LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — Austin Shission is a long-time fan of Nardone Brothers Pizza, and over the weekend, he noticed a change to his beloved pizza, a change he didn't care for.
Austin Shission of Wyoming said, "Like most people in the valley, I grew up eating it as a kid and would always be available around the house. So I got the pizza, and we went home, and I went to open up, to heat up, and, like, what is this?"
Viewers' photos show the original packaging: a gift box-style box and parchment paper separating two trays of pizza.
Now, the pizza comes in a tab-open style box with the pizza wrapped in plastic, which Austin says makes it harder to enjoy.
As a digital marketer, Austin saw an opportunity to right what he and other pizza lovers in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania thought was wrong.
"So that was on Sunday, and then on Monday, I went to finish my work for the day. I'm like, have a half hour before I wanna call it quits for the day. So I spent a half hour and put the website petition together real quick, just as a fun joke for friends and family. Never expected to go anywhere," he said.
The next day, Austin woke up to 300 signatures on his online petition. That number quickly surged to nearly a thousand.
"The company probably wasn't too happy with me. I hope they're not too angry with me because the way I had the petition set up is every time someone filled it out, they got a separate email with that person's name and a whole message. Which means they got 950 emails before I turned it off," explained Shission.
But ultimately, their voices were heard. Tuesday night, Nardone Brothers announced on social media while the pizza itself has not changed, once the inventory of new packaging is depleted, the company will return to its original design.
"So many people are happy about it. Idea kind of obviously it's on a small level. It's not something that's gonna affect the world or affect anything at the end of the day. But it's cool to see a community come together just to change something small. It was fun, right? With all the stuff that's been going on recently, with the election, all the divisiveness, this was just something fun to come together," said Shission.
Austin says his next mission will be to bring back the Middleswarth Potato Chip Bucket.