Blaze Pizza home office

Blaze Pizza was founded by Rick and Elise Wetzel in 2011. The name comes from the quick way that pizza’s are cooked; taking only 3 minutes on average.

Customers order similar to the way Subway sandwich shops work, with customers choosing their toppings as they walk down the service line, then picking up their pizza at the end. The Blaze ovens are 7 foot-wide gas-fired units that operate at average temperatures of 700 °F (371 °C) to 800 °F (427 °C).  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 used to roast the chicken, cook the Italian sausage and meatballs, and bake some of the desserts.

  In 2016, the company signed agreements which allowed them to operate locations inside buildings, such as college campus’ or airport terminals.

In 2017, the company posted earnings of $279 million, a 51% increase over the previous year, causing concern among bigger pizza operations, such as Dominoe’s.

 Blaze Pizza went international in 2015, opening locations in Canada, and then in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 2018.

Headquarters for Blaze Pizza is located in Pasadena, California.