Heat Wave

Heat Wave

Riko’s Pizza plans to spread its hot-oil topping across the U.S.

Rochelle Miller

What’s your favorite pizza topping? Ask the average American, and it wouldn’t be surprising to hear meatballs, sausage, or even anchovies for some.

How about hot oil? For those who have eaten at a Riko’s Pizza restaurant, that’s the most popular response.

“Hot oil is a topping, just like sausage or pepperoni. It’s oil that’s infused with pepper,” explains Luigi Cardillo Jr., co-owner of the popular Connecticut-based pizza restaurant company that specializes in thin-crust pizza with the signature topping.

Now Riko’s Pizza is on a quest to bring its thin-crust-pizza-with-a-kick to the rest of the country.

The inspiration behind Riko’s stems from the childhood days of Cardillo and his partner, Rico Imbrogno Jr., who grew up sampling similar pizza topped with spicy hot oil in their area. While they loved the food, they were never impressed with the service.

“You would wait an hour just to sit down and then another hour for your pizza,” Imby brogno explains. “All you got was pizza, but without a smile.”

That’s when Cardillo and Imbrogno came up with a recipe for success—combining their favorite pizza topping with an elevated dining experience.

Having enjoyed a successful run operating three restaurant locations, two in Stamford and one in Norwalk, Connecticut—towns within commuting distance of New York City—the partners now work with franchisees to bring their concept to other markets. Their first franchise is scheduled to open this year in Levittown, New York.

Prospective franchisees can choose from two models: a tavern-style restaurant with a full-service bar and a fast/casual model featuring counter service with a more compact dining area. Franchisees receive extensive training at Riko’s Connecticut-based training academy and there’s on-site support at new locations.

Franchisees will prepare Riko’s hot-oil topping—which must be made to order—from a proprietary recipe, but other pizza essentials such as dough and sauce are made off-site and shipped to the franchise locations. This assures consistent results and reduces prep for franchisees.

The initial focus for expansion is the East Coast, where Imbrogno is confident hot oil will be as big a hit as it has been in his hometown. “A lot of people don’t know what hot oil is,” Imbrogno says. “Hopefully we’re going to change that.”

For franchise information, visit www.rikosfranchise.com.