As children, there was all the time that one place we begged our dad and mom to take us to, or bought enthusiastic about visiting for a celebration or a college subject journey.
In spite of everything, children’ fixations are easy: Give them pizza and leisure, they usually’ll fortunately keep occupied for hours. When a enterprise affords each, it usually turns into a welcome break for folks as properly.
Everybody has their very own model of that place, whether or not it is Chuck E. Cheese, Dave & Buster’s, or Essential Occasion. Over time, these spots have turn into go-to locations for households throughout the nation. In Texas, nonetheless, one chain has lengthy stood aside as a supply of Lone Star pleasure.
Mr Gatti’s Pizza started in 1964 as a small restaurant known as “The Pizza Place” in Stephenville, Texas. 5 years later, it relocated to Austin and was renamed Mr Gatti’s, in honor of the founder’s spouse’s maiden title.
Through the Nineteen Seventies, the Mr Gatti’s model expanded into a sequence and launched buffet-style eating, an innovation that helped distinguish it from opponents.
Though the Austin restaurant predated the primary Chuck E. Cheese location (which opened in San Jose, California, in 1977), Mr Gatti’s did not actually soar onto the entertainment-plus-pizza development till the Eighties. The idea rapidly received over households, and at present Mr Gatti’s Pizza operates greater than 200 areas throughout Texas and the southeastern U.S.
Business consultants say this hybrid mannequin has turn into more and more helpful as conventional informal eating struggles to compete for shoppers. In response to a 2025 McKinsey & Firm survey, 45% of surveyed shoppers have diminished their spending at pizza eating places.
“When there’s good leisure and good experiences, examine averages go up,” Downtown Restaurant Investments President and BYOD CEO Dave Dittenber instructed Restaurant Dive.
Dittenber added that leisure solely works when paired with robust service and high quality meals.
Mr Gatti’s Pizza has bought a majority stake in its enterprise to OneRyan International LLC, the household workplace of businessman and philanthropist G. Brint Ryan, in keeping with a press launch. The monetary phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.
OneRyan has been a franchisee of Mr Gatti’s Pizza since 2022, however its involvement with the model has steadily expanded.
In September 2025, OneRyan acquired a minority stake within the firm and, a month later, bought a corporate-owned restaurant at South Park Meadows in Austin. That transaction accomplished Mr Gatti’s Pizza’s transition to a totally franchised system and concluded the re-franchising of all company-owned areas.
As a part of the deal, G. Brint Ryan will function chairman, and Amanda S. Ryan will function vice chairwoman of the Board of Managers. CEO Jim Phillips and CFO KC Mann will stay of their roles, together with the remainder of the senior management workforce.
Mr Gatti’s Pizza’s company headquarters will proceed to be based mostly in Fort Price, the place the corporate relocated following its acquisition by Sovrano LLC in 2015.
“Our deep appreciation for the Mr Gatti’s model, mixed with our firsthand expertise working areas throughout a number of markets, made this acquisition a pure and thrilling alternative,” mentioned OneRyan CEO Amanda S. Ryan.
“Mr Gatti’s has constructed a category-leading platform in eating and household leisure, supported by an distinctive community of franchisees. We sit up for serving to the model proceed to develop and thrive.”
Phillips described Ryan as an “distinctive chief with huge respect for the heritage of Mr Gatti’s.”
“He brings a compelling imaginative and prescient for the model’s future, together with the experience wanted to assist us attain our full potential,” Phillips added. “We’re excited to have his management each as an owner-operator and as Chairman as we enter this subsequent section of development.”
Mr Gatti’s Pizza sells its majority stake to OneRyan International LLC.Shutterstock ·Shutterstock
Though Mr Gatti’s Pizza shouldn’t be a nationwide chain, its reputation within the southern U.S. has allowed it to proceed rising. The corporate reported a 4% enhance in system-wide gross sales for fiscal 2024, in keeping with PR Newswire.
By the tip of that yr, the chain had 234 areas open and below improvement, having awarded 39 new franchise agreements in 2024 alone.
Enlargement exhibits no indicators of slowing. In July 2024, Mr Gatti’s Pizza sealed a partnership take care of Walmart (WMT) to open 92 new areas throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kentucky by mid-2026.
These Walmart-based areas are smaller than conventional stand-alone shops and do not embody arcade video games, however they nonetheless supply the complete menu. This format was designed to seize high-traffic retail prospects with out the expense of arcades.
Nevertheless, the street has not all the time been clean.
Extra Restaurant Enterprise Information:
Mr Gatti’s Pizza’s former father or mother firm, Sovrano LLC, filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in January 2019 after accumulating $32 million in secured debt and itemizing liabilities between $10 million and $50 million, in keeping with courtroom data.
On the time, an organization spokesperson instructed the Austin American-Statesman that the chapter submitting was supposed to deal with banking and operational points, emphasizing that it was not because of the model’s efficiency and wouldn’t have an effect on store-level operations. The submitting utilized solely to 1 corporate-owned location and didn’t influence franchise help.
Many corporations select to franchise to speed up growth and set up their model throughout extra markets. A franchisee invests in the precise to function a enterprise below a acknowledged title, decreasing the danger related to ranging from scratch.
As franchisees acquire expertise and confidence in a model’s long-term potential, they usually search higher possession to maximise returns.
In response to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 17% of latest eating places shut inside their first yr, making franchising an interesting lower-risk different for each operators and model house owners.
Nonetheless, the mannequin has drawbacks. As a result of each day operations are dealt with by particular person house owners, sustaining constant high quality is usually a problem. Poor oversight or mismanagement by even a number of franchisees can harm a model’s status.
“Labor consultants say that franchised chains have larger charges of violations than corporate-run chains as a result of they’re much less invested in preserving a model’s status,” wrote Labor Knowledgeable Lauren Kaori Gurley and Investigative Information Reporter Emmanuel Martinez for The Washington Publish. “They’re additionally below stress to maintain labor prices low to make up for steep working prices, particularly franchise charges.”
For OneRyan, ready a number of years earlier than buying a controlling stake doubtless allowed the agency to raised perceive these dangers, assess the model’s long-term potential, and place itself for sustainable development earlier than committing totally.
“What excites me most about franchising at present is the subsequent technology of rising manufacturers — founders who’re intentional about development and dedicated to constructing sustainable techniques,” mentioned Franchise FastLane VP Model Recruiter Patrick Sanchez for FranchiseWire.
“Franchising, when accomplished proper, creates alternative far past unit development. It builds communities, empowers entrepreneurs, and modifications lives. Success isn’t about rising quick — it’s about rising properly.”
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