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 Pizza-La store inNagoya with delivery vehicles | |
Native name | ピザーラ |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Pizāra |
| Founded | April 1, 1980 |
| Headquarters | Zenkaren Building (全菓連ビル,Zenkaren Biru) in MinamiAoyama,Minato,Tokyo,Japan |
| Website | www.pizza-la.co.jp |
Pizza-La (ピザーラ,Pizāra) is aJapanesepizza delivery chain. It is the second largest pizza chain in Japan, afterDomino's Pizza. The company has its headquarters in theZenkaren Building (全菓連ビル,Zenkaren Biru) in MinamiAoyama,Minato,Tokyo.[1] The name of the company was created by combining the words "pizza" and "Godzilla".
The company's slogan is "All the taste and toppings you want on a pizza, straight from our oven to your door!" Their mascot is Pizza-La-kun.
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Hidenori Asano, the chairman ofFour Seeds Inc. (Pizza-La's parent company), was inspired to create the chain after viewingE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in whichDomino's Pizza featured. Asano had previously planned to start an offshoot of Domino's Pizza itself as a directly managed store, rather than one managed by a franchise. However, Domino's had already applied forfranchising rights in Japan in 1985 and had already started business. Asano then decided to establish his own chain, and in April 1987 the first Pizza-La store opened in theMejiro district ofToshima, Tokyo. Its expansion into the national market began in December 1989 starting with the store in theTsuchizaki district ofAkita, Akita. Commercials for Pizza-La began in 1991 using the slogan "ピザーラお届け!!" ("Pizza-La Delivery!!") incorporating a variety of actors.
By 2012 Pizza-La had opened 552 stores in Japan, and by 2015 the chain had expanded into all prefectures excludingAomori,Fukui,Tottori,Shimane,Kagawa,Ehime,Kochi,Saga andŌita prefectures.
While Pizza-La is primarily a delivery service, take-out stores called Pizza-La Style have operated since 2020, and are mostly located insidesupermarkets.
TheFuji-Q Highland theme park has a Pizza-La store next to the "Tondemina" pendulum ride, which offers a themed pizza with sausages placed to make it resemble the rotating disk. Due to the attraction's resemblance to a pizza, the Pizza-La logo is printed onto the pendulum arm that supports the disk.
In addition, on October 5, 2006, theKidZania branch in Tokyo first provided a pizza preparation activity sponsored by Pizza-La.
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Food trucks called Pizza-La Caravan operate outside of the chain's normal delivery range. They are known to go to remote regions in Japan, including to theIzu Islands.
Pizza-La is a former sponsor ofBowling Revolution P★League.
On August 24, 2013, images in which two part-time employees of Pizza-La'sHigashiyamato branch in Tokyo posed inside its sink and refrigerator were released onto the Internet.[2][3] On the same day they were found to have gone viral onTwitter and several bulletin boards. The following day a public apology was made by the company, and the Higashiyamato branch was temporarily closed while disposal of preserved foods and disinfection of the sink and refrigerator began.[4] As of August 30 the two employees were fired.[5] The company that acted as a franchisee of the Higashiyamato branch had lost consumer trust due to the incident and suspended business in October 2015. On July 27, 2016, the company began bankruptcy proceedings with theTokyo District Court.[6]
It was also found that said employees had released images of themselves squatting on display shelves and inside refrigeration cabinets at theSeiyu supermarket inŌme, Tokyo a day before the incident, on August 23.[7]
