Quick-growing MOD Pizza opens Saturday in Vernon Hills
Fast-growing MOD Pizza is opening its newest location Saturday along Milwaukee Avenue near Townline Road in Vernon Hills.
Seattle-based MOD Pizza stands for "made on demand." The chain has a simple but innovative formula: Customers can choose their own toppings to go on an 11-inch pizza, all priced the same, and meant to be served speedily, within six to eight minutes of ordering.
MOD has five locations in the suburban area including Bloomingdale, Deerfield, Elmhurst, Kildeer and Naperville. Another store is expected to open in downtown Naperville later this year. The newest Vernon Hills location is taking part of the space of the former Blockbuster Video store.
The new Lake County location is corporately owned, said Chris Neilson, who will serve as general manager. He assisted opening stores in Naperville and Bloomingdale.
The chain has seen steady growth since the first restaurant opened in 2008. At the end of 2015, MOD had 97 stores and plans for 100 more by next year around the country and overseas.
The concept is fast casual. Patrons will walk along a counter - similar to Chipotle - and choose precooked toppings, then watch the pizzas reheat in a 750-degree brick oven.
The entrepreneurial couple who founded MOD Pizza, Scott Svenson and Ally Svenson, have a successful track record. They went to the same high school in the Seattle area, where they first started dating, and were recently profiled in Forbes for their pizza model.
After receiving their educations on the East Coast, they moved to London for an 11-year stint. Driven crazy by a lack of Seattle-style lattes, they started the Seattle Coffee Company there. It saw explosive growth, eventually with 75 stores in four countries.
The Svensons sold their coffee company to Starbucks after the mega-chain expressed interest in the London market. Before moving back to Seattle, they also founded a successful Italian-style deli, Carluccio's.
MOD Pizza was inspired by Italian-style street food and a lack of good, cheap places for the couple and their kids to eat. It was also designed to fill a niche, industry experts say.