Marco’s Pizza ® CEO Jack Butorac Featured in New York Times

Tells newspaper he quit retirement to take helm of Marco’s

When the New York Times wondered why some people become “retirement dropouts” and return to work after giving retirement a try, the newspaper called Marco’s Pizza ® CEO Jack Butorac.

“I failed miserably at retirement,” says Butorac, who is 66 and has been Marco’s chief executive for 10 years. He had been an executive at Hormel Foods, where he launched his career, and also worked at Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant chain and Fuddruckers.

Butorac told the newspaper that he gave retirement a try — twice — but discovered that days filled with travel, golf and time at home were “just boring.”

Then he learned about Marco’s Pizza ® and took a road trip to sample the food at five stores. He loved the taste and the consistent quality.

“It was delicious. I saw an opportunity to expand the company nationally, so in 2004 I decided to buy the franchise rights,” he told Times writer Elizabeth Olson.

Butorac still makes time for golf and enjoys traveling with his wife. Their latest trip was a Baltic Sea cruise. But he spends most of his time overseeing Marco’s Pizza’s ® rapid expansion.

“I’d go crazy with nothing to do,” he told the Times. So he is immersed in plans to open more than 1,100 stores in coming years, with an eye to rivaling Domino’s and Pizza Hut.

Marco’s is growing as franchisees seize opportunities to open stores in prime locations nationwide. Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Caesars and other competing chains have saturated their markets with tens of thousands of locations. Marco’s has top locations available for new restaurants and is rapidly gaining market share in the $40 billion annual U.S. pizza market.

At a time when 91% of Americans eat pizza at least once a month, people are increasingly choosing quality. Marco’s is the only national pizza franchise founded by a native Italian and is committed to using only the best ingredients.

Marco’s makes its dough fresh in stores every day. Every pizza is topped with premium meats, cheeses that are never frozen, vegetables prepared in-store and sauce made from a hybrid tomato developed especially for Marco’s. Marco’s has been making pizza this way since it was founded in 1978.

Marco’s pace of growth is exceeding projections by 40%, putting the company on track to achieve its goal of becoming the country’s fourth-largest pizza chain.

And as Butorac told the New York Times, “We are just getting started.”

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