Forbes ranks Marco’s among top 5 mid-range franchise opportunities

Marco’s Pizza franchise is one of the best business investments you can make today in any mid-investment range franchise category

A spatula pulls away a slice of cheesy pizza from a whole pizza pie on a wooden peel. A bowl of shredded cheese and a tomato are in the background.

Forbes magazine ranked Marco’s Pizza franchise among the top five franchises under the mid-range investment category, further validating our leadership position in not only the pizza industry but the franchise industry as well.

As one of the fastest growing pizza franchises in the nation, Marco’s Pizza has over 900 stores in 35 states and will hit the 1,000-store milestone this year.

How Forbes compiled its rankings

In its Best & Worst Franchises to Buy issue for 2019, Forbes teamed up with FRANdata to rank the best and worst franchise opportunities from among 3,300+ brands. They were ranked on five key criteria:

  • Sustainability
  • Demand
  • Value for investment
  • Franchisor support
  • Stability

The criteria represent “what prospective franchise owners should initially evaluate to make an informed decision on a franchise investment.”

“While demand drives growth for any business, the success of a franchise relies heavily on the sustainability of the system,” Forbes wrote. “Fast growth is a great reflection of demand and value of that brand, both in terms of business opportunity and consumer perspective. However, it is only beneficial to business owners if that growth is healthy and sustainable. Rather than assigning equal weight to both metrics, sustainability was weighted more heavily to emphasize the importance of a healthy system to the long-term success of franchise business owners.”

How our pizza franchise stands out

Quality will always tell. And the fact that our pizza franchise has always been committed to quality ingredients really shows. As the only top 10 pizza chain started by a native Italian, Marco’s touts authenticity as a brand pillar. Pat Giammarco moved from Italy to the states as a child and opened his first pizzeria in Toledo in 1978.

Today, we still use Giammarco’s original sauce recipe and make our dough fresh in stores daily. We use only fresh, never frozen, ingredients. We were recently voted Most Loved and Most Trusted Pizza Chain Brand by consumers, according to a 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend® Study. Our brand equity scored higher than all other pizza chain brands including Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Papa John’s.

Get started

Unlike many other top pizza franchise brands, Marco’s still have a lot of premium territory availability nationwide. The startup investment for a Limited Seating store (1,500 sq. ft. or less) ranges from $293,515 to $619,710. (See our 2019 Franchise Disclosure Document for more information).

Qualified candidates must have at least $125,000 in liquid assets and $400,000 in net worth.

Learn more

If you’d like to learn more about our award-winning pizza franchise, you can explore more about the opportunity on our research pages. You can request more information about our franchise here.