Is A Heck Of A Shift
“Donald ran into the shop, shaken up because he was robbed again. He got robbed a lot, but this was the first time he came back bleeding. Usually they just took his money bag and the pizzas. This time he was a little worse off: a swollen eye and a bloody lip.
I had asked more than once to have Johnson Homes put on our blocked list. Not much good came from going there. At the best it would be a bad order… someone ordering a pizza they wouldn’t pay for. We still had the “’0 minutes or it’s free’ guarantee. Johnson homes were close enough we always got it there on time. Nobody got a free pizza. But they still tried. And before long they realized they could get something for nothing if they ordered it to a vacant apartment, then just took it when the driver was banging on the door.
I never sent a woman there. The guys would go but they were not allowed to argue or fight, just hand everything over and head on back. I was sick of that nonsense
I told the line to let me know when the next delivery was called on to JH. I took the Sentra keys (we had two cars for drivers without a vehicle. A Nissan Sentra and a Hyundai Excel) and told Pirkle to to go home and relax. He was pretty shaken up.
A few hours later we got a huge order. In those days we sold pizza and sodas, nothing else. Six large pizzas. And going to Johnson. I told everyone to make these first and do it quick. I was out the door in eight minutes to go to a place five minutes away.
As the pie makers were stuffing the pizzas in the hot bags I was getting ready to go. By getting ready I mean taking the safety off my sweet little Raven .25 caliber automatic. Slipped it in my back pocket and hit the road.
I got there in record time, bounded up the stairs and pounded on the door.
A few guys piled out and started the ‘it’s late, it’s free,’ nonsense. I said no, it was less than 15 minutes. Pay for your stuff so I can get back to work. Yip, more stupidity. I saw there were no lights on in the apartment. But there were enough lights outside, I did see there was no furniture in there either. Definite set up.
I told them I’m going back and I was told ‘not with those pizzas.’ I smiled, because I’m like that, and said, ‘Okay, y’all gonna take them?’ Then sat all three bags at my feet. Crossed my arms and leaned back into the cold metal rail.
A big noise, a bright light. A loaded weapon went off in my pants. I’m not so tough now, neither are they. My butt was on fire. Half of us ran down the stairs and the other half up. I was taking the steps three at a time and jump in my running car. The door beside me opened and closed, hard. I looked at him and he looked at me. Both scared.
‘What are you doing?!’ I screamed at him.
He’s screaming about I need to drive, someone’s shooting at us.
I screamed back, ‘That’s me, fool!’ and he bailed. I got back to my store and we figured out I’m not dying. Just a bloody crease across my left bun and a really nasty burning sensation.
That’s how I lost half a dozen pizzas, shot myself in the butt, and finally got my company to stop delivering to that place, all in the same night.”
That Raise Is Definitely Deserved
“One night, I was working my closing driver shift. 11:30 pm rolled by and still no orders on screen. 11:37 pm crept up and from out of thin air came a stack of seven orders; In ALL different directions (that same kind of scenario seems to happen every night). I ended up leaving the store with three orders. I take the first one to a notoriously bad motel 6 in the area. This guy not only signs my $115 credit card receipt with a dot and a line going through (it looked kind of like a single lowercase “i”). He then proceeded to hand me a pipe and asked if I wanted ‘A little puff to finish the night strong.’
I said, ‘Thanks, but I’m feeling pretty strong, my friend.’ He continued to look at me, dead in the face, for a second. I notice there was one other guy in the room and a girl in the corner, just staring at the wall. Just before I turn to leave, I look up again from my clipboard and all three were watching me very closely. I cautiously rushed to my car after the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I then headed to my 2nd delivery. It was in a small trailer park in a neighboring city, in a trailer that was surrounded by numerous mounds of debris and rotting trash. Next to the trailer was a mint 1969 Chevy El Camino (I remember it because it was the nicest thing in the whole trailer park). When the couple opens the door, my nose started to burn lightly, like there was phosgene gas in the air or some chemical being burned. As we were exchanging money for food, the door remained wide open and gradually the sensation grew more intense. As I walked away my nose felt warm and I started rubbing it, I quickly found that I had started bleeding. I noted this address and went on my way (driving with napkins in my nose).
I went to my 3rd destination. It was a nice and normal residential house and a nice break from the sketchy scenes from earlier. It was a quick and easy exchange and they even tipped me 50% of the bill. But as I tried to leave, I hit a big pothole and my car died. My supply fuel line had caught something and was yanked off of the pump, so I was leaking fuel everywhere. I quickly reattached the line and finally got on my way. When I pull into a Pizza Hut parking lot, I notice two city police cars in the parking lot.
I got inside and spotted my manager speaking with three policemen. I walked up to them and all of them turned to me and my manager exclaimed, ‘IT WAS HIM!’, so immediately my face goes pale and I wait to see what happens next without verbally responding to my manager’s comment.
The police chuckled and asked if they could speak with me. It turns out that my first delivery (To the people at Motel 6) was a case of identity theft. So I gave them a room number, the best description of the individuals I could give, a description of what had happened, and my notes on the residences in my 2nd delivery. They thanked me and left in a hurry. They went to the room I had given and found the individuals in the middle of using the pipe they previously offered to me. I learned that they were involved in both an identity theft ring and substance distribution. They did NOT pursue investigating the residence of my 2nd delivery, in their trailer.
After all was said and done, I sighed and said to my manager “’ need a raise.'”
No Trespassing
“I know what dead bodies smell like for two reasons. One of them is not something I want to go into because it’s not a good memory (no I haven’t killed someone) and the other is because I accidentally left a ton of pork in my car and after a week it smelled similar. Yesterday I delivered to a secluded house that just creeped me out, to begin with. It was on a secluded road.
There was a sign that said, ‘Trespassers will be shot.’
A window was broken and a plant was coming through from the inside of the house. The yard was covered in trash and cig butts. There was a big fence around the house. I hate entering properties with those signs.
I went up to the door and knocked. It smelled horrible from the outside and I recognized the smell pretty quickly. It was the smell of rotting meat.
Within like five seconds, I heard someone say, ‘This door doesn’t work, you need to come around to the back.’
It was a cash order so I really didn’t want to go back to tell my manager I couldn’t deliver the 60 dollar order so even though it probably would have been smart to leave earlier, I told him if he wanted the pizza he could either come out the front or come out the back and walk around. The guy inside started yelling that I needed to bring him the pizza and began to bang on the door and jiggle his doorknob.
I just left and told him, ‘I’m not trying to get murdered.’
I wasn’t sure if I should’ve reported the incident. I had no evidence but the fact their house smelled like rotting flesh, and the guy asked me to go to his back door to give him his pizza made the whole situation seem too suspicious. I have delivered to some foul-smelling houses but I have never delivered to a house I could say smelled like a dead body. I have also never felt so creeped out during a delivery. I don’t want the chance of some other delivery guy in the area getting murdered.”