History of Dominos Pizza

The international fast food pizza delivery corporation, Dominos Pizza, is a renowned and popular choice amongst people for relishing their favorite fast food, the Pizza. With its headquarters located just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, the Dominos Pizza has interesting background. Today, this huge franchise has a profound global impact and has 8,000 corporate and franchise stores in more than 54 countries. In 2004, it was the second largest pizza chain in the United States when it went public for less than $15 a share. To know interesting information about the history and origin of Dominos Pizza, read the following lines.

Interesting Information on the Background of Dominos Pizza

It all started in the year 1960, when two brothers named Tom and James Monaghan bought a small pizzeria in Michigan by the name of Dominick’s Pizza. They bought it for $500 and gave a down payment of $75. After 8 months, James quit and traded his shares with his brother for a second hand Volkswagen car. This led Tom to revitalize the image of the eating joint and name it Dominos Pizza.

In the year 1968, a fire destroyed the company’s headquarters. In the year 1975, another hindrance came in the form of a trademark-infringement lawsuit by Amstar, the maker of Domino sugar. Despite these obstacles, Dominos Pizza expanded as a brand and in 1978, the 200^th Dominos Pizza franchise was opened. Before the end of the seventies, there were over 200 franchises of Dominos Pizza in US and it started to prepare to launch itself on an international scale.

In the year 1983, Dominos Pizza opened its first international franchise at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This was a major step in decentralizing its operations. By the end of 1983, it also opened another franchise at Brisbane, Australia. Yet another milestone in that year was the opening of the 1000^th Dominos Pizza outlet. From here on, the number of Dominos Pizza franchises increased quickly all over the world.

Despite international recognition, Dominos Pizza primarily remained as a traditional fast food joint. It had a very simple menu and only sold one type of pizza crust that was named the ‘regular pizza’. The pizza dough was shaped by tossing it in air and pulling it into shape. Only two sizes of the pizza dough existed before they added medium and extra large owing to growing competition. There was absolutely no concept of side dish and side others and the only beverage that was available with it was Coca Cola Classic.

This traditional outlook of Dominos was changed in 1989, when the Deep Pan Pizza was introduced. The company was being forced to change according to the market demand. This in fact consolidated the financial base of the brand and also ensured further growth of Dominos Pizza as a brand. The move to change the menu and add items that was preferred by general public made it popular among many and that year, Dominos Pizza opened its 5000^th store. Till this time, Dominos rigorously marketed their brand and made it popular all over the world.

In 1992, they introduced their first non-pizza item on the menu, which was breadsticks. Dominos was also the first brand to sell chicken wings as a side dish in the year 1994. It was around this time that Dominos also opened its franchise in Egypt, Africa. The Dominos Pizza website was launched in the year 1996 and the company reached total global sales of $3billion. They also brought about new innovations in the pizza industry that have now become the standard worldwide.

These include belt driven pizza oven, corrugated cardboard delivery boxes to retain heat while delivering and also the ‘Heat Wave’, which is a portable electric bag that keeps the pizza hot while being delivered. In the year 1997, the company developed their new logo and the image was brightened up. The same year, the brand opened seven outlets in one day, on five different continents. The most hectic pizza delivery day of the year in 2004 was recorded on the Super Bowl Sunday when over a million pizzas were sold, which increased their normal Sunday trading volume by a staggering 42%. Today, the company continues to grow exponentially and has over 8000 outlets worldwide.

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