Pizza Pizza

This article is about the Canadian restaurant franchise. For the American restaurant franchise which uses "Pizza! Pizza!" as its slogan, see Little Caesars.

Pizza Pizza Ltd.

Pizza Pizza corporate headquarters on Kipling Avenue.
Company type	Private, with publicly traded royalty income fund
Traded as	TSX: PZA
Industry	Fast food restaurants
Genre	Pizzeria
Founded	1967
Founder	Michael Overs
Headquarters	500 Kipling Avenue Toronto, Ontario, Canada M8Z 5E5
Key people	Paul Goddard (CEO)
Products	Pizza, Pasta, Wings, other fast food
Website	www.pizzapizza.ca

Pizza Pizza Ltd. is a franchised Canadian pizza fast-food restaurant, with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. Its restaurants are mainly in the province of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and in western Canada. Franchises in western Canada are mostly run through Alberta-based subsidiary Pizza 73. It has over 500 locations, including over 150 non-traditional locations.

History

The chain was founded by Michael Overs, who opened the first location on December 31, 1967, at the corner of Wellesley and Parliament Streets in Toronto. He owned the chain until his death in 2010. It expanded throughout the Toronto area in the 1970s, and throughout the rest of Ontario throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The chain opened its first locations in Quebec in the mid-1980s, but withdrew after a few years. It returned to the province, in Gatineau, in March 2007. Locations were opened in the Montreal area in late 2007 in the boroughs of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Pierrefonds-Roxboro.

Pizza Pizza began to expand significantly outside Ontario during the 2000s. In its 2005 initial public offering filings, the chain announced it would consider expansion in western Canada, potentially including purchasing existing local chains. This led to a June 2007 agreement to purchase Alberta-based Pizza 73. As well, in October 2006, the company announced it would expand in the Quebec market, beginning with sponsorship of the Montreal Canadiens. The chain expanded to the British Columbia Lower Mainland in 2009, however all locations closed (Pizza 73 already had a location in Prince George in the B.C. Interior), and soon after added locations in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Pizza Pizza opened its first store in Halifax, Nova Scotia in June 2010.

Major southern Ontario competitors include Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Little Caesars, Gino's Pizza, Mamma's Pizza, Pizzaiolo, 241 Pizza, Double Double Pizza, and Pizza Nova. Two other major Canadian chains, Greco and Panago, which have a presence similar to Pizza Pizza in the Atlantic and Western Canada respectively, have entered the Ontario market. In Montreal, Quebec, its competitors are Mikes and Double Pizza.

Marketing techniques

Pizza Pizza is best known for the chain's phone number, XXX–1111. The company claims that its early adoption of the centralized single-number ordering system, and its subsequent use and heavy promotion of this rhyming phone number, helped the chain to expand through Ontario.

A central local number is used for all locations until it becomes a long distance call. In other cities, local numbers are requested with the "11-11" suffix to match the standard jingle in the chain's radio advertisements (Belleville, for instance, is +1-613-967-1111). Pizza Pizza has registered "967–1111" and variants as trademarks.

The strategy of deploying one central, memorable and heavily advertised local number for all locations in a city's local calling area has now been adopted by some of Pizza Pizza's largest competitors.

Besides its jingle, Pizza Pizza has laid claim to being first – or among the first – to:

• use a pizza delivery bag
• develop the centralized, computerized call centre
• place advertising on the spines of telephone directories
• advertise using Post-It notes on newspapers, and via coupons on parking receipts
• use virtual advertising, as one of several such advertisers during Global's coverage of Super Bowl XXXVI

In popular culture

• It has secured product placement on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation.
• Musicians Moxy Früvous mention it in their song "King of Spain".
• A chapter of Michael Moore's book Downsize This! advises illegal immigrants who want to sneak into Canada at Niagara Falls to memorize Pizza Pizza's number to appear Canadian. Moore cites Pizza Pizza as Canada's "national pizza chain" when at the time of publishing they did not have any locations outside of eastern Canada.

A popular promotion at NHL games resulted in the Ottawa Senators line of Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza and Daniel Alfredsson (before Heatley's departure in September 2009, to play for the San Jose Sharks) being called the "Pizza Line" as they often contributed to scoring the five goals necessary in a Senators win to redeem ticket stubs at a Pizza Pizza for a free slice. Subsequently, the promotion was raised to six goals in a game.

Pizza Pizza University

Pizza Pizza University is a training centre for franchisees located in south Etobicoke.

Gallery

• 
  A Pizza Pizza restaurant on 55 Danforth Avenue in Toronto
• 
  Pizza Pizza in Richmond Hill, Ontario
• 
  Pizza Pizza in Malvern, Toronto
• 
  A Pizza Pizza location in Markham, Ontario

See also

• List of Canadian restaurant chains
• List of Canadian pizza chains

External links

• Pizza Pizza
• Pizza Pizza's history page (source)
• Michael Overs's Obituary