Blaze Pizza
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| Private | |
| Industry | Food and beverage |
| Genre | Fast-casual dining restaurants |
| Founded | 2011 in California |
| Founder | Elise and Rick Wetzel |
| Headquarters | Pasadena, California, United States |
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Number of locations
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190 |
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Area served
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United States, Canada |
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Key people
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| Products | Pizza, Salad, Desserts, Drinks |
| Website | www |
Blaze Pizza LLC is a Pasadena, California-based chain within the fast-casual dining restaurants category. Founded in 2011 by Elise and Rick Wetzel of Wetzel’s Pretzels, Blaze Pizza was modeled after the Chipotle concept as a made-to-order approach to serving customers.National Basketball Association (NBA) champion LeBron James is one of the original investors in the chain, which is touted by Bloomberg “as the next Chipotle”.
Blaze Pizza was ranked as the #2 brand in the 2015 Fast Casual Top 100.
Blaze Pizza’s name was derived from how quickly a create-your-own pizza can be “Fast Fire’d” in a high-temperature open-flame oven – an average cook time is 3 minutes. Customers begin by choosing which of the ingredients they’d like on their pizza pie. As they work their way down the assembly line, staff assist the customer at each step resulting in a unique custom pizza each time. When they arrive at the end of the line, their custom-built pizza is ready to be cooked.
In an interview with a restaurant industry trade magazine, executive chef Brad Kent describes the oven as a "7 foot (2.1 m)-wide gas-fired (60,000 BTU (63,000 kJ)) unit operated at average temperatures of 700 °F (371 °C) to 800 °F (427 °C)" According to Kent, unit managers are responsible for checking the correct temperature balance on a daily basis since there are three different temperature zones within the oven that requires monitoring. Since the high-temperature gas-fired pizza oven is the only piece of cooking equipment inside each of the restaurants, the same oven is also use to roast the chicken, cook the Italian sausage and meatballs, and bake some of the deserts.
Blaze Pizza was founded in Pasadena, California by Rick and Elise Wetzel in 2011. The fast-fired, customizable pizza concept debuted with their first location in Irvine, California on August 2012 which was quickly followed two months later by the opening of their second, and flagship, location in October 2012 in Pasadena, California. In 2014, Zagat noted Blaze Pizza as “One of 10 innovative restaurants around Los Angeles.” The concept’s popularity has been fueled by its obsessive attention to food, design and its unique service culture.
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Wikipedia