Solos Pizza Cafe
Business: Operates two -- soon to be three and more -- pizza cafes that offer a variety of gourmet and made-to-order pizzas baked in ovens that combine high temperatures with a steady air flow to turn out a pizza in less than four minutes.
Founded: 2006
Headquarters: Minnetonka
Website: www.solospizza.com
Executives: Founder Bruce Thomson and partners John Osterberg and Brian Banick.
Employees: 52
2007 revenue: First store, opened in February 2007, generated $576,000 in its first 12 months; Thomson said it is running 31 percent ahead of its 2007 pace so far in 2008. A second store, opened in June, has gotten off to an even better start, he said.
Quote: "I wasn't as smart as I thought I was." -- Thomson, talking about an earlier, unsuccessful effort to challenge Papa Murphy's in the take-and-bake pizza niche.
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DICK YOUNGBLOOD, Star Tribune
A year after introducing its revamped rewards program, the Minneapolis-based retailer is using it to help return to annual growth of 2.5% to 3%, which it hasn’t consistently reached since the panic-buying days of the pandemic.
