For the first time, Wisconsin-based pizza restaurant Toppers Pizza is getting ready to open three new locations throughout Chicagoland.
The company will start by opening a new 1,600-square-foot location this week in Gurnee at 5572 Grand Ave. The location will be owned and operated by Toppers franchisee Numan Asad. He will focus on this location for the time being but plans to expand later in the future. The company is also planning to open new locations in Waukegan and Libertyville in 2024, according to Chicago Business Journal. The Chicagoland debut comes 30 years after CEO Scott Gittrich founded the company in Champaign, IL.
“There are 70 Toppers locations nationally but none in the Chicago market,” Asad told the publication. “This year I am sticking with only Gurnee, and while we are still researching other areas over the next few years, I will be expanding. I grew up visiting Chicago and the surrounding areas a lot, so I thought now was a good opportunity to bring an actual pizza place to Illinois.”
Beyond Illinois, Toppers Pizza is also expanding to Fort Wort, TX, and Topeka, KS. The expansion proves the company is still slowly growing throughout the country through franchise agreements. Currently, Toppers Pizza can be found in over 65 locations in 13 states, mainly in the Mid-West. The company closed all of its Illinois locations in 2017 for restructuring and now, is getting ready to expand into Chicagoland for the first time.
“The pizza business is as booming as ever, and Illinois can hold a significant number of Toppers locations [because] there’s a lot of potential in the market for our brand,” Gittrich said.
