Giordano's Pizza
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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurant |
| Founded | February 1974 |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois |
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Key people
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Yorgo Koutsogiorgas, CEO |
| Website | giordanos |
Giordano's is a pizzeria that specializes in Chicago-style stuffed pizza.
Brothers Efren and Joseph Boglio were born in a small town near Turin, Italy, where their mother had been known for the quality of her recipes. His family was most fond of her Easter pizza pies. The brothers first immigrated to Argentina and subsequently (separately) to the US. Upon arriving in America, Efren began working at a pizzeria in Chicago, but he was not satisfied with the pizzas he tasted and decided to open his own restaurant, Roma. When Joseph came to Chicago, Efren has stated they decided to open a restaurant using their mother's recipe and after experimenting over several months developed the stuffed pizza. In 1974, they founded Giordano's.
Several commentators have questioned the restaurant's claim about the creation of the stuffed pizza, noting similarities with the origin story of Nancy's Pizza, which had introduced its own stuffed pizza in the same year. Both chains claim to have based the pizza off a family recipe for scarciedda, an Easter dish common to Basilicata and Apulia, two regions of Italy. Due to the similarities commentators have suggested there is a connection between the founders of the two pizza chains.
John Apostolou, together with his wife Eva, acquired Giordano's in 1988. In 1993 he told Crain's Chicago Business of their ambitions to expand the chain by opening over 100 new locations in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. However, this desired expansion did not materialize. Under Apostolou's stewardship, Giordano's opened a restaurant in Milwaukee in 1995 and planned for five more, but the Milwaukee location closed in 2002. The first major expansion outside Illinois began in 2005 when Giordano's opened locations in Florida.
Due to weak economic conditions, the Apostolou family faced difficulty in leasing and selling their commercial real estate properties. Their firm, Randolph Partners LLC, eventually defaulted on its real estate loans on January 1, 2011, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on February 8, 2011. Due to sharing the same primary lender, Giordano's was included in the proceedings along with over 30 affiliate companies. Overall, the companies listed nearly $50 million in combined liabilities to Fifth Third Bank and $2 million to two additional banks and were able to obtain emergency financing in order to stay in operation. While Giordano's entered bankruptcy at a time when many other restaurant chains and pizzerias were being forced to re-organize due to faltering sales, the company's bankruptcy attorney, Michael Gesas, assuaged concerns about the chain's viability and stated that real estate was the reason for the bankruptcy.
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Wikipedia