First Little Caesars Pizza store in Australia to open on Hume Hwy in Casula on Thursday
AUSTRALIA’S first Little Caesars Pizza store is set to open on the Hume Hwy in Casula on Thursday.
ERNEST Koury jokes that he has pizza sauce in his blood. He was seven years old when his father opened a Little Caesars Pizza outlet in Tucson, Arizona.
Koury remembers handing out flyers after school and standing on a milk crate to reach the counter.
When he was 13 his dad began working with Little Caesars to bring the company to Australia, and the family came out on a reconnaissance mission.
But after reviewing the market Little Caesars decided the time wasn’t right.
But Koury is about to see the family dream fulfilled with the opening of the country’s first Little Caesars store at Casula on Thursday.
“This brand is part of our family,” he says.
“There’s a lot of pride there in opening the first Australian store.”
Started by Mike and Marian Ilitch in the US in 1959, Little Caesars has grown to be one of the largest pizza chains in the world.
It markets itself as being convenient, good value and high quality.
The dough at the Hume Hwy store will be made from scratch on site every day and the sauce is made from fresh tomatoes.
“We make the same pizzas today as they did when Little Caesars started,” Koury says.
While the brand is best known for its pepperoni pizza it has plenty of other popular offerings, including oven roasted chicken wings and Italian cheese bread.
The cheese used on its pizzas is a blend of mozarella and muenster, which is not commercially available in Australia and has to be imported.
“Mozarella is stringy and the muenster adds that creaminess which is unique to us,” Koury says.
Another popular offering is the crazy bread — fresh dough cut into bread sticks and run through the oven with garlic, butter and parmesan cheese.
It is eaten dipped in the same sauce that goes on the pizzas.
Little Caesars will offer differet products at certain times of the day, with lunchtime combos to appeal to workers and larger than average 14 inch pizzas for families at night.
Staff will take orders on ipads and customers can pay using paypal on their phone.
Koury, who moved to Sydney with his family and a small US team in March, already has big expansion plans.
“We’re hoping to have three to five stores in the first year and 20 to 30 in five years,” he says.
He is offering a free slice of pizza to anyone who shows up on opening day “until we run out”.
“And I’m not planning on running out,” he says.
‘Beyond a fire sale’: Criniti’s stores sold for staggering price
Despite its whopping $19 million debt, the remaining Criniti’s stores, including Parramatta and Darling Harbour, have sold for a staggeringly low price in what one broker has described as ‘beyond a fire sale’.
‘I like big buns’: Wacky burgers with a difference
Parramatta’s very own Eat Street is as exciting and diverse as the city itself. Take BL Burgers for example, which brought its premium burgers — including the Blame Canada, Blame Indian and Mac Daddy burgers — to western Sydney.