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Boston Pizza
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boston Pizza is a Canadian-based pizza chain. The pizzeria chain owns and franchises locations in Canada and the United States The store chain also has one location in Mexico.
Despite its name, Boston Pizza was not founded in Boston, and has no locations in Boston or even Massachusetts. Company officials cite its connection with champions, like the Boston Celtics.
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The first restaurant, founded in Edmonton was known as "Boston Pizza and Spaghetti House." The founder, Gus Agiortis, a Greek immigrant who had jumped ship in Vancouver, worked tirelessly to make pizza a household name in Western Canada. He later sold this restaurant to David McEvoy of Alberta.
The company started franchising in 1968. Two of the original franchises belonged to Gus' two brothers who helped found the first restaurant in Edmonton. Gus' two younger brothers started franchises in Saskatchewan: Nino in Saskatoon and Trifon in Regina. When the franchise name was sold it was rumoured that a condition of sale was that Boston Pizza could not establish restaurants in Saskatoon or Regina. for a period of ten years giving the Agioritis brothers time to establish their business under new names. Nino's Pizza and Trifon's Pizza still exist in these cities. Six years after opening, Gus had 17 locations (two corporate and 15 franchised) in operation across Western Canada.
In 1983, Jim Treliving, a former RCMP officer and one of the first franchisees, bought the entire chain with a partner, George Melville. Soon after, Boston Pizza expanded across North America.
Boston Pizza was the official supplier of pizza and pasta to Expo 86 in Vancouver.
Boston Pizza has locations in every province of Canada.
In the late 1990s Boston Pizza began expanding into the United States by setting up operations in Dallas, Texas under the name Boston's The Gourmet Pizza. It currently has locations in Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. There will soon be locations in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Montana and Utah starting in 2007.
In the mid 1990s, John Ratzenberger was hired as spokesperson and filmed a number of commercials for Boston Pizza. Since then, he has been replaced by Howie Mandel.
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