The Facility

Marco's Pizza has opened a 14,030-square-foot Operations Center of Excellence in downtown Orlando, anchoring franchisee training and operational support for the chain's aggressive expansion push. At the physical core of the facility is a fully equipped training kitchen engineered to replicate a production Marco's store kitchen — giving franchise operators an immersive, real-speed environment to learn and rehearse brand standards before they ever step behind a commercial line in one of their own units.

The center doubles as a corporate office and serves as the permanent home of Marco's University, the brand's advanced franchisee training program. It will also host Discovery Days for prospective multi-unit operators and bring together franchisees, company leadership, and supply chain partners for cross-functional performance sessions. For equipment specifiers and dealers active in the QSR pizza segment, the facility signals where Marco's intends to standardize store-kitchen configurations as it scales — a meaningful reference point for any supplier aligned with the brand.

Kitchen-Forward Design

Chief Operating Officer John Meyers, who opened remarks at the ribbon-cutting, framed the kitchen's design philosophy around operational realism. "We built this center to train the way our operators actually work — in a real kitchen, at real speed," Meyers said. "Execution is the foundation, and empowerment is what sets it apart." That approach — replicating the exact equipment layout and workflow of a production unit — mirrors a growing trend among multi-unit QSR and fast-casual chains investing in dedicated commissary-style training kitchens to reduce unit-level variance and protect food quality at scale. Operators specifying commercial cooking equipment for franchise buildouts increasingly look to these reference kitchens as the de-facto standard package for new-store construction.

Co-CEO and President Tony Libardi connected the facility directly to system-wide consistency: "Great brands are built by great operators. This center gives our franchisees practical, hands-on training, and stronger operational support. As Marco's grows, that investment will help us protect consistency and improve performance across the system."

Growth Context

The Orlando opening lands as Marco's targets more than 80 new store openings in 2026, with Florida ranking among the brand's largest markets. Chief Development Officer Gerardo Flores noted that the center is designed to make the brand's operational commitment tangible for prospective franchisees visiting for Discovery Day. The chain currently operates more than 1,200 stores across 35 states, plus locations in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Mexico.

For dealers and prep-and-storage suppliers active in the pizza QSR channel, the scale of that pipeline — combined with a centralized kitchen training hub that locks in equipment configurations — underscores the importance of early alignment with Marco's procurement and construction teams. Franchise systems that invest in reference training kitchens typically use them to finalize approved-vendor equipment lists, making the Orlando center a meaningful inflection point for any manufacturer or distributor pursuing the account.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.