As it turns out, a lot of customers liked the idea. The Quicks are selling more than 1,000 pizzas a week at each of their two Papa Murphy's stores in Topeka and plan on increasing their sales by opening two more local stores. Wash.-based Papa Murphy's Take 'N' Bake Pizza. The privately held company has opened 100 stores every year for the past few years and plans to open another 100 stores this year. Jerry Kenney, Papa Murphy's senior vice president of development, said the company has 635 stores in 22 states.
Pizza is huge business in Kansas.
Pizza Hut, which sells more pizza than any other chain, started in Wichita. The Yellow Pages list more than 70 restaurants and convenience stores selling pizza in northeast Kansas. That doesn't include grocery stores that sell frozen pizza. A CNN report several years ago ranked pizza as the second most popular American food behind the ham sandwich. Competition has its downside.