How Toppers Pizza’s Continued Investment in Corporate Locations Helps Franchisees Thrive

For the past 30 years, Toppers Pizza, the pizza franchise with 70 corporate- and franchisee-owned locations in 12 states, has been committed to providing a best-in-class experience for both customers and franchisees. Now, as the pandemic creates stronger demand in the pizza delivery segment and Toppers sees a record-breaking number of franchisee inquiries, the brand continues to invest in corporate-owned locations to further optimize its well-positioned concept and innovative business model. As of this year, the Toppers system features 26 corporate locations with the most recent having opened in  October.

Why Toppers Puts its Money Where its Mouth Is

Beth Larson, director of store development for Toppers, says the corporate growth strategy allows the Toppers team to increase top-line revenue by taking a personal stake in the success of the model. “Our stores perform well, and we continue to focus on making that investment as strong as possible,” Larson said. “The fact that our founder Scott Gittrich invests in his own locations is really key to that mission. He is both a franchisor and a businessman.”

Overall, if a franchisor doesn’t have any of their own units, Larson says prospective franchisees should be asking why. “Maybe the concept doesn’t result in a good profit as an owner, or maybe the team isn’t focused on growth,” she said. “It could also be that the brand is still building out their infrastructure. If the franchisor is not invested in the concept themselves, they may not be ready to franchise.”

Adam Oldenburg, who not only oversees all corporate locations as Toppers’ vice president of corporate operations, but also owns several franchise locations himself, agrees with Larson.

“If you’re not willing to invest in your stores from the corporation level, then it is clear you don’t believe in your business or financial model,” said Oldenburg. “We really take a ‘put your money where our mouth is’ mentality — if you want franchisees to open more stores, you should be willing to open more stores yourself.”

That corporate investment is paying off — Toppers has seen an impressive 12 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales for franchise owners and recently surpassed an average unit volume (AUV) of $1,000,000. The brand’s AUV for the fiscal year of 2020 was over $1,010,000 for stores open three years or more.*

How Corporate Locations Allow Toppers to Try Out New Ideas

As the competitive pizza delivery landscape continues to evolve, Larson says corporate locations also provide a great opportunity for the brand to test both front- and back-end innovation. “We can roll out new ideas and fine-tune them before they go out to franchise stores,” she said.

One of the biggest success stories in this regard is Toppers’ proprietary POS system. “We took time to roll that out, and we had it in a handful of our corporate affiliate stores for many months before we passed it along to franchisees.” Larson said. “We made sure we got the kinks out, and our company affiliates were there to answer any questions on how to make it better or overcome any hang-ups. Our company invested millions of dollars into that system, and we didn’t want it to be a pain for franchisees when we rolled it out.”

Toppers’ proprietary e-commerce platform allows franchisees to leverage a first-party delivery system, available through each owner’s POS system. Franchisees can save a significant amount of money associated with the usual third-party delivery providers, while also exhibiting more quality control and communication with the customer. Larson says this in-house platform also allows the brand to adapt quickly to unforeseen changes in the industry like the pandemic.

“As company-owned stores, we like to pilot everything that we can,” said Oldenburg. “Not everything is going to be a slam dunk right away, so we take it upon ourselves to test it before we roll it out to franchisees. In the past, there have been some things that we’ve tested at corporate locations and didn’t introduce system wide because they didn’t pass the test. We pride ourselves on only investing in innovations that are going to make a difference for franchisees.”

How Toppers’ Corporate Strategy Encourages Systemwide Growth

Oldenburg says having a strong corporate brand presence can also help franchisees grow in their individual markets. “As we continue to open more corporate locations, and more customers come to love our brand, more people will be drawn to franchised locations,” he said. “Our brand strength increases with every single unit we open, and it also increases our purchasing power with our vendors.”

Additionally, Larson says the corporate growth strategy can also provide franchisees with a blueprint for scalability. “The structure of our corporate growth is very similar to what we recommend for any franchisee who wants to scale their business,” she said. “Each of our corporate stores is run by a general manager, with area supervisors responsible for at least seven stores and our vice president of operations leading that team of area supervisors. We train our franchisees to take a similar management approach when looking to scale their portfolio.”

With 26 corporate stores, Oldenburg notes that the corporate team is the largest Toppers operator. “We are the model others look to for best practices, especially when it comes to how to promote growth,” he said. “We use corporate locations to teach franchisees how to grow, and show them what we want and expect from each owner.”

In conjunction with continued franchise development, the Toppers team hopes to open new corporate locations in Wisconsin, including the Milwaukee and Madison markets, as well as in and around Cincinnati and Indianapolis.

“We are very excited about the future of the brand and continued growth we’ve seen both with franchised and corporate locations,” said Larson. “Looking ahead, we are excited to continue prioritizing innovative features for our customers and tech-powered functionality for our franchise owners.”

The investment range for a Toppers Pizza franchise is $314,075 to $530,000, with the initial fees coming in at $10,000 to $30,000. For more information on franchising with Toppers Pizza, visit: https://www.toppers.com/franchise/.

**The financial performance set forth is for the 13 periods ended October 3, 2021 (“2021 Period”) for all restaurants (both affiliate-owned and franchised) that were open as of October 3, 2021, and that had been open and operating for at least the full 13 periods.

The 2021 Period ran from October 5, 2020 to October 3, 2021 and consisted of 364 days.  As of October 3, 2021, there were 68 Toppers Pizza restaurants open and operating.  Two of the franchised restaurants and two of the affiliate-owned restaurants did not operate during the entire 2021 Period, so those four restaurants were excluded from the results.  Please refer to our 2021 FDD, as amended October 15, 2021, for additional information.  

Minnesota Franchise Registration No. F-4129.