MC Pizza partners Marcus Tincher, left, and Chester Ison own and operate four Toppers Pizzas in their home state of Wisconsin.
Toppers Pizza CEO Adam Oldenburg recognized Chester Ison’s restaurant talents early on when Ison was a general manager at one of company’s restaurants and Oldenburg was vice president of the brand.
Oldenburg, meanwhile, grew up with Marcus Tincher in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where the two played on the same high school baseball team and remained connected. “Whenever we would run into each other at events and social occasions, the conversation would always turn to Toppers,” Oldenburg said. “We both talked about how much we loved the pizza and I could tell he wanted to get involved somehow.”
Oldenburg, who in May 2023 took over as CEO after founder Scott Gittrich stepped down, is working to refranchise a majority of the brand’s 27 company units. He arranged a meeting between Ison and Tincher to see if they wanted to partner as franchisees and take over some existing locations.
Less than six months after founding MC Pizza Inc., Ison and Tincher have four top-performing Toppers in Wisconsin, with a fifth location slated to open next year in nearby Beloit. They started their business by acquiring three company restaurants in the Milwaukee suburbs of Menomonee Falls, Fox Point and Wauwatosa North in March. They took over another corporate location in Janesville, Wisconsin, in September.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to be a franchisee,” said Ison. “I just wasn’t able to do it on my own. I just stayed with it, working as hard as I could as a general manager. I wouldn’t be a restaurant owner today without Marcus as a partner.”
Ison, 29, handles day-to-day restaurant operations for MC Pizza. Tincher, 39, meanwhile, is the majority owner of the company but works more in the background by focusing on the financials and due diligence needs for the acquisitions.
“Its’s worked out really well,” Ison said of their partnership. “Marcus has a lot of experience in real estate and just knowing how to run a successful business. Our goals are aligned well. I know he’s got my back.”
“It’s a good thing Chester knows what he’s doing because I’ve never worked in a restaurant,” said Tincher, whose full-time job is running his own real estate business in Whitewater, where Toppers is based.
Adam Oldenburg
Toppers has 70 locations in 12 states mainly in the Midwest, including 36 in Wisconsin. Founded in 1991 as local alternative to the big-box pizza chains, Toppers sold more than 2 million pies last year, with 78 percent of the orders coming via digital channels, according to the company.
Ison said he started with Toppers at the age of 15 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, making pizzas to earn extra cash. He was working at another local pizzeria when his mom and brother, who worked at Toppers at the time, convinced him to switch allegiances and work at their restaurant, which became a local favorite.
Ison made the move to assistant general manager after proving his value in the kitchen working with staff and at the front of the store interacting with customers. He was promoted to general manager after completing the company’s management training program.
“Me being a non-stop moving body and having tons of energy, I think one of the things I do well is working with people and getting them excited about their work and correcting things I see so we can make the freshest, best tasting pizza possible,” Ison said. “So far, things have gone well.”
Related: Jimmy John’s Franchisee Adds Toppers Pizza to Portfolio Through New Multi-Unit Deal
The numbers back that up. Sales, service times and the customer base for MC Pizza’s stores pace better than systemwide averages, said Oldenburg. The average gross sales for a Toppers are $1.1 million, according to the company’s franchise disclosure document, with the top performing restaurants coming in at a little over $2.2 million. The company awarded Ison its Spirit Award in 2023 and he was co-recipient of the President’s Award at this year’s convention.
“One of the interesting things about franchising I’ve learned is that there’s operators out there who want to own restaurants but don’t have the financial capabilities to do that, and then there are the financial people out there that want to own restaurants but have never worked in a restaurant,” Oldenburg said.
“Getting Chester and Marcus together was a match made in heaven because they made restaurant ownership possible for each other. That to me is a great franchise story,” he said.