As part of Pizza Factory’s growth efforts, the community-cherished franchise just announced its strategic partnership with San Francisco-based Rubber and Road Creative, a prestigious design agency with reputable roots in the restaurant industry.
Catering to modern-day guests, the two companies are conceptualizing a reimagined Pizza Factory Express design that will be optimized for delivery and carryout. As delivery, carryout and curbside ordering prevails, the new prototype will support these off-premise dining trends, while providing Pizza Factory franchisees a lower investment opportunity in a booming food segment.
Starting at 1,000 sq. ft., the Express model’s small footprint allows Pizza Factory to grow into new, untapped markets while also eliminating many of the operating costs and furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) expenses associated with larger restaurant prototypes. Likewise, the format requires fewer employees to run the show, ultimately saving on labor costs, but allowing a hyper-effective team to serve at-home on-the-go guests who traditionally have higher ticket averages.
“Off-premise dining is here to stay, but restaurant design still remains more important than ever,” says Pizza Factory CEO Mary Jane Riva. “The Rubber and Road Creative team has a strong understanding of how design directly affects operations, and strategy is at the forefront of their creations. As existing franchisees grow and new multi-unit operators join our family, we’re thrilled to offer another innovative buildout option that best supports the advanced delivery and carryout systems we have in place.”
Taking its “Vision Meets Velocity” mantra into account with each project, Rubber and Road Creative creates comprehensive branding solutions that aim to delight audiences, drive sales and change the way customers engage. The company, branching off of renowned design agency Tesser, brings to Pizza Factory an extensive amount of restaurant industry experience, with many team members having contributed to award-winning work with notable brands like Wendy’s, Jersey Mike’s and The Halal Guys.
“We take a holistic approach to design—meaning our concepts integrate all aspects of the business and brand goals, whether its consumer-facing messaging and imagery or the functional constituents of the building, scalability, flexibility, cost effective to build, etc.,” says Managing Director Dana Zipser, who formerly worked at Tesser before forming Rubber and Road Creative. “Our goal with Pizza Factory is to create a highly-efficient space for franchisees and staff to serve their guests in the most productive format. We’re honored to lead the brand’s Express model design, and look forward to establishing a partnership that will last for years to come.”
Adding to the Express model, Pizza Factory also offers multi-unit operators flexible new-build or conversion options with traditional dine-in prototypes ranging from 1,500 – 4,000 sq. ft. The largest option typically features multiple dining sections, an arcade area for the kids, banquet rooms for parties and social gatherings and big screen TVs throughout the restaurant. Whether fast-casual or quick-service, Pizza Factory maintains is reputation for family-friendly dining and high-quality products, offering fresh, never frozen hand-tossed pizza, pasta, wings, sandwiches, salads, beer, wine and more.
With aggressive development efforts underway, Pizza Factory is actively growing from its West Coast roots and adding restaurants across the nation. Currently, the brand has a special development focus on California, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming and Washington.
As Pizza Factory enters this new era of growth, the company is offering a limited development incentive program including a reduced franchise fee, waived royalties for three months and more. This applies to new franchisees wanting to covert or build from the ground up.
