Pizza Shop Pranked for $300, Feeds Hospital ER Instead

A $300 prank order could have ruined Dave Agovic's Friday, but he chose to turn 18 unwanted pizzas into an act of kindness instead.

L'Osteria Mondello in Cheyenne, Wyoming was slammed on a busy Friday night when someone ordered 18 pizzas. The kitchen was so backed up that staff had warned customers about two-hour waits and temporarily stopped taking new orders.

Despite the chaos, owner Dave Agovic and his team knocked out the massive order in just 40 minutes. Then they waited for someone to pick them up.

Nobody ever showed up. When Agovic called the number on the order, the person who answered had no clue what he was talking about.

That's when it hit him. Someone had pranked his restaurant.

The situation stung extra hard because L'Osteria Mondello doesn't require advance payment. "We trust people," Agovic told Cowboy State Daily. "Cheyenne is a small place, and Cheyenne is the place with wonderful people."

But Agovic wasn't about to let $300 worth of hot pizza go to waste. He asked his team for ideas, and someone suggested the hospital.

Within minutes, they decided to deliver all 18 pizzas to the emergency room at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. There was just one problem: they needed a delivery driver for the massive order.

Right on cue, Ryan Lemley walked through the door. The 18-year-old had worked at L'Osteria Mondello for over two and a half years before recently moving on. When he saw what was happening, he volunteered immediately.

Ryan loaded up every pizza and drove them straight to the ER.

"He was my hero that day," Agovic said.

Sunny's Take

What makes this story shine isn't just that Agovic donated the pizzas. It's that he saw hospital workers as the perfect people to receive an unexpected gift.

"They are very hardworking people and they help save a lot of lives around," he explained. "And I was like, let's donate, let's reward them."

Somewhere in the middle of what should have been a terrible Friday, a team of ER workers got a surprise meal they never saw coming. The prankster wanted to create frustration. Agovic created gratitude instead.

We don't always get to choose what happens to us. But we can always choose what we do next. One small restaurant in Wyoming just proved that the best response to meanness is kindness.