B.C. residents are known in Canada for being healthy eaters and open to try new things but some of Metro Vancouver’s fastest growing restaurant chains serve one of world’s most established foods: pizza.
Burnaby-based Freshslice Pizza has expanded to 73 locations since it first opened in Vancouver in 1999 and it has six more in development.
Vancouver-based Famoso and Richmond-based Boston Pizza are also rapidly growing.
Freshslice’s area developer for central B.C., David Martyn, told Business in Vancouver February 23 that his company could open a total of 12 locations by the end of 2015.
“What we’re doing in the Vancouver market is adding to our operational team,” he said. “We’re strengthening the locations that are already there and adding delivery elements so people can order online. We’ll also have a call centre based out of Burnaby that will be up and running this spring.”
All but two of Freshslice’s locations are franchised and the company uses a curious franchise model whereby it does not charge a royalty or a marketing fee. Instead, it makes its profit solely by selling its dough to franchisees.
Famoso, conversely, is more traditional in that its franchises sell for a one-time $30,000 fee as well as a royalty equal to 6% of annual sales and a marketing fee equivalent to 2% of annual sales.
Opening a Famoso pizzeria requires approximately $850,000 as a capital investment, Famoso CEO Justin Lussier told BIV February 23.
Lussier opened his first location in Edmonton in 2007 and has since expanded to 26 locations: in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. He expects five more to open in 2015 including one in B.C.
His pizza chain's niche is to be authentically Italian. His pizza dough is hand-stretched, contains a finely ground “00” flour and is always fresh, not flash-frozen as Freshslice's dough is. Famoso pizzas are then cooked for 90 seconds in an oven that reaches 900 F.
“A location at Guildford should open by late August,” he said. “We’re looking in North Vancouver and Vancouver itself but we don’t have anything finalized. We’re actively looking but we’re picky and we have to be profitable too – some of the rents in downtown Vancouver are pretty challenging.”
Richmond-based Boston Pizza International Inc., was not deterred by downtown Vancouver lease rates, however, given that it is fresh from opening its first two downtown Vancouver restaurants.
First came one on October 15, at 808 Beatty Street near Terry Fox Plaza, and then came another one on November 15, at the northeast corner of Hornby and Smithe streets.
A third downtown Vancouver restaurant will open next year if a location can be found, Boston Pizza executive vice-president of operations and development, Alan Howie, told BIV just before the Beatty Street location opened.
The chain’s owners, Jim Treliving (of Dragon’s Den fame) and George Melville, are both based in B.C. and sometimes go to the company’s 120-employee Richmond office although the company’s executive team works out of its Mississauga office, Howie said
The new downtown Vancouver stores give the company 62 locations in British Columbia and 360 in Canada.
Boston Pizza has been in expansion mode, opening 15 restaurants in 2014. Four of those are in B.C. – the downtown Vancouver ones as well as one in Smithers and one in Golden.
“We’re still true to our demographic,” Howie said. “We’re very much a family-friendly restaurant chain and we operate both in the family realm and we like our sports bar guests.”
