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Happy Joe’s Shrank From 100 Locations to 34. Now New Investors Have a Plan to Put a Smile Back on the Franchise’s Face.

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Happy Joe’s Shrank From 100 Locations to 34. Now New Investors Have a Plan to Put a Smile Back on the Franchise’s Face.

The chain behind taco pizza survived a 2022 bankruptcy. Its new owners say the comeback starts with the dough.

Happy Joe’s Pizza & Ice Cream has new owners. A group of Quad Cities investors acquired the 54-year-old chain’s franchising company and three company-owned restaurants in Iowa, QSR reports. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Founder Joe Whitty opened the first location in Davenport in 1972, and the chain claims it invented taco pizza two years later. At its peak, Happy Joe’s had about 100 locations, according to Axios. Whitty sold his majority stake in 2017, and the new parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2022. Today the brand has 34 U.S. restaurants and six in Egypt.

New president Carlos Araujo says the first priority is making the food consistent across locations, followed by menu updates and a bigger push into birthday parties. Franchisees will get more operator training and clearer store-level reporting.

Kari White, who owns the Clinton, Iowa franchise, is all in. “As a franchisee, I am ready to put the Happy back in Joe’s,” she says in a statement.



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