Leadership Handoff
Mr Gatti's Pizza has completed a full ownership transition, with entrepreneur and longtime franchisee G. Brint Ryan acquiring the remaining interest in the 60-year-old pizza and family entertainment brand. The move consolidates control under Ryan, who first became a co-owner in December 2025, while outgoing CEO Jim Phillips begins a planned retirement after more than a decade steering one of franchising's more notable turnarounds.
Phillips will remain in the CEO seat through a transition period, with the company planning to announce a successor at a later date. Ryan, founder and chairman of Dallas-based Ryan, LLC, had been a Mr Gatti's franchisee before stepping into the ownership structure — a path that mirrors a broader trend in franchise-heavy foodservice brands where operators ascend to franchisor control.
A Decade of Operational Overhaul
The numbers behind Phillips' tenure are meaningful for any operator benchmarking franchise-system health. Since acquiring the brand in 2015, Phillips grew the restaurant footprint by 50%, expanded from three states to 12, and nearly doubled systemwide revenue over the past five years. The brand now counts more than 200 locations open or in development across Texas and the Southeastern United States.
Beyond unit growth, the operational infrastructure was substantially rebuilt. Phillips' team standardized franchise agreements, rebuilt the marketing fund, revived original recipes as part of a food-first repositioning, restored annual franchise conventions, and refined store formats — the kind of back-office and brand-system work that underpins sustainable franchise expansion. Those moves also reflect a modernization push that operators increasingly recognize as table stakes: consistent unit economics, franchisee support structures, and brand-level coherence across a distributed footprint.
What the Transition Means for Operators
For franchisees and prospective development partners, the ownership change signals continuity rather than disruption. Ryan has worked alongside Phillips since the co-ownership began in late 2025, and his background as an operating franchisee gives him firsthand exposure to the unit-level pressures — labor costs, food costs, throughput, customer experience — that define franchise performance.
The brand's trajectory also positions it as one to watch in the family dining and entertainment segment, where the combination of pizza, games, and value-oriented group occasions has proven resilient. Mr Gatti's earned recognition on the Nation's Restaurant News 100 Under 100 list in both 2024 and 2025, and ranked No. 8 on the Global Franchise Power List in 2024, metrics that carry weight with prospective franchisees evaluating franchise investment opportunities.
With Ryan now holding primary ownership and a new CEO search underway, the next chapter will test whether the operational foundation Phillips built can support the brand's next phase of geographic and unit-count growth.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
