Pizza Haven (Australia) facts for kids
Pizza Haven is a defunct Australian and New Zealand pizza restaurant chain and franchise operation. Founded in 1984, four brothers Evan, Louis, Bill and Gabriel Christou started Pizza Haven with the aid of a A$24,000 mortgage on their parents' home. The first Pizza Haven outlet was at Glenelg in Adelaide. Employing twelve people, the Christou brothers were active in the running of the business. Pizza Haven evolved into a mid-sized franchised business model with approximately 180 outlets by the year 2000. Additionally a number of outlets were operated in Thailand during the mid to late 1990’s.
In January 2005, the New Zealand Pizza Haven stores were bought by Domino's Pizza and the majority were converted to Domino's while some stores were able to stay branded under Pizza Haven. However, eventually all Pizza Haven stores became Domino's.
In July 2008 it was announced that Pizza Haven Australia had been acquired by the Eagle Boys pizza chain (which was in turn acquired by Pizza Hut in 2016). All remaining Pizza Haven stores were eventually converted to Pizza Hut.
Innovations
Pizza Haven was the first Australian pizza company to:
- Introduce a 131 custom net phone system
- Introduce cheesy crust
- Introduce a gluten free pizza base
- Introduce a fully computerised EFTPOS (Point Of Sales) system
