Operations

A taste of home: the 40-year legacy of Figaro's Italian Pizza

After more than 40 years, Figaro's Italian Pizza continues to thrive as a nostalgic, small-town pizza franchise because of its innovative "We Bake or You Bake" model and a unique dough that other major chains couldn't replicate.

Photo: Figaro's Italian Pizza

August 1, 2025 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group

For more than 40 years, Figaro's Italian Pizza has been a familiar sight in towns across the Pacific Northwest, with its distinctive logo promising a hot, cheesy meal. But for many, the brand is more than just a quick dinner solution; the take-and-bake company is a nostalgic taste of home, a Friday night tradition and a symbol of small-town comfort.

Ron Berger owns Figaro's Italian Pizza. Photo: Figaro's

Figaro's began in March of 1981 in Oregon. Just 40 miles down the road, another take-and-bake pizza brand, which would eventually merge with another to become Papa Murphy's, also blossomed.

"Take-and-bake pizza had not existed before that month in this country, and it didn't exist largely because no one had perfected a dough formula that would allow you to take a dough and kneed it and roll it out, cover it with toppings and make it succeed in a home oven," said Ron Berger, president and CEO of Figaro's Italian Pizza in a phone call with Pizza Marketplace.

Today, Figaro's has 31 units — 24 in the U.S., six in India and one in Cypress. Berger bought the company in 2001. The brand is 100% franchised.

Take-and-bake pizzas

In the years since take and bake launched, the big chains have attempted to offer it without success. "They've given up not because they don't know how to do it — they know how to do it. They've given up because it turns out that the dough in use at Domino's, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns, all the major chains, is a very fast rising, fast dough that contains a very robust yeast," Berger explained. "And so, it's created for a fast rise, and the reason is because all those chains, having an option of what's important to them, they've all chosen time through the oven."

From start to finish, the big chains can get a pie through the oven in under three minutes, Berger added. Take-and-bake pizza is exactly the opposite situation, meaning if an employee makes a take-and-bake pizza, the restaurant has to make sure over the next hours or even days that the moisture from the sauce and toppings doesn't permeate the dough. If that happens, the crust will burn while the inner part of the pizza will be soggy. In essence, it won't bake right.

"In order to accomplish that trick of making it possible for the dough not to be permeated by the moisture, the people who invented take-and-bake pizza went to the American Baking Institute. They asked for a dough that would be the consistency of a plate, like a piece of china, that would be impervious to moisture. And that was what was perfected," Berger explained. That dough takes five to six minutes to go through the oven, so it's expensive in terms of convenience and speed.

The big chains abandoned take-and-bake pizza because they didn't want to run two separate dough lines in their kitchens, Berger said.

Photo: Figaro's

Operations

In 1996, Figaro's, which had been battling with nearby Papa Murphy's Take-and-Bake Pizza, added Middleby Marshall conveyor and Lincoln impinger ovens to all of its stores and coined the phrase "We Bake or You Bake."

Today, the majority of customers pick up baked pizzas. One point of differentiation is that Figaro's can provide both baked pizzas and unbaked for a party, so there's always hot and fresh pizza available throughout the night.

Part of the allure of take-and-bake pizza is that guests can watch a pizza get made and can see exactly what ingredients have gone on there. When it gets home, guests can add cheese, Parmesan and other ingredients not provided by Figaro's.

"When I think of big holidays like the World Series, the Super Bowl, Halloween, things like that, that's when I think you see everybody's pizza sales go up. At Figaro's, ours go up exponentially because we provide the opportunity to mix both baked and unbaked," Berger said.

Berger said his kids are happy to eat leftover pizza, so little goes to waste. Using the party example, say two of the 10 pizzas you bought didn't get baked and eaten. They're still good in the fridge for several days.

Cheese and pepperoni are the two top sellers, but Figaro's has an entire line that the brand has perfected over the years. The brand employs a nationally renowned chef to create their pizza flavors, like the Creamy Garlic Chicken, which has chicken, black olives, onions, green peppers and fresh tomatoes on a signature garlic sauce. The sauce is made internally at every store every day.

At its India stores, where the brand is contractually obligated to open 150 units, and the current six have opened since 2024, there are markets where people don't eat beef or pork or are vegetarian. They once again hired their consultant to create pizzas that fit in those markets.

Consistency is challenging, especially since the brand is small and has units overseas. With just nine people in the corporate office, including three field officers, the brand offers its franchisees training manuals and videos and recipes for continuity. These are all available on an intranet.

Figaro's is focused on expanding on the upper peninsula of Michigan, Colorado, Illinois and California. Finding real estate with affordable rent is challenging. Labor prices have also gone up. Before and during COVID, the average worker made about $8 per hour. Today that wage has jumped to $12 to $15 an hour. The cost of food and ovens have risen as well.

For those considering going into the pizza business, Berger advises that "if you are not an outgoing person, and if you're not a person who was reared in a family where you are all about service and you're all about making other people happy, seeing that smile on their face when you do something for them that's really nice and respectful and sweet — if that's not you then you shouldn't be in the (restaurant) business. … You can learn, certainly, in franchising. We train people. … Manufacturing the product, cooking it, if you will, is not the problem. The issue between success and failure in retail is the personality of the owner and the team that is greeting the customer."

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.

An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.

Connect with Mandy: