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GazetteXtra.com:

The Toppers Pizza headquarters looks nothing like a typical corporate headquarters.

In fact, it looks a lot like most urban college apartments.

Comfy couches and chairs surround a chic coffee table and a flat-screen television.

Retro movie posters fill a void on a golden-yellow wall.

A pool table anchors a corner in the back, and a refrigerator stocked with beverages anchors the corner in the front.

But that’s exactly the image the regional pizza purveyor and its founder, Scott Gittrich, want to present: Toppers Pizza isn’t like the chain pizza places; it’s the pizza place with an edge—a hip, left-of-center edge.

“We just let ourselves be ourselves,” Gittrich said.

And it’s that image and a loyal following that have catapulted the Whitewater-based company to the top of the highly competitive pizza industry—even as an economic downturn has threatened to rattle the big pizza chains. Toppers has grown from 13 stores in three states in 2007 to 26 stores in six states today.

Crazy toppings
Gittrich, 46, a native of central Illinois, got his start in the pizza business as a delivery driver, pizza maker and manager at Domino’s while he attended the University of Illinois in Champaign.

He worked for the national chain for 7 1/2 years until he hatched a plan to open a different kind of pizza place.

Gittrich set out to create a company that was unlike Domino’s, which dominated the market while offering just two sizes and 10 toppings, and unlike Pizza Hut, which had just started delivering, and unlike Papa John’s, which was practically unknown.

The Toppers brand was built on good pizza, good service and a unique atmosphere, he said. But the Toppers brand mushroomed because of the loyalty of its customers who, by and large, are college students who stay up late, have a good time and eat good pizza, he said.

“It was kind of an accident,” he said. “That was just what we did. We opened in college towns, we stayed open really late, we made pizzas with crazy toppings.”

But Gittrich, who was 28 when he founded the company, was just being himself.

“That’s who I was,” he said.

Branching out
Toppers still holds tight to the original business model, but the company has started to branch out, opening stores in suburban areas and catering to young professionals and middle-class families.

Some might consider it a risk. Others, such as Gittrich, consider it an adventure.

“We were worried about it like any business move we make, but people lined up outside and waited for our store to open,” he said of a suburban Milwaukee store that opened four years ago. “That was a really big turn-on for us. It meant our brand meant something bigger than the region and the small state schools.”

Gittrich said Toppers fanatics eat the pizza and breadsticks while they’re in college, and the food becomes forever linked to nights spent cramming for an exam, chowing down after a house party or tailgating before the football game. He said that association never goes away.

“When we show up in a new market, a certain number of people recognize us. They remember us fondly,” he said. “We’re associated with burning the candle at both ends, partying and having a good time.”

Gittrich said that reputation is a big part of the company’s unique position in the highly competitive pizza industry. Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s, for example, are all about providing a meal. Toppers, on the other hand, is all about providing a one-of-a-kind experience that centers on a meal.

“I realized when I started in this business that we were just going to slug it out in this tough industry, and I said if we could be even 1 percent better, that’s how we would survive in this business,” he said. “And we accidentally built this brand that customers perceived as distinct. There’s not a national chain that has that perception in the market. The big guys … hey can’t beat what we do.”