Disney
Prior to abandoning him for the scenic Christmas streets of Paris, France, the McCallister family at the center of the holiday classic Home Alone had themselves a pre-trip pizza party the night before their trip. As they’d go on to prove throughout the course of the film, their young son Kevin wasn’t at the top of their minds, either, as they seemingly ordered a whooping ten pies and were unable to save him a single plain slice.
As Joe Pesci’s gold-toothed burglar is scoping out the McCallister home, their 10-pie order from local pizzeria Little Nero’s arrives, prompting the barely-licensed delivery boy to request his bill of $122.50.
10 pies for $122.50 — not too shabby, especially considering today’s times where the price of beef and eggs seemingly rise every month. There are 19 credited McCallister family members on the film’s Wikipedia page, meaning there are just about two slices of pizza per person — although more than half of those 19 Illinois Irishmen are kids, meaning they would likely be eating less. But what would that order cost today?
Here’s how money much the McCallister family’s 10-pie, $122.50 pizza order in Home Alone would cost today
As Kevin walks through the kitchen, six of the ten pies are visible — three on the kitchen table, one on the counter in front of one of the cousins, and then another two in front of his brother Buzz — and every slice seen has toppings on it. While his brother Buzz claims that they ordered him a plain pie, there’s nothing in the scene, or the movie, that suggests we should take him at his word. Not a single plain slice in spotted throughout the entire scene, too.
After the dust-up between Kevin and Buzz, a seventh topping-covered pie is shown as well, with an eighth, still untouched one, below it.
Now that we’ve established seven of the ten pies have toppings, the question then becomes what toppings, exactly, are on the pies. The best look at the non-plain pizza comes through a shot of soda spilling across the counter as Kevin let’s out his (oft-debated as being potentially psychopathic) rage on his bully older brother.
Beyond the standard marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese, the clearest accoutrement are olives. Beyond those, however, things become gray — or should we say, brown, as there appears to be either a sausage or meatball like substance on the pie, in addition to the aforementioned trio of sauce, cheese and olives.
Assuming we take Buzz at his word and no more, that means there was one plain pie, seven olive and sausage pies, and two pies we cannot identify. For the sake of parity, we’ll split the difference between plain (no toppings) and sausage/olives (two toppings), and put one topping on those final two pies: pepperoni.
As far as pizza joint options go from the Home Alone address of 671 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, Illinois, there are nine in the area, but three are Domino’s and one is a Mexican spot, so we’ve taken those off the board. That leaves Marco Roma Pizzeria, Mino’s, and Grateful Bites Pizza Shop. Of those three, however, only Grateful Bites is a true pizza place — the other two are more Italian places that *also* serve pizza — so that’s the location we’ll be using. Thus, here’s our bill:
1. Seven sausage and green olive pies: $136.50
2. Two pepperoni pies: $36
3. One plain pie: $16
4. Total without tax: $188.50
5. Total with tax: $205.50
That’s $83 more than the pre-tip tab in Home Alone, which was released in 1990 — 35 years ago. That means that every year since Home Alone was released, the cost of the McCallister’s order went up (on average) of $2.37 per year. Inflation, man. According to the US bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI inflation calculator, however, $122.50 in December 1995 “has the same buying power as” $296.75 in November 2025.
The truth of the matter is, in any major metropolitan or suburban area, $122.50 is buying you four, maybe five pies MAXIMUM. Then again, most of us clearly aren’t as rich as the McCallister family, whose house sold for $5.5 million earlier this year (in real life)