Last year Blaze Pizza opened their first branch outside of the USA in Kuwait. Kuwait’s first Blaze Pizza location was an instant success; the lines were, and still are, quite long during the lunch rush hour because diners love the experience of building their own pizza and keep coming back for more. We met up with co-founders Elise and Rick Wetzel to find out more about their trail-BLAZE-ing (sorry, not sorry) success.
Elise and Rick were sitting comfortably at one of the tables at The Avenues branch. If you didn’t know who they were, you would have assumed they were just two more diners enjoying their lunch. They were friendly, welcoming and very passionate about their work.
I asked them if they expected this level of success when they were first starting out. Rick was quick to say, “We only know one speed and that is go very fast”.
In 2011 the Wetzels had started thinking about starting a pizza restaurant that operated under a franchise expansion model. Less than a year later, they had opened two restaurants and now they are a little over six years old and have 325 restaurants in five countries. With a lot of hard work, and never turning off their superfast ‘turbo’ mode, they were recently named by Forbes magazine as the fastest growing restaurant chain ever.
As for their success in Kuwait, Elise said “We knew that pizza as a concept is very translatable. And so, we had very positive expectations for it. But I think that what has happened here has surpassed anyone’s expectations. You know, it’s a different format to walk down the line and order anything you want on the pizza, or really in a way that’s very unusual.”
Watching people create their own pizza can be quite interesting. I noticed that many people will start with a signature, then as they progress down the assembly line, begin adding and taking away ingredients, or they get inspired by the people ahead of them. I know, I have definitely done this myself.
The couple also attribute their local success to their great team here and their partnership with Alshaya. They had targeted Kuwait as their first location outside of North America, because historically the nation has always been very welcoming to American brands and that they could remain true to the Blaze brand. The Wetzels are veterans in the franchise model and entering the Kuwait market with Alshaya as their partner was their one and only Plan A. The company is always committed to bringing the brands as intact as they can to Kuwait, then they make the slight tweaks to perfect their operations in Kuwait. They joined forces in 2017 after a couple of years of discussion and now they have over five branches open in the Middle East with seven more on the way.
The duo are very proud of the fact that whether you are in Kuwait or in any of their US Blaze branches, it will always look, feel and taste the same. As chief brand officer, Elise works with the marketing team to make sure that they deliver a brand experience in every country that has the same spirit and voice that has gotten guests to line up for the for the concept since the very beginning.
The long lines at Blaze Pizza can be attributed to the use of high-quality fresh ingredients and the dough that is made in-house with a secret recipe. Brad Kent, their Chief Culinary Officer and creator of the dough, insisted on using Extra Virgin Olive oil to achieve the best texture that was both chewy and crunchy even though it is more expensive. Elise was the one who found Brad in a lucky Google search, and when she approached him to join their team, he was already the owner of a very successful Los Angeles pizzeria. He fell in love with the idea and eventually joined the Blaze team full-time.
It is this kind of passion that drives the Blaze Pizza team to create an experience that is enjoyed by everyone. No detail is spared. The packaging has been sustainable from the very first day, the cups are all plant-based so unlike regular plastic, they decompose quickly once they are discarded. “[Being environmentally conscious] is the price of entry in the market today,” Rick quickly added. Because Blaze is a young and modern brand, these values were all built into the company’s vision and way of doing business.
“We like to say that we have a very big tent, and all are welcome. So, you will see older people and little kids. But you’re right, ours is very much a young voice, but people who are young at heart, young in age or young at heart,” explained Elise. The concept is definitely a hit with millennials who love Instagramming their experience, starting from the pizza-making to the dining. If you don’t believe us, check out #blazepizza on social media.
Elise and Rick are a married couple as well as being business partners. To many people that might be a liability, but they work well together as a team. “Our marriage comes first. We’re also parents and we love being parents and so we’re very good at keeping our priorities aligned and you know, we try to get home at night at a reasonable hour and will oftentimes say okay, we’re not talking about pizza at home” Rick told me. He also said they eventually do talk about pizza in the end. They are obviously enjoying what they do, and that’s never a bad thing if what you do is what you love. They really do love pizza. Elise said, “We have a pizza oven in our backyard. And sometimes we’ll swing by the restaurant grab some dough and will bring our own little Tupperware, some for sauce and cheese and then go back and have a little party,”.
Meeting the Wetzels was a reminder that successful ventures need to be backed by passionate, caring people who want to disrupt the current market, which is exactly who they are and what they have done. And we’re glad, because we love Blaze Pizza just as much as they do.
Blaze Pizza is located in the Grand Plaza – The Avenues, Murouj – Phase 3, and Ahmadi Park. For updates and news follow them on Instagram @BlazePizzaME.
