Toppers Pizza (American restaurant)

Toppers Pizza
Franchise
Industry Quick Service Restaurant
Founded Champaign, Illinois, United States (1991)
Headquarters Whitewater, Wisconsin, United States
Key people
 Scott Gittrich, Founder and CEO
David Biederman, Executive Vice President
Kendall Richmond, CFO
Scott Iversen, VP Marketing
Adam Oldenburg, VP Operations
Tony Ellis, VP IT
Donette Beattie, VP Supply Chain
Products Pizza
Website www.toppers.com

Toppers Pizza is a chain of pizzerias in the United States. The chain was founded by Scott Gittrich in 1991 in Champaign, Illinois, but the original location closed in the mid-1990s. The first Toppers Pizza location in Wisconsin opened in Whitewater in 1993. The company is headquartered in Whitewater, Wisconsin.[1] The first official franchise store opened in Eau Claire, WI in 1997.[2]

Overview

There are Toppers Pizza franchises throughout the Midwestern United States. The chain includes both company-owned locations and franchise stores. It has more than 85 locations in the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Nebraska, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.[3] The chain's target market is college students and other customers between 18 and 34 years old.[4][5][1] As part of its targeting of college students, most of the chain's stores remain open until 3:00 a.m. or later to accommodate late-night business.[1][6]

Toppers founder Scott Gittrich entered the pizza business in 1984 when he was a college student at the University of Illinois and took a job as a Domino's Pizza delivery driver. He rose through the company, serving as director of operations for a group of 22 franchise locations in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he left in 1991 to start his own pizza business.[6]

Originally called "Topper's Pizza", the chain removed the apostrophe from its name as part of its marketing strategy to give it a more informal image.[4]

Reception

In 2013, the business was named as one of Nation's Restaurant News' 50 Breakout Chains for 2013, was ranked by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the top 500 franchises in the United States and was ranked at #58 of the top 100 pizza companies by Pizza Today.[7][8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lynne Miller, Ones to Watch: Toppers Pizza, QSR Magazine, July 2008
  2. ↑ "Toppers Timeline".
  3. ↑ Toppers Pizza - Locations, website accessed December 22, 2017
  4. 1 2 Stuart Elliott, Hat’s Off to Pizza Makeover, New York Times, September 11, 2006
  5. ↑ Fernie Tiflis, Toppers Pizza: Editor’s Choice 2008 Archived 2009-01-06 at the Wayback Machine. Food and Drink, 01 December 2008
  6. 1 2 Jane Burns, Executive Q&A: Toppers Pizza founder Scott Gittrich on pie appeal, Wisconsin State Journal, February 27, 2010
  7. ↑ "Toppers Pizza". Log Cabin Democrat. August 29, 2013. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  8. ↑ Leute, Jim (February 6, 2014). "Toppers Pizza to open Janesville store". GazetteXtra. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.