Pizza chain cooking up Palm Beach expansion
Marco’s Pizza to have 13 locations in county by 2025
Marco’s Pizza has big plans for Palm Beach County. The restaurant chain says 13 franchised shops will open by 2025 in cities such as Boca Raton, Delray Beach and West Palm Beach.
Next up will be a new location opening in October on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard in Palm Beach. Currently there are Marco’s Pizzas in Wellington, Greenacres and Boyton Beach.
“There are 39 municipalities within Palm Beach County, with only three Marco’s Pizza locations,” Glenn Ajmo, area representative for the Toledo, Ohio-based company, said in a statement. “The open landscape, paired with positive market reception, makes the decision to expand an easy one,”
Hinesh Patel opened a Marco’s Pizza franchise in Boynton Beach in 2013. He says that what sets the company apart is the pizza itself (”We make our dough daily and carefully select our ingredients”), but adds that the national chain puts an emphasis on community.
“There are other pizza restaurants in our area, so in order to stand out from the others and gain a loyal following, we’ve ingrained ourselves in the community,” explains Patel, who lives in Wellington. “Before everything with COVID-19, we were making regular community drop-offs to schools, police departments, fire departments and more. We’re continuing to make donations as well. I think we’ve earned ourselves a nice reputation and are viewed as the pizza shop that cares about the community.”
Marco’s was founded in 1978 by Italian-born Pasquale “Pat” Giammarco. The original shop has grown into a national brand and franchise juggernaut — according to Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes and Nation’s Restaurant News — with 950 stores in over 34 states as well as locations in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.
The specialty
The company’s ambitious national plans include opening a new store every three and a half days on average.
There are three Marco’s Pizzas in Broward County, in Hallandale Beach, Pembroke Pines and Weston.
Mimai-Dade has shops in Hialeah and Kendall. But Palm Beach County has piqued the interest of the corporation.
“Palm Beach is unique and a priority since we’ve already opened a handful of stores here and they’ve done very well,” says Ron Stillwell, vice president and chief development officer. “Simply put, the Palm Beach area loves Marco’s Pizza, so we’re eager to expand our footprint here.
Glenn Ajmo, area representative and a multi-unit owner in Florida, adds, “Our existing three locations in Palm Beach County are doing incredibly well. They’ve really ingrained themselves into the community and even amid a pandemic, their sales are very strong. We’ve seen strong same store sales year-over-year as a brand and even stronger sales volumes in Palm Beach County, so we’re confident that this concept is a perfect fit for the area.”
In light of the coronavirus pandmemic, the company is opening ghost kitchens across the country, debuting of kitchen pods (somewhere between a food truck and a pop-up), third-party delivery and testing the use of robotic kitchens.
“This pandemic has been a struggle for everyone, so it has been challenging,” Patel says. “We’ve had to make some updates fairly quickly in order to keep our staff and guests safe, but it was necessary since we remained open as an essential business. We’re managing and doing what we think is best and constantly re-evaluating to see how we can improve. It’s really just a learning process.
Pizzas range from $10.99- $16.99. Six-inch subs are $4.99 and calzones are 6.99. The company recently rolled out pizza bowls as a new category on the menu (think crustless pizza casserole) for $7.99 that serves two people. For more information, go to Marcos.com.