Residents Flock to New Little Caesars

This article first appeared on Meriden Patch.

Business was brisk at the city's new Little Caesars Wednesday afternoon, as customers filtered in and out of the Michigan-based chain pizza store that opened on East Main just the day before.

"We just go crazy over Little Caesars," said Tanya Soto, leaving the carry-out shop with her daughter Tatiana Pacheco and holding two pizzas and the chain's signature "Crazy Bread."

Soto's family is originally from New Britain, where the chain has had a long-standing store, and she says they are constantly driving from Meriden to New Britain because they like the pizza, sides and sauces at the shop there.

It's customers like Soto who are already familiar with the 52-year-old chain that are flocking to the new Meriden location, the store's franchise owner Shawnee Grossmann said Wednesday.

"People keep saying 'Thank God you guys are back," Grossmann said. A former Little Caesars location in town closed more than 10 years ago.

Grossman and her husband Shawn Grossmann opened the store Tuesday at 752 E. Main St. – in the shop abandoned by Tim Hortons last November when the Canadian coffee house shuttered its operations in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The Grossmans are a California couple who, along with other family, now own seven Little Caesars franchises in the U.S. – five in California in the San Jose and Santa Cruz areas, and two in Connecticut.

The couple moved from California to Glastonbury, Connecticut last January, Shawnee Grossmann said, to start up the new franchises, because their home state was already saturated with Little Caesars stores.

Since then, they've opened one location in Manchester in April 2011, and now a second in Meriden.

The couple found the Meriden location in July 2011 and gutted the original coffeeshop to create the new store they said. It opened on schedule, even though the area was without power for several days following Storm Alfred in October, because contractors had generators, Shawnee Grossman said. The store is staffed by about 25 employees, most of whom are from Meriden.

"It's very exciting," said new employee Carmen Figueroea of Meriden, who was working the cash register. She has previously worked in fast food, at Popeye's, she said, but said she liked that the staff actually made the pizzas at Caesars in the morning, and didn't heat up premade food.

Shawnee Grossmann said she believes that the fact that the pizzas are handmade in-store, coupled with with the chain's low prices – and the presence of a drive through – will drive business, even in a city that has numerous pizza options.

A large cheese or pepperoni pizza is $5 at the shop, with $1.50 each for additional toppings.

Price and familiarity are what drew Jason Liversidge and Whitney Basister to the store Wednesday.

Liversidge is originally from South Carolina, where the chain has many stores, but has lived in the Northeast for about 14 years. He doesn't like the other pizza options in Meriden.

"We usually go to Wallingford for our pizza," Liversidge said, so the new store will likely save him a trip. "And it's cheap," he said, leaving the shop with a meal deal that included a large pepperoni pizza, crazy bread, and two-liter bottle of soda for about $10.