Little Caesars

Infobox_Company
company_name = Little Caesar Enterprises, Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
slogan = Pizza! Pizza! (United States)
various (Canada)
foundation = 1959 (Garden City, Michigan, USA)
founder = Michael Ilitch
Marian Ilitch
area_served = Worldwide
key_people = Michael Ilitch (Owner)
Marian Ilitch (Owner)
David Scrivano (President)
location = flagicon|U.S. Detroit, Michigan
industry = Restaurants
products = Pizza
parent = Ilitch Holdings, Inc.
homepage = [http://www.littlecaesars.com/ www.littlecaesars.com]

Little Caesars is a pizza restaurant chain in the United States. It is estimated to be the 4th largest pizza chain in the United States.Estimated by Technomic Inc., a food industry research firm in Chicago. cite news
publisher=Detroit Free Press
author=Tom Wlash
title=Little Caesars thinks huge - Detroit chain plans to add hundreds of stores nationwide
date=March 21, 2006] However the company claims to be the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.cite news
url=http://ilitchholdings.com/CompaniesandVenues/tabid/125/Default.aspx
publisher=Ilitch Holdings, Inc.
title=Companies and Venues
date=July 18, 2006]

History

It was founded by Mike Ilitch and Marian Ilitch on May 8th, 1959 in Garden City, Michigan, as "Little Caesars Pizza Treat." The company is famous for its advertising catchphrase, "Pizza! Pizza!" which was introduced in 1979. The phrase refers to two pizzas being offered for the comparable price of a single pizza from competitors. Originally the pizzas were served in a single long package. Little Caesars has discarded the unwieldy packaging in favor of typical pizza boxes.

Corporate

in downtown Detroit. [Ilitch Holdings, Inc. [http://www.ilitchholdings.com/CompaniesandVenues/tabid/125/Default.aspx ] Accessed 16 June, 2006] In 2005, combined revenues of Ilitch-owned businesses totaled $1.5 billion. [Ilitch Holdings, Inc. [http://www.ilitchholdings.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx ] Accessed 16 June, 2006 (Number at bottom of page)]

The company is looking to expand again, especially in the Northeast U.S. Currently, there are around 2,000 locations, down from a peak of around 5,000 in the 1990s. [USA Today [http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2006-03-21-caesars_x.htm Little Caesars plans pizza empire] Accessed 16 June, 2006] . In particular, Little Caesars wants to return to markets that the chain was forced to withdraw from in the late 1990s due to financial troubles such as Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Denver; Little Caesars is currently nonexistent or in K-Mart locations in those markets. In June 2008, Little Caesars began a return to the competitive Pittsburgh market (in which locally-owned rivals Vocelli Pizza, Pizza Joe's, and several mom-and-pop pizza shops compete successfully with the "Big Three" of Pizza Hut, Papa John's, & Domino's Pizza as well as the reletively recent expansion of Cici's Pizza into the area) with the opening of a new location in New Castle, Pennsylvania [ [http://little.know-where.com/littlecaesars/cgi/site?site=13340007&address=&design=default&lang=en&mapid=US Little Caesars Pizza - New Castle, PA ] ] ; New Castle itself had previously had two Little Caesar's plus another inside K-Mart before the chain's struggles.

Misc.

By 1987 [ [http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=12881 LITTLE CAESARS PIZZA ANNOUNCES 700 NEW INTERNATIONAL RESTAURANTS ] ] the company was operating across the Northern United States; by 2006 it was also present in parts of Canada (although some Canadian cities had locations since 1969), Puerto Rico, Guam, South Korea, Honduras, Slovakia [http://www.littlecaesars.sk] , the Dominican Republic, Czech Republic [ [http://en.itesco.cz/en_cz/stores/praha/od_praha_narodni Tesco - a place for comfortable shopping ] ] , Mexico, Turkey, the Philippines, Ecuador, Egypt, Aruba, Iceland, Guatemala, Japan, Curaçao, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Qatar, Venezuela, UAE, Lebanon, and Bahrain.In 2004, Little Caesars began to sell Hot and Ready pizzas that are available without an order and with no wait. In 2007, Little Caesars ended its partnership with Coca-Cola, opting for Pepsi products instead, except in Canada.

Throughout the 1990s, Little Caesars was commonly found in Kmart stores. Coincidentally, the first Kmart and the first Little Caesars were both built in Garden City, Michigan. After Kmart's bankruptcy issues, most of today's Kmarts have replaced the Little Caesars with their own branded "K-Cafe". However, some Little Caesars remain.

While Little Caesars owns the "Pizza! Pizza!" trademark in the U.S., the unaffiliated Pizza Pizza restaurant chain owns the Canadian trademark. As a result, Little Caesars cannot directly use its well-known slogan in Canada, but has used "Two Pizzas!" along with "Delivery! Delivery!", "Quality! Quality!" or other such double-word tag lines in advertising and on packaging in Canada.Little Caesars was among the first to use a new kind of speed cooking conveyor oven, the "Rotary Air Impingement Oven" as described in [http://www.google.com/patents?id=W-cmAAAAEBAJ&dq=5676044 U.S. Patent 5676044 ]

In 1998, Little Caesars filled what was then the current largest pizza order, filling an order of 13,386 pizzas from the VF Corporation of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Locations

Caribbean

*flagicon|Puerto Rico Puerto Rico
*flagicon|Dominican Republic Dominican Republic
*flagicon|Aruba Aruba
*flagicon|Curaçao Curaçao

Asia

*flagicon|Guam Guam
*flagicon|South Korea South Korea
*flagicon|Philippines Philippines
*flagicon|Japan Japan

Central America

*flagicon|Honduras Honduras
*flagicon|Guatemala Guatemala
*flagicon|El Salvador El Salvador

Europe

*flagicon|Slovakia Slovakia
*flagicon|Czech Republic Czech Republic
*flagicon|Turkey Turkey
*flagicon|Iceland Iceland
*flagicon|Ireland Ireland

North America

*flagicon|Mexico Mexico
*flagicon|Canada Canada
*flagicon|United States United States

South America

*flagicon|Ecuador Ecuador
*flagicon|Venezuela Venezuela

Middle East

*flagicon|Egypt Egypt
*flagicon|Kuwait Kuwait
*flagicon|Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia
*flagicon|Qatar Qatar
*flagicon|United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates
*flagicon|Lebanon Lebanon
*flagicon|Bahrain Bahrain

References

External links

* [http://www.littlecaesars.com/ Little Caesars official website]
* [http://www.littlecaesars.ca/ Little Caesars Canada website]
* [http://www.littlecaesars.sk/ Little Caesars Slovakia website]
* [http://www.IlitchHoldings.com/ Ilitch Holdings, Inc.]
* [http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=12881/ Company announcement about entering the Japan market]
* [http://www.littlecaesars.com/news/pizza-store-growth.asp Official company announcement about entering Costa Rica, Peru and Ireland.]