The 2 Popular Pizza Chains That Were Born In Michigan

Ah, the glorious state of Michigan! It's given us so much: the American auto industry, Motown, Sufjan Stevens, the list goes on. But did you know that it's also given us not one but two of the nation's most popular pizza franchises? That's right — both Domino's and Little Caesars originated in "The Great Lakes State."

The story of Domino's begins in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a town named for a Greek war hero and best known as the home of Eastern Michigan University. A pair of brothers named James and Tom Monaghan bought a pizza parlor named DomiNick's in 1960; James, a postman by trade, didn't want to give up his steady job, so he sold his stake in the store back to his brother. After buying two more stores (immortalized by the three dots in the chain's logo), Tom Monaghan renamed the chain Domino's and turned it into a multinational pizza empire. 

Eventually, he busied himself by buying the Detroit Tigers baseball team, sold it (along with many of his other luxurious possessions) after reading a passage of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity," and then sold Domino's to Bain Capital. Despite the chain once offering "30 minutes or less" pizza, the franchise's story traveled a long and winding road that began in the humble, mitten-shaped confines of Michigan.

Although it brands itself after ancient Rome, with its toga-clad mascot swanning about wearing a laurel wreath atop his head, it may not surprise you to learn that Little Caesars was not founded in the ruins of the once-mighty Roman Empire. It was, in fact, founded in Garden City, Michigan, which also happens to be the birthplace of Kmart. (Man, talk about the ruins of once-mighty empires.)

Unlike Domino's, Little Caesars was not founded by a pair of brothers — which is a shame, because that would be an awesome tie-in with the actual Roman Empire. It was founded by a married couple named Mike and Marian Ilitch, who in 1959 put their life savings into a pizza restaurant in Garden City. After three years, it was successful enough to open a second location in the nearby city of Warren, and things snowballed from there. Offering two pizzas for the price of one (hence the slogan "pizza! pizza!"), the chain became a hit. Despite the brief detour into offering buckets of spaghetti, Little Caesars is now so big that the arena for the Detroit Red Wings is named after it.