Marco's Pizza is opening an Operations Center of Excellence in downtown Orlando later this month, adding a facility purpose-built to train franchisees and certify operators at scale as the Toledo, Ohio-based chain closes in on its 1,300th store.
The center is the clearest back-of-house story in Marco's latest franchise push: a fully equipped training kitchen designed to replicate the exact layout and equipment of a production Marco's store. The kitchen serves as the home of Marco's University, the chain's advanced franchisee and certified-operator training program, and will host discovery days for prospective multi-unit investors evaluating the brand. For equipment consultants and dealer reps tracking QSR kitchen buildouts, the facility signals the kind of standardized, replicable store-kitchen spec that underpins rapid multi-unit expansion.
The Kitchen Behind the Growth
Marco's current footprint stands at more than 1,200 stores across 35 states, with additional locations in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Mexico. The chain's production model is built around fresh dough made in-store daily and a never-frozen three-cheese blend — a kitchen workflow that demands consistent equipment performance and trained operators at each unit. The Orlando training center is designed to close skill gaps before franchisees open, reducing the commissioning risk that often comes with rapid commissary and ghost kitchen expansion across a large QSR system.
Alongside the new facility, Marco's says it is rolling out advanced digital tools and operational enhancements system-wide, and that strategic vendor partnerships have delivered measurable supply chain cost savings for franchisees — a detail that points to coordinated equipment and smallwares procurement at scale.
Operator Profile Shifting Upward
The franchisee base driving this buildout is increasingly sophisticated. Three Marco's franchisee groups appeared on the 2026 Franchise Times Restaurant 200, ranking among the largest restaurant franchisee companies in the U.S. Chief Development Officer Gerardo Flores notes the brand is actively recruiting operators with established multi-unit portfolios to fill white space in underserved domestic markets as well as the Caribbean and Latin America — regions where new-unit kitchen builds will need to conform to Marco's standardized equipment and ops spec.
The chain's Franchise Development Royalty Incentive Program lowers entry barriers for qualified multi-unit operators, with early-stage royalty rates starting at 0%, alongside support in real estate, construction, and operations. For operators evaluating the unit economics, Marco's Franchise Disclosure Document reports $1.28M average unit volume for the top 25% of franchised stores in fiscal 2025.
For equipment dealers and cooking-equipment specifiers tracking QSR pipeline, a brand scaling from 1,200 toward 1,300-plus units — with a centralized training kitchen setting the equipment standard — represents a meaningful order stream in conveyor pizza ovens, dough prep equipment, refrigerated make tables, and cold storage. The Orlando center effectively becomes the prototype kitchen against which every new Marco's build will be measured.
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.
