Operations
Driven by taste: Saroki's rapid rise in the QSR gas station market
Saroki's Crispy Chicken & Pizza, a Michigan-based QSR chain, has rapidly expanded to 19 locations since 2012 by focusing on quality ingredients, consistent operations and popular items like their chicken tenders and improved New York-style pizza, primarily through organic growth and franchisee interest.
July 28, 2025 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Networld Media Group
What started as an uncle's idea to add a food component to a Michigan gas station blossomed into Saroki's Crispy Chicken & Pizza, a thriving QSR chain.
Founded in 2012 by the Saroki family, who honed the menu with an emphasis on quality fried chicken, subs and improved New York-style pizza, the brand has organically grown to 19 locations, with plans for significant expansion thanks to its reputation for consistent quality and popular chicken tenders.
Todd Saroki was tasked with putting a menu together for the brand. The brand was already selling pizza. He added fried chicken to the menu, and in 2012 opened the first Saroki's Crispy Chicken & Pizza.
Today the brand has 19 locations, and Todd Saroki said the brand should be able to open another five this year alone and 10 next year.
Todd's brother, Curtis, joined the business along the way and has worked as a partner since.
"We're very well known for our chicken tenders," Todd Saroki said in a phone interview with QSRweb.com. "Our tenders are really, really good. We use quality ingredients and are very consistent on how we operate. We are heavily involved in the locations and make sure that quality and consistency are very, very key to the operations."
They opened a second location five years after the first.
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Photo: Saroki's |
Slice it up
"Our pizza was good but it wasn't great," Todd Saroki said. He went to a training school under master pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani, who owns a number of award-winning pizzerias in California, and learned to make his pizza better.
They'd been using brick ovens at the first two locations, but the third location had a conveyor for speed and consistency. The brothers used conveyors for the next six stores but found they didn't love their pizza again, so they switched back to brick ovens and heavily focused on quality.
"Michigan doesn't have real good New York-style pizza and that's where we ingratiate ourselves," Todd Saroki said. "We're a slice house. There's a lot of traffic at these gas stations, up to 1,300 customers a day," so the pizza has to be quick and tasty to stand out.
Saroki's uses Stanislaus sauce and Grande cheese, proving gas station pizza is top notch when craft ingredients are used.
Catering has been a big part of Saroki's business, with chicken tenders a big mover. The Sarokis have worked hard to maintain a good reputation in Southeast Michigan.
Curtis said all the brand's growth has been organic thus far. Out of 19 locations, 17 are franchised. The landlords at the gas stations have been the ones to reach out to the brand to put Saroki's locations in their super stations.
"We haven't looked for any franchisees," Todd Saroki said. "They've all come to us. That's probably one of the things we're most proud of — that we have a really good reputation. We're wanted in these establishments, and we haven't had to go after it."
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Photo: Saroki's |
Operations
Todd Saroki said the biggest challenge for him has been leaving the kitchen behind and stepping into a leadership role, a move he said his brother also pushed him to achieve.
"I wouldn't want to leave work to make sure every customer is given great food, great service. Curtis said, 'Ok, if we want to grow, it's time to get out of the kitchen,'" Todd explained.
Curtis Saroki called it a "blessing" that he and his brother were involved in the day-to-day operations of Saroki's because they know all the daily ins and outs of operations as they step into leadership roles.
Consistency is imperative, with teams doing store checks and secret shoppers aiding in ensuring one restaurant's food tastes like another. They'll place orders online and pick them up for quality control, and they pay attention to reviews.
"We're in the stores a lot and we're communicating with our franchisees a lot and making sure that we're at the locations to make sure they're consistent," Todd Saroki said. Purchasing the same items as the other stores is also important to consistency.
Culture is important to the success of Saroki's. Though their culture is strong, Todd Saroki said he wants to build an even stronger culture over the next year in hopes of attracting talent. That includes benefits. He added that most of the franchisees don't have staffing issues, and he attributes that to strong leadership in the company.
Curtis Saroki said all of the locations are owner-operated, making the franchisees involved in their own businesses. "Good leadership from our franchisees keep their employees," he added. "We don't have a lot of turn over."
Another part of that culture is proper training. "We train the franchisees, who train their staff to have that mentality that everybody who leaves here, are they going to leave you a five-star review?" Todd Saroki added. "Service is, I'd like to say, one of the factors of how we grew and very heavily on how we serve the customer."
The brothers learned that lesson from their own father, whom they worked for as kids.
"We want people to get great food on their 15-, 20-, 30-minute lunch breaks," Curtis Saroki said. "Our lunch crowd is very big because we're very quick service. They can come in and get a slice reheated in our brick ovens. We have chicken warmers. … They can have their meal within a minute. … We always want to make sure our food is on point."
About Mandy Wolf Detwiler
Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the managing editor at Networld Media Group and the site editor for PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com. She has more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places.
An award-winning print journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience to Networld Media Group. She has spent nearly two decades covering the pizza industry, from independent pizzerias to multi-unit chains and every size business in between. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and can tell you where to find the best slices in the country after spending 15 years traveling and eating pizza for a living.
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