Little Caesars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Little Caesars Enterprises, Inc. | |
 |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1959 (Garden City, Michigan,USA) |
| Headquarters | Detroit, Michigan |
| Key people | Michael and Marian Ilitch, Founders and owners David Scrivano, President |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Products | Pizza take-out |
| Slogan | Pizza! Pizza! (United States) various (Canada) |
| Website | www.littlecaesars.com |
Little Caesars is estimated to be the fourth-largest pizza restaurant chain in the United States.[1] The company claims to be the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.[2] It was founded by Mike Ilitch and Marian Ilitch in 1959 in Garden City, Michigan (in the same city that the first Kmart was built), 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.
By 1987 [3] it was available across the Northern United States; in 2006 it also operates in parts of Canada (although some Canadian cities had locations since 1969), Puerto Rico, Guam, South Korea, Honduras, Slovakia [4], the Dominican Republic, Czech Republic [5], Mexico, Turkey, the Philippines, Ecuador, Egypt, Aruba, Iceland, Guatemala, Japan, Curacao, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, El Salvador, Qatar, Venezuela, UAP, Cancun, Lebanon, and Bahrain.
Little Caesars is most famous for offering two pizzas for the price of one (hence the "Pizza! Pizza!" slogan). Little Caesars is also notable for their $5.00 "Hot-N-Ready" pizza promotion, where large pepperoni and cheese pizzas are ready for pickup with no need to call ahead. Some franchise locations choose to use $5.55 or $5.99 pricing instead.
Little Ceasars is also known for its Crazy Bread which is pizza dough that has been brushed with garlic butter and sprinkled with parmesan cheese after being cooked for approximately four minutes.
Ilitch Holdings, Inc. provides professional and technical services to all companies owned by Michael and/or Marian Ilitch. This includes the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit's MotorCity Casino, Olympia Entertainment, a film theater company, a development company and the Hockeytown Cafe (also the site of City Theatre) and Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit.[6] In 2005, combined revenues of Ilitch-owned businesses totaled $1.5 billion.[7]
The company is looking to expand again, especially in the Northeast U.S. (for example, the only restaurant currently in the entire New York City area is inside a K-Mart store in the Bronx). Currently, there are around 2,000 locations, down from a peak of around 5,000 in the 1990s.[8]
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 taglines 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
[edit] Sources
- ^ Estimated by Technomic Inc., a food industry research firm in Chicago. Tom Wlash. "Little Caesars thinks huge - Detroit chain plans to add hundreds of stores nationwide", Detroit Free Press, March 21, 2006.
- ^ "Companies and Venues", Ilitch Holdings, Inc., July 18, 2006.
- ^ http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=12881
- ^ http://www.littlecaesars.sk
- ^ http://en.itesco.cz/en_cz/stores/praha/od_praha_narodni
- ^ 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
