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The Pizza Pipeline Inc., a Spokane-based company that's been expanding here and elsewhere in the country for nearly 20 years, not including a temporary downturn after 9/11, is eyeing more stores here.
A franchisee in Missouri opened the newest Pizza Pipeline store last month, and the company has an agreement with a franchisee in California who plans to open a store there soon, says President and CEO Mike Kight. In the Spokane area, the company is considering the Hillyard neighborhood, Airway Heights, Liberty Lake, and Post Falls as potential locations for new company-owned and franchise stores.
"We just keep plugging away, offering good products at a fair price," Kight says.
In addition to its plans to add new stores, the 18-store chain will be introducing several new products-popcorn chicken and additional types of its popular breadsticks-to the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene market soon, Kight says.
The company has about 175 employees, mostly part time, at its six company-owned stores in Spokane, and always is hiring drivers, he says. Kight declines to disclose the company's revenues, although he says they have been growing since a downturn after 9/11.
The company receives fresh pizza ingredients at a two-story, 4,000square-foot warehouse and office space in a building at 418 W. Sharp that Kight and his Pizza Pipeline partner, Gene Boik, own through a company called Kibo Funding LLC. Employees prepare pizza dough, slice toppings, and make pizza sauces at the company's commissary, at 1303 N. Washington, then-ship the ingredients to stores in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene.
Franchisees buy products from vendors that are near their own stores, he says. Pizza Pipeline charges franchisees $20,000 initially for franchise rights and then charges up to 6.5 percent of their sales in fees. The company helps them with site selection, trains them at...