Little Caesars is a pizza restaurant chain in the United States. It is estimated to be the 4th largest pizza chain in the United States.[1] However the company claims to be the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.[2]
History
It was founded by Mike Ilitch and Marian Ilitch on May 8th, 1959 in Garden City, Michigan, as "Little Caesars Pizza Treat." 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. Little Caesars has discarded the unwieldy packaging in favor of typical pizza boxes.
Corporate
Ilitch Holdings, Inc. provides professional and technical services to all companies owned by Michael and/or Marian Ilitch. 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.[3] In 2005, combined revenues of Ilitch-owned businesses totaled $1.5 billion.[4]
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.[5]. 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, Indianapolis, and Denver; Little Caesars is currently nonexistent or in K-Mart locations in those markets. In June 2008, Little Caesars began a return to the competitive Pittsburgh market (in which locally-owned rivals Vocelli Pizza, Pizza Joe's, and several mom-and-pop pizza shops compete successfully with the "Big Three" of Pizza Hut, Papa John's, & Domino's Pizza as well as the reletively recent expansion of Cici's Pizza into the area) with the opening of a new location in New Castle, Pennsylvania[6]; New Castle itself had previously had two Little Caesar's plus another inside K-Mart before the chain's struggles.
Misc.
By 1987 [7] 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 [8], the Dominican Republic, Czech Republic [9], Mexico, Turkey, the Philippines, Ecuador, Egypt, Aruba, Iceland, Guatemala, Japan, Curaçao, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Qatar, Venezuela, UAE, Lebanon, and Bahrain.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. 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
Caribbean
Asia
Central America
Europe
North America
South America
Middle East
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).
- ^ 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
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