A small pizza chain that has operated solely in the Toledo area since it was founded 60 years ago is making plans to expand its horizons.

The Original Gino’s Pizza, which operates five local stores, said it will set up a franchising operation that it hopes to have ready no later than March.

A company official said it wants to start with 25 stores in Florida and another 25 in Texas that it would like to have operating by the end of 2016. If all goes well, the first stores would open in the summer.

Overall, the company, which is owned by Toledoan Chuck Kreutz, would like to have franchises in 25 major metro areas in the next three to five years.

“If you go into a major metropolitan area, you can’t just open one store. You have to open several so you establish them as branch stores. That takes time,” said Matt Wojtowicz, Gino’s vice president.

Mr. Wojtowicz said the franchises would be operated as carryout and delivery stores only and would use the “Sauci’s Pizza,” named after Gino Sausalito, the fictional character who appears on Gino’s pizza boxes.

Gino’s plans to use the same recipes and menus that it uses in Toledo for Sauci’s Pizza stores. “The only thing that will be different will be the name on the outside of the building,” Mr. Wojtowicz said.

Gino’s, which changed its name to “The Original Gino’s Pizza” several years ago to avoid conflict with a Gino’s Pizza chain in Baltimore, was hoping to use its name for the franchises but found it couldn’t do so.

“The Original Gino’s is good for use only in the state of Ohio. It turns out there is a [restaurant] named Gino’s in all 50 states, and they are all trademarked,” Mr. Wojtowicz said.

In the Toledo area Gino’s, which was founded in 1955 by members of the Sparagowski family, operates as a sit-down pizzeria, but it was clear that couldn’t work for the franchises.

“The stores will be in strip malls and would be scaled down in size and scope,” Mr. Wojtowicz said. “The Original Gino’s is a lot of things to a lot of people, but it’s almost impossible to franchise. So it had to be scaled down.”

The company has not calculated what its franchise fees will be, but it does know who it wants as its distributor — Toledo’s Sofo Foods.

Sofo provides “about 90 percent” of the ingredients of a Gino’s Pizza, so the company wanted to continue that connection. Going to Texas and Florida first made sense, Mr. Wojtowicz said, because Sofo has distribution centers in Atlanta and Houston, making its products deliverable to franchisees in Florida and Texas.

As to who would be Sauci’s Pizza’s first franchisee, Mr. Wojtowicz said that hasn’t been decided.

But the company has been advertising on its website for interested parties to submit information, and Mr. Wojtowicz said that Mr. Kreutz has been keeping a list of potential franchisees for some time. 

“We plan to figure out who the best owners would be and then contact them to see if they’re still interested,” he said.

The Original Gino’s recently was ranked 26th in a list of the best independent pizzeria’s by Pizza Today, an industry trade publication.

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.

First Published November 17, 2015, 5:00 a.m.