Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Franchise |
Founded | 1962 |
Founder | O. Gene Bicknell |
Defunct | 2020 |
Products | Franchisee of Pizza Hut & Wendy's |
Owner | Eldridge Industries LLC |
NPC International was one of the largest restaurant franchisees and was one of the largest restaurant operators of any kind in the United States. [1] NPC was the largest franchisee of both Pizza Hut and Wendy's, and owned more than 1,200 Pizza Hut locations and 385 Wendy's locations until March 2021. [2]
O. Gene Bicknell opened his first franchised Pizza Hut restaurant in Pittsburg, Kansas in 1962. In 1984, Bicknell and NPC went public, finishing the decade with 320 locations. In the 1990s, NPC acquired, and then later sold, both Skippers Seafood & Chowder House and Tony Roma's restaurant chains. [3] Under the leadership of CEO Jim Schwartz, the company went private in 2001 and underwent two separate private equity acquisitions in 2006 and 2011. In 2013, NPC acquired its first Wendy's restaurants.
NPC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1, 2020. [1] Analysts pointed to a "perfect storm of problems...including coronavirus-related shutdowns, a massive debt burden of nearly $1 billion and rising labor and food costs." [4] NPC reached an agreement with Pizza Hut to close 300 of its locations. Following the closures, the leases of 163 of the former sites were put up for sale. [5]
In November 2020, Flynn Restaurant Group submitted a $816 million bid to acquire the entirety of NPC's business, exceeding NPC's asking price of $725 million. [6]
Pizza Hut, LLC is an American multinational pizza restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. The chain, headquartered in Plano, Texas, operates 19,866 restaurants worldwide as of 2023.
Yum! Brands, Inc., formerly Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., is an American multinational fast food corporation listed on the Fortune 1000. Yum! operates the brands KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill, except in China, where the brands are operated by a separate company, Yum China. Yum! previously also owned Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurants. The company was created as a spin-off of PepsiCo in 1997.
Quiz Holdings, LLC, doing business as Quiznos, is an American franchised fast-food restaurant based in Denver that specializes in offering toasted submarine sandwiches. It was founded in 1981 by Jimmy Lambatos and sold to Rick and Richard Schaden ten years later. It then grew to nearly 5,000 restaurants; by 2013, Quiznos was the second-largest submarine sandwich shop chain in North America, behind Subway. It filed for bankruptcy in 2014; by 2016, it had dropped to ninth place, and the number of Quiznos locations in the United States fell from a 2007 high of 4,700 to just 400 a decade later.
Papa John's International, Inc., d/b/a Papa Johns, is an American pizza restaurant chain. It is the fourth largest pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States, with headquarters in the Louisville, Kentucky and Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan areas.
Arby's is an American fast food sandwich restaurant chain with more than 3,300 restaurants. The flagship property of Inspire Brands, it ranked third in systemwide sales in the United States in the quick-service and fast-casual restaurant industries in 2012, behind Subway and Panera Bread. In October 2017, Food & Wine called Arby's "America's second largest sandwich chain ".
Taco Management LLC, doing business as Taco Bueno, is a U.S.-based, quick service restaurant chain specializing in Tex-Mex-style cuisine. The company is headquartered in Farmers Branch, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. Its first location opened in Abilene, Texas in 1967. The food chain has locations in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Friendly's is a restaurant chain on the East Coast of the United States. The first location, selling ice cream cones, was in Springfield, Massachusetts, opened in 1935. It was founded by brothers S. Prestley Blake and Curtis Blake. It has 10,000 employees. George Michel is the CEO. It offers diner-style cuisine and highlights its 22 ice cream flavors. Many locations offer an ice-cream only take-out window alongside of the table service option. Friendly's restaurants are found in Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Its ice cream is also sold in some East Coast supermarkets.
Uno Pizzeria & Grill, or more informally as Uno’s, is a United States-origin franchised pizzeria restaurant chain under the parent company Uno Restaurant Holdings Corporation. Uno Pizzeria and Grill is best known for its Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Ike Sewell opened the first Pizzeria Uno in 1940.
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) is an American casual dining restaurant chain that specializes in California-style pizza. The restaurant was started in 1985 by attorneys Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax in Beverly Hills, California, United States. California Pizza Kitchen introduced and popularized BBQ Chicken Pizza.
Sbarro, LLC is an American fast food restaurant that specializes in New York–style pizza sold by the slice and other Italian-American cuisine. In 2011, the company was ranked 15th in foreign sales among U.S.-based quick-serve and fast-casual companies by QSR Magazine. In 2008, Sbarro was rated the No. 1 Quick Service Restaurant in the Italian segment by Entrepreneur magazine. However, diners and critics have criticized the quality of the food, with some suggesting a link between food quality and the company's two bankruptcies. Sbarro has over 600 locations in 28 countries. Sbarro stores are located in shopping malls, airports, service areas, and college campuses, as well as in The Pentagon, American naval bases, and casinos.
Rax Roast Beef is a regional U.S. fast food restaurant chain specializing in roast beef sandwiches. The company has been through many iterations, declaring bankruptcy more than once, rising to as many as 504 locations in 38 U.S. states in the 1980s and falling to fewer than 20 locations on more than one occasion. As of 2024, Rax is based in Ironton, Ohio, and has only six franchisee-owned restaurants still in operation.
Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. The firm makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, as well as significant minority purchases and growth capital investments. As of April 2018, it had over $15 billion in assets under management.
Restaurant Brands New Zealand Limited, trading as Restaurant Brands, is a New Zealand fast food company. Restaurant Brands currently operates and owns the master franchising rights for the Carl's Jr., KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell brands in New Zealand. Restaurant Brands operates most of New Zealand's stores for the brands they own rights to and provides management and support services to New Zealand's independent franchisees of the remaining stores.
The majority of the locations of international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King are privately owned franchises. While the majority of franchisees are smaller operations, several have grown into major corporations in their own right. At the end of the company's fiscal year in 2015, Burger King reported it had more than 15,000 outlets in 84 countries; of these, approximately 50% are in the United States and 99.9% are privately owned and operated. The company locations employ more than 37,000 people who serve approximately 11.4 million customers daily.
AmRest is a European multinational casual dining, fast-food restaurant and coffee shop operator headquartered in the Spanish capital, Madrid . The company runs more than 2300 locations, mostly franchises of KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and also Burger King until 2022, but also operates its own brands of restaurants. Apart from Spain, AmRest operates in Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and others.
Giordano's is an American pizzeria chain that specializes in Chicago-style stuffed pizza. Brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio founded Giordano's in 1974 in Chicago, Illinois. The pizzeria has since expanded to over 65 locations in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, and Wisconsin. The chain has also expanded to offer catering and ship frozen pizzas in the United States.
Souper Salad is an American restaurant chain based in Dallas, Texas. It is an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant serving fresh salads, made-from-scratch soups, homemade breads, and more. All locations are in the Southwestern United States, with the majority located in Texas. The chain is privately owned and has been in operation since 1978. As of October 2022, the chain had 3 locations.
Kout Food Group K.S.C.C. is a Kuwaiti-based conglomerate, founded in 1982, operating in Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iraq, and formerly in the United Kingdom. The business also offer catering services, import and export of food related items, representation of foreign companies as well as advising others in such businesses.
GPS Hospitality is a privately held company that is primarily a franchisee for quick service restaurants (QSR), including Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Burger King and Pizza Hut. GPS Hospitality was founded by Thomas A. Garrett in 2012 and has over 10,000 employees.
James Bodenstedt is the former President and CEO of MUY! Brands, an operator of franchised restaurants, including Wendy's and the Yum! Brands of Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and others. He and his wife were major donors to President Donald Trump's 2020 election campaign, donating more than $1 million. MUY! Brands and its subsidiaries were among the first companies to receive coronavirus relief aid by the Trump administration.