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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | Garden City, Michigan, U.S. (May 8, 1959) |
| Founder(s) | Michael Ilitch Marian Ilitch |
| Headquarters | Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Michael Ilitch (Owner) Marian Ilitch (Owner) David Scrivano (President) |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Products | Pizza |
| Parent | Ilitch Holdings, Inc. |
| Website | www.littlecaesars.com |
Little Caesars is a pizza chain, estimated to be the 4th largest in the United States.[1] However the company claims to be the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.[2] Little Caesars has its headquarters in the Fox Theatre in Downtown Detroit, Michigan.[3]
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History
Little Caesars was founded by Michael Ilitch and Marian Ilitch on May 8, 1959. The first location was a strip mall in Garden City, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Mike wanted to call it simply "Pizza Treat," but Marian wanted a name that suited Mike. Marian considered Mike her "little Caesar" even though he hadn't accomplished much. Mike ultimately relented, and the store opened as "Little Caesars Pizza Treat." The original store is still open today.
The company is famous for its advertising catchphrase, "Pizza! Pizza!" which was introduced in 1979. The phrase refers to two pizzas being offered for the comparable price of a single pizza from competitors. Originally the pizzas were served in a single long package. In addition to pizza, they served chicken, shrimp, and fish. Little Caesars has discarded the unwieldy packaging in favor of typical pizza boxes. Currently, the chain is best known for its "Hot-N-Ready" pizzas, large pizzas with popular toppings available for immediate takeout at a low price ($5.00 in most U.S. stores).
Corporate
Ilitch Holdings, Inc. provides professional and technical services to all companies owned by Mike Illich These include the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League, Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball, Detroit's MotorCity Casino, Blue Line Foodservice Distribution, Little Caesars Pizza Kits, Champion Foods, Olympia Entertainment, Olympia Development, Uptown Entertainment, and the Hockeytown Cafe (also the site of City Theater) and numerous other restaurants downtown and Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit.[4] In 2005, combined revenues of Ilitch-owned businesses totaled $1.5 billion.[5]
The company is looking to expand again, especially in the Northeast U.S. Currently, there are around 2,000 locations, down from a peak of around 5,000 in the 1990s.[6] In particular, Little Caesars wants to return to markets that the chain was forced to withdraw from in the late 1990s due to financial troubles such as Pittsburgh, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Indianapolis, and Denver; Little Caesars is currently nonexistent or in K-Mart locations in those markets.
In 2006, the Little Caesars franchise returned to the Twin Cities Market, opening up stores in such busy corners as University Avenue and Snelling Avenue in Midway, Saint Paul, and Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue, nearby the Midtown light rail station in the Phillips community of Minneapolis and other high foot traffic and or low income sections of the Twin Cities. Caesars also began a return to the competitive Pittsburgh market with the opening of new locations in Carnegie, Dormont and nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. A new location was also scheduled to open in the Pittsburgh suburb of Whitehall on 29 September 2009.[7]
Misc.
By 1987[8] the company was operating across the Northern United States; by 2006 it was also present in parts of Canada (although some Canadian cities had locations since 1969), Puerto Rico, Guam, South Korea, Honduras, Slovakia,[9] the Dominican Republic, Czech Republic,[10] Mexico, Turkey, Ecuador, Egypt, Aruba, Iceland, Guatemala, Japan, Curaçao, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Qatar, Venezuela, UAE, Lebanon, Bahrain and Peru.In 2004, Little Caesars began to sell Hot and Ready pizzas that are available without an order and with no wait. In 2007, Little Caesars ended its partnership with Coca-Cola, opting for Pepsi products instead, except in Canada.
Throughout the 1990s, Little Caesars was commonly found in Kmart stores. Coincidentally, the first Kmart and the first Little Caesars were both built in Garden City, Michigan. After Kmart's bankruptcy issues, most of today's Kmarts have replaced the Little Caesars with their own branded "K-Cafe". However, some Little Caesars remain.
While Little Caesars owns the "Pizza! Pizza!" trademark in the U.S., the unaffiliated Pizza Pizza restaurant chain owns the Canadian trademark. As a result, Little Caesars cannot directly use its well-known slogan in Canada, but has used "Two Pizzas!" along with "Delivery! Delivery!", "Quality! Quality!" or other such double-word tag lines in advertising and on packaging in Canada. and in the US Little Caesars was among the first to use a new kind of speed cooking conveyor oven, the "Rotary Air Impingement Oven" as described in U.S. Patent 5676044
In 1998, Little Caesars filled what was then the current largest pizza order, filling an order of 13,386 pizzas from the VF Corporation of Greensboro, North Carolina.
Locations
References
- ^ Estimated by Technomic Inc., a food industry research firm in Chicago. Tom Wlash (March 21, 2006). "Little Caesars thinks huge - Detroit chain plans to add hundreds of stores nationwide". Detroit Free Press.
- ^ "Companies and Venues". Ilitch Holdings, Inc.. July 18, 2006. http://ilitchholdings.com/CompaniesandVenues/tabid/125/Default.aspx.
- ^ "Franchise Opportunities." Little Caesars. 5/5. retrieved on November 2, 2009.
- ^ Ilitch Holdings, Inc. [1] Accessed 16 June, 2006
- ^ Ilitch Holdings, Inc. [2] Accessed 16 June, 2006 (Number at bottom of page)
- ^ USA Today Little Caesars plans pizza empire Accessed 16 June, 2006
- ^ Little Caesars Pizza - New Castle, PA
- ^ LITTLE CAESARS PIZZA ANNOUNCES 700 NEW INTERNATIONAL RESTAURANTS
- ^ http://www.littlecaesars.sk
- ^ Tesco - a place for comfortable shopping
External links
- Little Caesars official website
- Little Caesars Canada website
- Ilitch Holdings, Inc.
- Company announcement about entering the Japan market
- Official company announcement about entering Costa Rica, Peru and Ireland.
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