What happens to cause someone to go into the pizza business? Well, in my case I had been with a very old and successful direct sales company for 17 years. I had moved up the management ladder and back down and back up again. I was growing weary of top management, those in the Ivory Tower, which I had disagreed with almost on a daily basis. This is where my daughter comes into the picture. She too wasn't satisfied with her current situation. She had been attending college and shortly after she went back yet another grueling semester in the fall of 1993, she showed up on our doorstep and declared she quit. So there we both were deciding which road we were going to take. One thing she was happy with was the pizza business she had gotten a taste of during her summers off from college. She thought, "Hey, why don't we do pizza?" I said, "Why not," and in April of 1994 we opened our first location.
The name was another story; we were trying to come up with the perfect name that fit our pizzeria. Nothing great was coming to mind until one day I was driving down the road and it hit me, "Sam and Louie's", what a great name, it was perfect. My father's name was Sam and my Wife's father's name was Louie, sounds like a couple of tough New York mobster's right? But actually, one was Czech and the other was Irish, both from rural Nebraska...it didn't matter what they were, it sounded great.
So there you have it, that's our story and we're sticking to it!!
Greg Nolan, Franchise Owner