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Marco’s Pizza Wins FRANdata’s 2025 TopScore FUND Award

By: Marco's Pizza® |  1 Shares     57 Reads

Leading Pizza Brand Named “Most Lender-Friendly Restaurant Franchise”

March 28, 2025 // Franchising.com // Marco’s Pizza, one of the nation’s fastest-growing pizza brands, is the winner of FRANdata’s prestigious 2025 TopScore FUND Award in the food category. Announced today at the Multi-Unit Franchising Conference (MUFC) in Las Vegas, this accolade reinforces Marco’s industry leadership in helping foster franchisee growth through unparalleled access to financing and lending opportunities.

The honor underscores Marco’s commitment to making franchise ownership more attainable. By prioritizing financial guidance as a cornerstone of its growth strategy, the over 1,200-unit brand has paved way for accelerated expansion and an increasing network of franchisees. In addition to receiving the TopScore FUND Award in the food category, Marco’s also proudly ranks number 1 in pizza among the more than 250 brands attending MUFC.

The FUND score, a proprietary franchise credit risk rating, evaluates 12 critical financial categories – including Historical Unit Success Rate™, unit profitability, and support systems. Information about brands that excel in these areas, like Marco’s Pizza, helps lenders determine financing for franchisees. The FUND scoring system is widely adopted by financial institutions representing over five trillion dollars in assets, playing a key role in determining loan terms and capital reserves for small business financing.

“Marco’s Pizza has built an effective franchise system that consistently achieves a top credit risk rating within the food category,” said Darrell Johnson, CEO of FRANdata. “With their consistent growth, strong franchisee support, and seasoned leadership team, it’s clear why Marco’s Pizza has earned the TopScore FUND Award. This is a brand that’s serious about doing things the right way—providing reassurance for franchisees and lenders alike.”

Recognizing the challenges entrepreneurs face when securing funding, Marco’s Pizza has built strong partnerships with seven preferred banks and lending institutions. Through quarterly meetings, the Marco’s finance team provides key updates on the state of the business, growth, and performance. As a result, banks are in a better position to lend favorably to individual Marco’s franchisees.

“We believe that franchise ownership should be an attainable dream – not an overwhelming financial hurdle,” said Gerardo Flores, Chief Development Officer of Marco’s Pizza. “Being recognized with the 2025 TopScore FUND Award is a testament to our unwavering commitment to supporting our franchisees with industry-leading financing guidance and resources. We’ve worked diligently to build strong lender relationships, create innovative incentive programs, and remove barriers to entry, all to ensure that entrepreneurs have a clear and confident path to ownership.”

Beyond financial accessibility, Marco’s is taking bold steps to empower future franchise owners. The newly launched Franchise Development Incentive Program provides multi-unit franchisees with early-stage royalty incentives starting at 0%*. Coupled with a comprehensive development support system, including technology and tools to help identify territories for expansion, plus support in real estate, construction management, and field operations, Marco’s provides unparalleled resources to franchisees.

Prospects are taking note of the business opportunity, as the Marco’s Franchising Franchise Disclosure Document reports the Top 50% of Marco’s franchised stores generated average net royalty sales of AUV $1,208,653 during the 2023 fiscal year**.

For more information Marco’s Pizza franchise opportunities, visit https://www.marcos.com/franchising/ or contact Jamie Cecil at jcecil@marcos.com or 866-731-8209.

About Marco’s Pizza

Headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Marco’s Pizza is one of the fastest-growing pizza brands in the United States. Marco’s was founded in 1978 by Italian-born Pasquale (“Pat”) Giammarco and thrives to deliver a high-quality pizza experience, known for its dough made from scratch and its three fresh signature cheeses. The company has grown from its roots as a beloved Ohio brand to operate over 1,200 stores in 35 states with locations in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Mexico. Most recently, Marco’s was recognized as America’s Favorite Restaurant in the Limited-Service Pizza category by Nation’s Restaurant News using Technomic Ignite Consumer 2024 dataꝉꝉ. Other recent accolades include ranking No. 48 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2024 “Franchise 500” ranking, earning a coveted spot as the only top 5 pizza chain to rank on Newsweek’s 2025 “America’s Best Customer Service” in pizza chains list, earning a spot on QSR’s Top 50, and being featured on Nation’s Restaurant News’ prestigious “Top 500” ranking.

About FRANdata

For over 35 years, FRANdata has been a leading research and consulting firm, providing industry-defining market intelligence to fuel the growth of businesses in franchising. With a focus on independent and comprehensive insights into the franchise ecosystem, FRANdata utilizes the largest proprietary database in the industry to craft winning strategies that elevate client success from average to exceptional. FRANdata has been the source for Franchise Update’s Mega99, Multi-Brand 50, and the Dominator’s rankings for more than 10 years, and are frequently referenced as franchise experts in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, Bloomberg, Entrepreneur Magazine, the Franchise Times, and Franchise Update. For more information go to www.frandata.com .

*The information provided in this article should not be construed as an offer to sell any Marco’s Pizza® franchises in, nor is any such communication directed to, the residents of any jurisdiction requiring registration of the franchise before it is offered and sold in that jurisdiction. Currently, the following states regulate the offer and sale of franchises: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Marco’s Pizza® franchises will not be sold to any resident of such jurisdiction until the offering has been exempted from the requirements of, or duly registered in and declared effective by, such jurisdiction and the required franchise disclosure document (if applicable) has been delivered to the prospective franchisee before the sale in compliance with applicable law. Additionally, the participant must meet our financial, creditworthiness, and operational criteria to qualify for the incentive program and be approved by us to open each Store. If the franchisee is a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, or other legal entity, the qualifying participant must maintain at least 50% ownership in the entity, as well as the qualifying existing Stores, to qualify for this program, and the franchisee must comply with program requirements. In the event the participant fails at any time to meet the timelines to qualify for the applicable incentive program while developing a Store, the Store being developed and any remaining unopened Stores to be developed will pay the then-current standard Royalty Fee rate. See Marco’s Franchising’s Franchise Disclosure Document for more information. To qualify for the incentive program, the participant must sign a development agreement and open the stores within the following timeframes: 1st Store within 365 days of signing; 2nd Store within 6 months of 1st store opening; 3rd Store within 6 months of 2nd store opening; 4th Store within 6 months of 3rd store opening; 5th Store within 6 months of 4th store opening.

**Based on the Average Sales Volume of the top 50% of U.S. Franchised Stores for our fiscal year 2023. Based on our fiscal year 2023, 185 of 447 Franchised Stores in the category (or 41%) met or exceeded this average. This information appears in Item 19 of Marco’s Franchising’s 2024 Franchise Disclosure Document (“FDD”) – please refer to our FDD for complete information on financial performance. Individual results may differ. There is no assurance that any franchisee will perform as well.

ꝉꝉAccording to Technomic’s 2024 America’s Favorite Restaurants data, Marco’s Pizza secured the top spot in the Limited-Service Pizza category with a 53.4% composite top-box rating, indicating the share of recent guests who gave the brand the highest possible rating for each of the guest experience attributes. Data for America’s Favorite Chains comes from Technomic Ignite Consumer, which collects information about how brands impact consumers and how consumers interact with those brands, via online surveys. See here for more information: www.technomic.com/ignite-consumer.

SOURCE MARCO’S PIZZA 

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