Izzy's History

A Northwest Tradition

Izzy's is one of the Northwest's most popular family restaurants, serving high quality food at low prices for over 20 years. Izzy's is a unique restaurant concept, which offers the pizza voted #1 in the Northwest, a large Salad Bar, traditional Hot Food Buffet, a Pizza Bar, and a Dessert Bar.

Part of the charm of Izzy's is that customers are able to serve themselves from the pizza, salad, hot food and dessert "bars". This popular feature allows customers to get exactly how much they want of exactly what they want, and to sample all of Izzy's tasty creations.

There are 25 Izzy's restaurants throughout the Northwest.

A History of Quality

Izzy's Pizza Restaurants were established in 1979 by Fred Jansen and his mother, Isabel (Izzy) Covalt. Prior to 79', Izzy and her late husband, Jim, had owned and operated Shakey's Pizza Parlors for twenty years in Albany and Corvallis, Oregon. They were, in fact, the first Shakey's franchisees.

Although the Shakey's operations were successful, it became obvious to Izzy and Fred in the late 1970's that there was a greater potential for pizza parlors if they were upgraded to pizza restaurants and if the menu could be broadened to appeal to a larger consumer segment. After many months of thoughtful planning, the Albany and Corvallis operations were converted from Shakey's to Izzy's, and a new, expanded menu, featuring a buffet and salad bar as well as chicken and various pizzas, was introduced. In 1982 Fred bought Izzy out of her 50% and subsequently developed the pan pizza dough recipe, which was introduced in 1984 and has proven to be one of the company's most important products.

The response to Izzy's menu and the pan pizza has resulted in a growth from the original two restaurants to the current number of franchised operations.

Under the leadership of Fred Jansen, Izzy's Franchise Systems LLC, formerly Covalt Enterprises Inc, kept its growth in the early years at a very deliberate pace.

This was for the purpose of fully developing the Izzy's Pizza Restaurant concept and the product lines before undertaking rapid expansion. From 1979 through 1987, only seven company stores and four franchises had been built. Beginning with 1988, the company began its first concentrated program of expansion with the development of several Izzy's in the Portland tri-county area, and site locations in the greater Seattle-Tacoma region.

Today, there are 25 Izzy's locations, with further growth envisioned in the rapidly growing western part of the country.

The hallmarks of Izzy's continuing success and growth are constant attention to food quality and customer service.