Toppers Pizza Continues Successful Emergence; Focuses on Maintaining Consistent Fanatical Brand Support Location-to-Location
The big pizza chains serve their purpose: Mediocre food, mediocre promises, mediocre connections.
Toppers Pizza, though, a 28-unit eclectic pizza delivery franchise brand, doesn’t fit that mold. And now
Toppers Pizza is going to bring the first pizza concept with personality to the South Milwaukee/Cudahy area – slated to open in the Summer/Fall 2011 under the leadership of locally-based entrepreneur, Dave Gilewski.
Gilewski traded phone books for pizza boxes in 2008 when he opened his first
Toppers Pizza location in Franklin. Prior to becoming one of Toppers’ most successful franchisees, he sold ad space with the Yellow Pages for six years. It was when Gilewski’s brother’s college roommate ate Toppers’ Tacostix every single night for dinner that he curiously looked into the brand that had every college student addicted.
From the get-go Gilewski was impressed by how
Toppers Pizza takes a typical pizza concept and shakes it up through its irreverent personality that’s edgy and unfiltered characteristics, created and maintained through the leadership of CEO and Founder of
Toppers Pizza, Scott Gittrich.
“We get a ridiculous number of phone calls from South Milwaukee wanting Toppers Pizza to deliver out to them,” said Gilewski. “That’s when the idea sparked and it all just went from there.”
While Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut are stuck in a stiff battle for the family demographic, Toppers remained hooked on being a hip, cool brand, connected to the nationally untapped 18-34 demographic. This strategy, Gittrich said, has helped Toppers sustain its growth, even in a down economy, in that there are more young, energetic consumers craving a real brand connection.
Along with its ability to tap into the most influential demographic, 18-34 year olds, Toppers has made a name for itself as the innovators of unique menu items. Toppers was the first delivery brand to capture the cheesy bread marketplace with its famous Topperstix. Toppers has never shied away from innovation with its Mac ‘N Cheese; Potato Topper; Cool C-B-R (Chicken-Bacon-Ranch); The Hangover Helper; Buffalo Wings, Quesadillas, Grinders, and dozens of other menu items. Different from the competition, 70 percent of Toppers’ sales come from items not traditionally found on competitor’s menus.
“Dave Gilewski fits the profile of typical Toppers franchisee in that he or she has the drive to go over and beyond the lackadaisical efforts of the other guys,” Gittrich said noting that Toppers is expecting to grow further throughout Wisconsin in the next few years.
Gilewski will also carry on a
Toppers tradition when it opens its doors to the public next spring by giving away free food for a year to the first 50 customers. This marketing method creates a fanatical madness, and rush, with Toppers’ customers waiting as long as 48 hours prior to the opening of the doors.
“Toppers is already part of the South Milwaukee culture; we just aren’t physically there yet,” said Gilewski. “I’m excited to give them what they want when they want it without having to drive 30 minutes to get to my Franklin location.”
