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Top 100: Restaurants - Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza

Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza climbs to the number 16 spot on Fast Casual's Top 100: Restaurants.

February 27, 2015

Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza climbs to the number 16 spot on Fast Casual's Top 100: Restaurants.

Pizza is a hot ticket in fast casual these days, and Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza is heating up, said Jim Mizes, president and COO. The chain started in 2014, with 12 units but expects to finish the year with nearly 50, a feat Mizes says will require innovation. “We are building a unique and special brand that targets millennials and connects with many others, offering quality fast-fired pizza in a comfortable, hip, urban environment at an affordable price for lunch and dinner. We see as much business during the lunch daypart as we see at night and even for late night.”

Staying busy during the lunch daypart sometimes can be a challenge for pizza chains that often cannot accommodate customers stopping in for quick lunch breaks, but Mizes said the chain’s dedication to scalability has solved that problem. “It took a lot of work up front to create restaurants that are this smooth to operate, while delivering an exceptional product over and over again,” he said. “Basically, we’re selling a $15 pizza for just over $7. We spent a lot of time ‘sweating the small stuff’ up front, in terms of our recipes, our operations and our store design.” From restaurant No.1, Mizes said his team knew it was embarking on something big. “So from the beginning, we were focused on finding ways to scale the concept while consistently delivering excellence in our execution,” he said.