Vocelli Pizza facts for kids
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Formerly
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Pizza Outlet |
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Fast food |
| Founded | 1988, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US |
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Key people
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| Products | Pizza, Pasta |
Vocelli Pizza is a popular pizzeria that started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It used to be called Pizza Outlet. As of 2022, you can find Vocelli Pizza restaurants in many states. These include Alabama, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. A magazine called Pizza Today once listed Vocelli Pizza as one of the top 100 pizza places.
How Vocelli Pizza Started
Pizza Outlet Days
The company began in 1988 in a town near Pittsburgh called Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. It was started by the Ablak family and was first known as Pizza Outlet. What began as a small local pizza shop quickly grew. It became very popular in the Pittsburgh area during the 1990s.
Back then, their main saying was "Delivering Great Taste to Your Door." For a short time, they also used "The Taste that SCREAMS Fresh!" but went back to their old saying. Pizza Outlet was a good choice for college students. It was known for being affordable, especially for students at the University of Pittsburgh.
A fun memory from this time was a TV commercial. It featured the famous wrestler Kurt Angle. In the ad, two CGI-animated pizza toppings, who were the chain's mascots, wrestled on a pizza. Kurt Angle had just ordered this pizza. Later, another wrestler, The Rock, even joked about this commercial on a TV show.
Becoming Vocelli Pizza
After growing fast in Pittsburgh, the company decided to open stores in the Southern United States. But at first, these new stores were not doing as well.
Instead of closing the southern stores, Pizza Outlet made a big change. In 2002, they changed the name of 73 of their southern locations to Vocelli Pizza. They also gave the restaurants an Italian look and feel. Before this, Pizza Outlet stores did not have a special theme inside. Changing the brand, including new pizza boxes and ads, cost about one million dollars.
Even with all these changes, the pizza itself stayed the same. But sales at the southern stores went way up after the name change! Because of this success, the company decided to change all the remaining Pizza Outlet stores in Pittsburgh to Vocelli Pizza in 2003. They also felt the name Vocelli Pizza sounded more fancy than the simple name Pizza Outlet.
Today, Vocelli Pizza continues to grow. It is known as one of the fastest-growing pizza chains in the United States. In 2012, Vocelli Pizza had 100 locations open.
