Industry Veteran Ken Caldwell Joins the Your Pie Executive Team

Proven Franchise Expert Set to Steer Growth of the Originator of the Down-the-line Pizza Category

ATHENS, Ga. – Your Pie, the originator of the down-the-line pizza category, continues to grow and get stronger.

Ken Caldwell, one of franchising’s best known and most successful developers, has joined the Your Pie team as the Vice President of Development, the company announced today.

Caldwell brings 20 years in franchising and a documented track record for growth to the brick-oven, personalized pizza brand. He will spearhead Your Pie’s expansion throughout the Southeast and beyond.

“Ken is one of those rare talents that truly understands and can convey the value of becoming part of a franchise family,” Your Pie Chairman of the Board David Barr said. “Ken brings a wealth of experience and talent to the team. We believe we have a special opportunity with Your Pie. Ken’s presence only makes us stronger, and we couldn’t be any more pleased to have him aboard.”

Caldwell began his career with Heavenly Ham alongside current Your Pie CEO Bucky Cook. Caldwell helped take the then-startup ham purveyor from 10 to 230 units before the brand was sold to competitor HoneyBaked Ham.

Caldwell remained with HoneyBaked, which had just ventured into franchising. Under his leadership, the company grew from 35 to 180 units. He also aided in the transition after the merger and operated the HoneyBaked company-owned stores.

“This was truly a very easy decision for me,” Caldwell said. “Your Pie is an exciting, exceptional brand that offers franchisees that rare opportunity to get in at the start. We have a great story to tell about an authentic concept that will revolutionize the way that people look at pizza. I couldn’t be happier to be part of it.”

No other down-the-line pizza brand in the United States has grown more steadily or has opened as many stores.  Your Pie remains committed to becoming the first in the segment to reach 100 operating stores.

With a powerful combination of company assets that includes Drew French, who conceived the concept of down-the-line pizza, a franchise-development team that ranks with the best in the industry and a solidified relationship with Georgia Oak Partners, the brand has established a formula for success to achieve and exceed goals for growth.

Caldwell is actively engaged with franchise partners interested in joining this successful brand. He is working with multi-unit franchise owners and franchise owners looking to diversify, he said. 

The brand will add locations in Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa, Nashville, Charleston, Birmingham, and Augusta. Although the brand is looking for partners to join the Your Pie family in the Southeast, they also boast a model to support locations in other areas of the country. 

ABOUT YOUR PIE

Your Pie is the world’s originator of the quick-serve, brick-oven, customized personal pizza category. Your Pie owner and originator Drew French tapped his restaurant background and knowledge of the conveyor-driven quick-serve and married it with brick oven technology to create the highest quality pizza available at incredible speed. Drawing from family recipes from the island of Ischia, Your Pie uses only fresh ingredients, homemade pizza sauces and salad dressings, and offers vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free pizzas, as well as traditional pizzas. Customers who dine at Your Pie have come to expect a custom-made and delicious pizza delivered to their table well within 10 minutes of ordering – the definition of fast casual. As a result, the Your Pie brand is synonymous with success and a fan favorite of families in the communities it serves. For more information about Your Pie or franchising opportunities, please visit www.yourpie.com.

Your Pie in Tampa Bay Business Journal

Your Pie was recently featured in the Tampa Bay Business Journal in an article titled, "With New Backing, Your Pie Pursues Tampa Bay." The article discusses the growth and expansion plans of the custom pizza franchise in the Tampa Bay market as well as the overall growth plans with the new financial backing of private equity firm Georgia Oak Partners. The overall goal for development is to have 100 Your Pie restaurants by the end of 2015.

Check out the article here.

With new backing, Your Pie pursues Tampa Bay

Margaret Cashill

Staff Writer- Tampa Bay Business Journal

Owners of build-your-own pizza chain Your Pie have plans to expand rapidly in Tampa Bay during the next few years.

Now, an undisclosed investment from private equity firm Georgia Oak Partners has furthered Your Pie’s efforts to grow, Nation’s Restaurant News reported.

Your Pie, based in Athens, Ga., has 18 locations in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida, including a restaurant at 2219 South Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa.

In July, CEO Bucky Cook told TBBJ he expects to add a second Tampa Bay location in the next year, and he intends to add another 25 locations in area in the next five to seven years.

Since closing the deal with Georgia Oak this summer, Your Pie has condensed that time frame to two to four years, Cook said.


Four of Your Pie’s locations are company-owned and 14, including the Tampa restaurant, are owned by franchisees.

To continue reading, click here.

Your Pie featured in Nation's Restaurant News

Your Pie was featured in Nation's Restaurant News in an article titled, "Your Pie eyes growth in Southeast." Founder, Drew French and partner at Georgia Oak, David Barr, were both interviewed discussing the growth plans throughout the Southeast and the plans to have a total of 100 restaurants in the next two years. The article shares the potential of the brand in the industry and the type of franchise partners that Your Pie is currently seeking out.

See the whole article online here.

Your Pie eyes growth in Southeast

After investment, the fast-casual pizza chain aims to open 100 units in two years

Oct. 18, 2013 

Mark Brandau

The chain received an undisclosed investment from Atlanta-based private-equity firm Georgia Oak Partners

Drew French might have been among the first restaurateurs to start the burgeoning fast-casual pizza segment when he opened Your Pie in Athens, Ga., in 2008 at age 24. But long before that, he was developing the concept of customized individual pizzas made quickly — mostly because he was not fond of sharing his favorite anchovy-and-black-olive pizza as a kid.

Now, as the sector heats up, with developing fast-casual pizza brands like Solos, Live Basil and Pie Five, French is not as keen on sharing franchisees or customers with fellow upstarts as he is with leading the category.

“Before there was any other competition, the goal was to be a globally admired brand,” French said. 

“Everybody loves pizza, so it made sense to me that Your Pie would scale, not just out of Athens but across the nation.”

In August, as Your Pie opened its 18th location, one big admirer did come calling: Atlanta-based private-equity firm Georgia Oak Partners. The firm’s undisclosed investment in Your Pie Franchising was intended to bolster the brand’s infrastructure and capital for growing to 100 units in two years.

French remains involved in Your Pie as a franchisee of three restaurants, and the company’s chief executive, Bucky Cook, also runs one location as a franchisee. The brand also brought in Ken Caldwell as vice president of development to oversee the new growth push.

“We realized that if we really want to take it to the next level, we’ll need the capital to do it, and our experience would only take us so far,” French said. “In the first conversations I had with David [Barr, a director at Georgia Oak], we knew it would be a good fit. I felt like it was time to invest in the company and make a move to build our infrastructure and give us the ability to scale faster.”

Georgia Oak was not the first private-equity firm to do its due diligence on Your Pie, French said, but the firm made the right partner because it understood that French wanted to expand Your Pie meticulously outward from the Southeast.

“What drew us to the segment was fast casual in a broad sense,” said Barr, who leads Georgia Oak’s restaurant, retail and consumer division. “Consumers are reacting to controlling their dining experience and customization. Then we looked at pizza, and Your Pie intrigued us because they were the first, and they are the largest. Other chains boast about how many units they have in the pipeline, but Your Pie is the largest.”

Upon meeting with French and Cook, Georgia Oak quickly was assured that the restaurant brand and the investors were aligned on how the system should continue to grow organically and contiguously in the Southeast.

French reiterated that Your Pie’s internal goal is to have 100 units open by the end of 2015. The target markets are Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; Charleston, S.C.; Tampa, Fla.; and Birmingham, Ala.

To continue reading, click here. 

Your Pie featured in the Birmingham Business Journal

Your Pie was featured this week in the Birmingham Business Journal with their details for expansion in the market, looking to add 8 to 10 restaurants by the end of 2015. The article was titled, "Your Pie targets Birmingham for 8-10 pizzerias," and was built from the interview with Vice President of Development, Ken Caldwell. Your Pie also looks to have 50 locations across the state of Alabama and shares franchise costs associated and information about opening a Your Pie franchise. 

Click here to visit the article online. 

Oct 1, 2013, 8:22am CDT

Your Pie targets Birmingham for 8-10 pizzerias

By: Ryan Poe

Your Pie, a Georgia-based pizza franchise, is scouting for local franchisees to open a total of 8 to 10 stores in Birmingham by the end of 2015.

Vice President of Development Ken Caldwell said the quick-serve franchise – like Subway, but with pizzas – doesn't have any potential franchisees in metro Birmingham yet, but already has a prospect in the Auburn area.

The group's timetable calls for franchisee agreements by the end of the first quarter of 2014, with the first stores opening the following summer.

To continue reading, click here. 

Franchisee Spotlight: Paul and Michael Childers, Savannah, Georgia

Meet our Savannah Your Pie franchisees, Paul and Michael Childers! 

How did you learn about the brand?

Paul: I was in the furniture industry and when things got real bad in 2008 or 2009, I had to make the decision to sell the business.  A friend of mine and I kicked around and did some bone fishing, which was fun, but hit a point where I had to start thinking of paying the bills.  An accountant friend of ours had a daughter who was going to the University of Georgia and kept raving about this place called Your Pie and this cool concept out of Athens.  We love pizza and we knew what was going on with places like Chipotle and Moe’s, so we knew if someone could put that interesting twist on pizza, which is such a wide favorite, we knew it would take off.  We also thought the healthy options available made it attractive to customers.  Mike and I went to Athens and met Drew and Bucky.  We believed in it, so hopped on board and opened the downtown location.  Once that got going we opened the one in Sandfly.

Michael: I graduated from Georgia Southern and got a job with a firm in Savannah doing logistics.  I did that and my dad and I started looking into the Your Pie concept idea and did the trips to Athens to check it out and took time off to look in to it.  We opened the store in November 2010 and in early 2011, I decided to leave my job and focus on growing the business and opening our 2^nd store.

What are your expansion or development plans? What is your end goal with Your Pie?

Paul: It’s always a possibility that we’ll grow.  We grew pretty quickly into the second store, so we’re trying to settle in and make sure things are working smoothly and people are happy.  We’ll take a look at it again down the road.

Are you involved with any charities or do any community outreach with your business?

Michael: We’ve both lived in Savannah for the majority of our lives.  My dad grew up here, moved away and came back.  I’ve lived here for my entire life.  So we love giving back to our hometown community.  We tie in with a ton of local groups and do charity nights where we give a percentage of sales back to the group.  We’ve done them for local baseball teams, schools in the area, organizations and any good cause that needs a boost.

Do you have any hobbies, pastimes, and passions outside of work?

Paul: I golf and love to fly fish, bone fish, and go salt water fishing.

Michael: I do any kind of fishing in the Savannah area too, and boating too.  Really, anything out on the water.