zpizza opened its second international location in early February. With an open location in Mexico, the new store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, marks the beginning of zpizza’s journey into the Middle East, where they have several locations planned in the near future. Since it opened, the Riyadh store has seen sales double the system-wide average for zpizza. zpizza currently has 90 open stores and continues its impressive expansion with 400 more locations in development across the U.S., the Middle East and Mexico. The Southern California-based gourmet pizza chain was recently awarded the prestigious title of 2008 Pizza Chain of the Year from Pizza Market Quarterly Magazine.

The brand-new zpizza is located on Tahliya Street, a trendy and very busy area in Riyadh. Positioned next door to a Saudi Arabian British Bank (SABB), this will be zpizza’s flagship location in Riyadh. zpizza plans to open their second Riyadh location within the next month, which will be located in the food court of the Riyadh Galleria.

“Our early acceptance of our zpizza in Riyadh is very exciting,” says zpizza CEO Chris Bright. “We’ve borrowed so many ingredients and elements from the Middle East and other parts of the Mediterranean that we’re extremely pleased to see such a positive response.”

The chain will open a second Riyadh unit in April.