The story behind one of the most recognisable logos in the world
In the five decades since it started delivering pizza to the masses, Domino’s has become a fast-food mainstay. Rivalled only by the likes of McDonalds and Subway, the pizza chain is the largest worldwide, with over 13,000 locations in 85-countries.
The Domino’s brand is one of the most recognized in the western world, as is its signature gaming-tile logo. But it wasn’t always the most ubiquitous pizza-maker on the planet, nor was its current logo the one that was intended.
Domino’s began as a small independent pizza restaurant called DomiNick’s, in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan bought the restaurant with his brother James in 1960, and after a few years of decent sales decided to buy his brother’s part of the business (for the price of an old Volkswagen Beetle).
By 1965 Monaghan had opened up two additional pizzerias and wanted all the locations to share the same name. When the original owner of DomiNick’s refused the use of his name, Monaghan changed it to Domino’s Pizza, Inc.
The company logo started with the three dots you see today – representing the three Domino’s Pizza stores available in 1965. Monaghan initially planned to add a new dot with the location of every new location, but with its franchise operations growing so rapidly that idea quickly became unfeasible.