LeBron James-Backed Pizza Chain Fires Up Dallas Expansion in Quest for National Growth
Competition for artisanal pizza is heating up in the Dallas area among chains that are spreading across the country.
Blaze Pizza, a Pasadena, California-based chain of fast-casual joints that promises a custom pizza cooked in 180 seconds, has a deal with Plano-based PhaseNext Hospitality to expand beyond the franchise’s existing four locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
PhaseNext currently has franchises with Buffalo Wild Wings, Smashburger, The Italian Kitchen by Wolfgang Puck and Corner Bakery Café, mostly in airports and at military installations.
It was already developing a Blaze Pizza location at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army base in El Paso, Texas. The new deal allows PhaseNext to develop three additional stores in the North Dallas area.
“The company’s innovative concept has intrigued me since day one, and they have a powerhouse team supporting my growth goals,” Roz Mallet, PhaseNext’s founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Blaze Pizza, founded in 2012, first entered the Dallas area in 2015. Its biggest rival, Seattle-based MOD Super Fast Pizza, now has eight locations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, with three new ones in the works.
MOD, founded in 2008, has more than 433 locations and is shooting to expand to 1,000 stores over the next five years.
PhaseNext’s deal will help put Blaze Pizza closer to its goal of hitting 750 locations by 2022, up from the its current 330 locations.
Earlier this year, Nation’s Restaurant News named Mallet to its “The Power List,” which recognizes people in the restaurant business setting foodservice trends.
Blaze Pizza not only has financial firepower behind it but also star power. NBA superstar LeBron James became a founding investor in Blaze Pizza in 2012 along with television journalist Maria Shriver, movie producer John Davis and Tom Werner, a co-owner in the Boston Red Sox.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Brentwood Associates has helped feed the expansion with an investment two years ago described then as a “significant non-controlling investment.” With the investment, Blaze Pizza picked up new board members, one of which is Greg Dollarhyde, a restaurant industry veteran and former board chairman of Zöes Kitchen.
They are competing against $160 million MOD Pizza landed in a round of financing led by New York-based private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice. In all, MOD has raised $339 million.
MOD, too, added retail experience heft to its board: Ken Giuriceo, a partner in the firm, and Paul Pressler, another partner and former chief executive officer of Gap Inc.
