Southern California-based Blaze Pizza will move its headquarters from Pasadena to Atlanta this fall to boost growth, company officials announced June 5.
“California is where this brand was born more than a decade ago, and we have a tremendous heart for communities across the state where so many of our restaurants are,” CEO Beto Guarjardo said in a statement. “Moving our corporate headquarters to Atlanta will help us drive our next wave of growth.”
The company said the majority of the company’s 60 corporate employees will remain as remote workers, with a small percentage of Southern California-based workers being offered relocation opportunities at the new Atlanta office.
More than 7,500 restaurant-level employees are not part of the reorganization and would not be affected, the company said in a statement.
The fast-food pizza chain was opened in 2011 in Pasadena, about 10 miles north of Los Angeles, by Rick and Elise Wetzel, owners of Wetzel’s Pretzels.
Billed as “fast-casual artisan pizza,” the restaurants use an assembly line format to create pizzas made to order for each customer. The concept was backed by investors, including Maria Shriver, movie producer John Davis, and Boston Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner, according to the company’s LinkedIn page.
The chain opened an outlet in Irvine the next year. The company now has more than 340 restaurants across 38 states and six countries.
Blaze Pizza is one of the latest major brands to pull up stakes in the Golden State in the past couple of years. Other companies to move their U.S. headquarters out of state in recent years include Neutrogena, Kelly-Moore Paints, McAfee, The Boring Company, Pabst Brewing, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle, Charles Schwab, CBRE, Toyota, and Tesla.
Blaze Pizza was upbeat about the move.
“Exciting news!” the company wrote in a post on LinkedIn June 5. “Blaze Pizza is relocating its headquarters from Pasadena, CA to Atlanta, GA this September! This strategic. move will enhance our operations and business development, driving our next phase of growth and innovation.”
