Pizza Inn Works On Recipe For Comeback

Trading Markets:

In overhauling its image, Pizza Inn is working the nostalgia card to revitalize the 51-year-old chain, bringing back checkered tabletops and breathing life into its discarded mascot Jo Jo, a dough-flipping, mustachioed cartoon chef.

Not all memories at the chain are happy ones. But the business may have survived one of the restaurant industry’s most turbulent times.

In the past 20 years, Pizza Inn periodically bathed in red ink; lost a swath of stores; sued its founder in a trademark dispute; skated perilously close to liquidation during the 1989 bankruptcy of its second owner, Pantera Corp.; lost in court against ex-CEO Ronnie Parker over a mammoth severance claim; accepted defeat in a legal fracas with Pepsi; and claimed victory in a suit against its former attorneys.

Pizza Inn’s headquarters is in The Colony in Denton County. It was launched in 1958, the same year as Pizza Hut. But it’s had a very different ride in the competitive Italian pie sector.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *