Pentagon Pizza Index and Gay Bar Traffic

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When governments, like the notorious Trump administration, try to operate in darkness, it's up to the press to be vigilant and shine a light on what is happening in our nation's illusive and closed-off corridors of power.  The Pentagon, under the control of former Fox News entertainer, Pete Heggseth, in particular, is averse to sharing anything that does not tell the story Pete wants told in exactly the manner that he wants it told.  Pete recently decreed that members of the Pentagon press corps sign an agreement to only report stories about the military that are expressly approved by his office.  Most respectable news gathering organizations declined and surrendered their Pentagon press credentials, Fox News included.

But good reporters are a wily sort, and stories from deep inside the bowels of the Pentagon, the world's second largest office building, continue to gush forth like water spurting from fountains along the Las Vegas Strip.  As I was collecting information for yesterday's post about the Pentagon's spending orgasm on high-value speciality food items and other luxuries at the close of FY25, a spree that ate up over $93 billion during the month of September 2025 alone, I came across a related story that explained how some savvy reporters in the Washington, DC, area were being alerted to sudden activity at the Pentagon.

The first story involved something called the Pentagon Pizza Index and was based on a principle that would have been obvious to most junior high students.  On nights when there were spikes in deliveries of pizza to the Pentagon by area pizzerias, big things were about to happen.  Even though the Pentagon denies the "Index" claiming no actual correlation between pizza orders and big military events - and the availability of many food sources within the Pentagon itself, anecedotal information seems to indicate otherwise.  On the night of January 15, 1991, just prior to the start of the first Gulf War - Operation Desert Storm, 101 pizzas were delivered to the Pentagon.  Months earlier, on August 1, 1990, the night before the invasion of Kuwait, the CIA brought in 21 pizzas.  Those figures were provided by the owner of a large chain of Domino's Pizza franchises in the Washinton, DC, area.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Wolf Blitzer later advised:  "Bottom line for journalists:  Always monitor the pizzas."

(Apparently now is is not difficult to surveil businesses digitally with a feature called "Popular Times" on Google Maps that shows live customer traffic - and Pentagon Pete has no control over that piece of free enterprise - yet.)

But "more activity" at certain commercial enterprisess isn't the only conceivable indicator that something big is about the happen with our nation's military, there is also an inverse indicator where businesses serve as bellweathers because they are experiencing less activity.  The gay publication, Queerty, reported that observers  at an iconic gay club near the Pentagon noted correlations in quiet nights at the club and subsequent military activities in the Middle East.  Observers also appear to be tracking activity at a gay club near the White House which has shown the same correlation.

Pete Hegseth may be lord and master of the Pentagon, but when  it comes to ferreting out information, most good journalists know there is more than one way to skin a possum, especially in the digital age!