Rise and fall of Pizza Haven
Before Domino’s and Pizza Hut dominated the retail sector in the suburbs, there was Pizza Haven.
Fuelled by those iconic TV ads and catchy 131 241 slogans, the restaurant chain was one of the country’s largest pizza chains in the 90s.
The company grew into a 180-store empire, spanning across Australia and New Zealand.
Its red-and-white signs lit up the weekend. marking the Friday night ritual of large pizzas, garlic bread, and cans of Coke that defined family dinner.
But today, the brand is no longer a household name.
Here’s how four brothers from Adelaide built a fast food empire from a $24,000 loan, and what caused its demise.
MORE:EB Games’ collapse sparks Aussie job fears
Why these iconic Aus restaurants disappeared
Disney abandons Aus for good in brutal snub
Pizza Haven was one of the country’s largest pizza chains in the 90s.
Friday night ritual of large pizzas, garlic bread and cans of Coke defined family dinner.
The $24k gamble that paid off
Pizza Haven was started in 1984, when Evan, Louis, Bill and Gabriel Christou, found an empty shop in Glenelg. The siblings took out a $24,000 mortgage on their parents’ house.
Less than a year after its launch, the business gained popularity and introduced home delivery, which was a novelty in the fast food market at the time.
The decision was inspired after Bill was sent to Dino’s dial-a-pizza to buy one of their competitor’s pizzas for comparison.
Bill waited 45 minutes for his order and noted that delivery orders were rolling in every minute
“They did what we were doing in three days,” he said in a 1993 interview.
“Within a week we were in the pizza delivery business. We doubled our take overnight and never looked back.”
Brothers (l-r) Gabriel, Bill, Louis and Evan Christou, partners in Pizza Haven.
Evan said the brothers had big plans for Pizza Haven from day one.
“From the very outset, we opened the restaurant with a view to expanding. It was never our intention to open just one restaurant,” Evan said in the 2005 book., State of Mind: The Success Secrets of 50 South Australian Entrepreneurs.
“We always said ‘let’s open something that we can develop further’”.
In 1985, the second restaurant opened in Christie Downs. By 1986, the brothers opened their seventh restaurant at Enfield.
In the following years, the interstate restaurants opened in Melbourne in 1990, Brisbane in 1991 and in Sydney, in 1992. The chain went on to expand in New Zealand.
With a turnover of $25 million in 1991, Pizza Haven was the only wholly-Australian owned company in the top 10 list of fast food operators.
Pizza Haven executive Evan Christou in 2000.
The downfall of Pizza Haven
By the late 90s and early 2000s, Pizza Haven struggled to keep up with its competitor, Domino’s started investing in online ordering and digital tracking.
Domino’s and Pizza Hut also engaged in “coupon wars” and discounting pizzas with $4.95 deals.
The move made Pizza Haven difficult to match without destroying its profit margins.
The final slice
In 2005, Pizza Haven’s New Zealand operations were sold to Domino’s for roughly $NZ7.8 million ($A6.7 million).
By 2008, the remaining Australian stores were snapped up by Eagle Boys, which was in turn taken over by Pizza Hut in 2016.
MORE: Tyra Banks quit LA, secretly lives in Aus
‘Insult’: Vanished Salt Bae’s secret demise
A-listers’ dud Aus businesses that ended in bust ups