When Jack Butorac spotted a sleepy pizza operation in Toledo, Ohio, he saw the makings of a winner, despite confessing he “knew nothing about pizza.”
Nearly a decade later Marco’s Pizza is the fastest-growing pizza chain no one has ever heard of. It’s attempting to carve a slice of the saturated U.S. pizza market, bucking sluggish franchising trends and quickly adding new restaurants, even during the recession.
“He didn’t brand it, he didn’t distinguish it, he didn’t emphasize the strengths,” said Butorac of Italian-born Marco’s founder Pasquale Giammarco, who established the business more than 30 years ago. “Pat Giammarco is a pizza guy, he’s a real-estate.
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