News

Smashburger franchisor launches fast casual pizza joint

May 23, 2013

Fast casual pizza concepts are all the rage these days, and Smashburger's founder is getting in on the action, opening Live Basil Pizza this week in the Denver area, according to Vcstar.com.  Several fast casual pizza chains, where customers go through a line and select pizza toppings, have popped up over the last couple of years. In fact, "pizza as a fast casual" was recently named the No. 8 trend on the Top 10 trends of the 2013 list of Fast Casual Top 100 Movers & Shakers.

The restaurant was going to operate under the name of "Honest Pizza," but the name was changed before the grand opening.

Live Basil is the brainchild of Consumer Capital Partners, a Denver-based, private-equity firm lead by father and son, Richard and Rick Schaden, who also operate and franchise Smashburger. Rick Schaden is also former CEO of Quiznos.

Smashburger, this week, was also named to FastCasual.com’s list of Top 100 Movers & Shakers. To see how it ranked and what other restaurants made the list, click here.

Read more about operations.

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