Sarpino's Pizzeria is a Canadian fast food restaurant chain specializing in

pizza Pizza (, ) is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients (such as various types of sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, on ...

, with international operations headquartered in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

and U.S. operations headquartered in the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

suburb of Lincolnshire, Illinois.

History

The first Sarpino's pizza delivery store was opened by Gerry Koutougos in 2001 in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

. The name has its origins in a vacation that founder Gerry Koutougos took to Italy in 1999, where he visited a restaurant that was operated by a woman named Sarpina. Sarpino's expanded to

in 2002 and to the United States in January 2003 with the opening of a

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

location. Within a year after opening the first U.S. location, the chain had close to 20 American stores. During that first year, David Chatkin served as the original franchisee for two stores in the Chicago area and partnered with Dmitry Shapiro, a software consultant that previously served as a business analyst with Sears and Kraft Foods. Shapiro found that Chatkin's operations were not profitable due to lack of marketing, standardized operations, cost controls, and training. As a result, Shapiro purchased the U.S. operations from Koutougos in 2005 and renamed it Sarpino's USA. He then went on to develop the areas that were lacking to provide the needed support to franchisees. By 2013, Sarpino's USA grew to 47 stores throughout six states. By the end of 2014 it had grown to 65 U.S. locations with a goal of 350 stores open within five years. Sarpino's is owned internationally (non-Canada/USA) by Greg Blakney and the headquarters is in Singapore.

References

External links

* {{Pizza chains Pizza chains Companies of Singapore Companies based in Chicago Canadian companies established in 2001 2001 establishments in British Columbia

History

See also

References

External links