If you’ve got a hankering for a pizza, chances are that Domino’s is going to spring to mind. The pizza chain is one of the most prominent fast food chains in the UK, offering a huge range of pizza options and speedy delivery.
Having opened back in 1960, Domino’s started out as ‘DomiNick’s’ in Michigan, USA. Founders Tom and James Monaghan were behind the flagship but, a year after opening, Tom decided to buy his brother’s share of the store by trading him his car.
Tom rebranded the store as ‘Domino’s Pizza’ and the rest, as they say, is history.
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The first UK Domino’s opened back in 1985, and there are now over 1,300 of them across the British Isles.
Between those stores, Domino’s serves over 112 million pizzas to British and Irish customers every year.
That’s a lot of pies!
If you’ve ever taken a closer look at the Domino’s logo, you’ve probably clocked the fact it’s just a domino with a red half and a blue half. Hiding in plain sight is a hidden testament to the chain’s humble beginnings: the dots.
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With one side having two and the other having one, the sum three is the number of stores that Tom originally planned to open. Despite the brand’s runaway success, it’s important to remember that those early expansion spans were pretty ambitious.
When you’ve just started out with a pizza restaurant, opening another two involves a lot of speculative risk, but it certainly paid off for Tom.
As for James, losing out on his 50% for a used Volkswagen likely stands as one of the worst trades in business history. As of 2024, Domino’s has an estimated value of $11.6 billion (£8.5 billion).
Tom, 88, reportedly sold his company shares in 1998 to Bain Capital to the tune of $1 billion (£739 million). Not too shabby at all.
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The brothers had a difficult start in life. When Tom was four years his old, his father passed away and the brothers were placed in an orphanage by the time he was six. In 1949, their mother returned to collect the boys. Seven years later, Tom accidentally enlisted in the US Marine Corps, having intended to join the army.
After receiving an honourable discharge in 1959, and returned to Michigan to open DomiNick’s with his brother.
"I started out in architecture school, and got into the pizza business to pay my way through school," he once said.
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"The pizza business was losing so much money I never got back into architecture."
Rachael Davis