Marco’s Pizza’s Largest Franchise Operator Acquires Five More Restaurants

The largest franchise operator in the Marco’s Pizza system, Hoogland Restaurant Group, has added five more restaurants to its portfolio. The transaction, announced on August 18, 2026, includes locations in Lewisville, Fort Worth, Saginaw, and North Richland Hills in Texas, as well as Pigeon Forge in Tennessee.

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, following the acquisition, Hoogland Restaurant Group’s Marco’s Pizza portfolio has reached 120 restaurants. The company positions its continued growth in the U.S. fast food restaurant market, where consumer spending is under pressure, as a sign of its confidence in the existing franchise system.

Growth is not limited to opening new restaurants

There are two main ways to scale in franchise systems: developing new restaurants from scratch or acquiring existing units. Hoogland Restaurant Group’s recent move is based on the second model.

Acquiring existing restaurants can provide some operational advantages compared to developing from scratch under favorable conditions. The fact that the location is already operational allows for better evaluation of customer traffic, employee structure, sales history, and regional demand. Conversely, integrating the operational standards, employee structure, and financial performance of the acquired businesses into the new operator system requires a separate management process.

Hoogland Restaurant Group’s relationship with Marco’s Pizza is not new. The company, part of Highland Ventures, began franchising Marco’s Pizza in 2012. It was announced that by 2024, the company had reached 117 restaurants and was the largest franchise operator in the chain. That same year, the group also celebrated the opening of Marco’s Pizza’s 1,200th restaurant.

Highland Ventures’ current corporate information also identifies Hoogland Restaurant Group as the largest franchise operator of Marco’s Pizza, stating that the group operates more than 120 restaurants today.

Marco’s Pizza is also expanding its network

The acquisition is noteworthy not only for the franchise operator’s portfolio growth but also for Marco’s Pizza’s overall development strategy.

Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the chain aims to open more than 80 new restaurants within 2026. According to information based on Technomic data, the number of Marco’s Pizza restaurants in the U.S. reached 1,196 in 2025, marking a 2.9% increase from the previous year. The total restaurant network of the chain in the U.S. and international markets exceeds 1,300.

Marco’s is also developing a new “Operations Center of Excellence” in Orlando, Florida, to support franchise operations. According to NRN, the center, created with an investment of over $1 million, is planned to include a training kitchen and accommodate approximately 50 corporate employees. The center is expected to be operational by fall 2026.

This investment highlights an important detail that shows that the number of restaurants alone is not sufficient for franchise growth. As the number of new locations increases in multi-unit systems, training, standard practices, field audits, and the development of managers become more critical.

Why are multi-unit franchise operators becoming more important?

For franchise brands, strong multi-unit operators are significant partners that can accelerate growth. When an operator manages dozens of restaurants under the same brand, they can create more centralized systems for purchasing, human resources, training, finance, technology, and field management.

However, scale does not automatically mean higher efficiency. Acquiring five new restaurants means taking over five separate operations simultaneously. Employee integration into the system, retention of restaurant managers, supply procedures, quality standards, and management of local customer habits can determine post-acquisition performance.

Hoogland Restaurant Group’s past statements also indicate that it considers growth alongside employee development. The company management previously defined increasing the number of restaurants as part of its growth strategy, along with creating advancement and promotion pathways for employees.

Highland Ventures’ current corporate page states that the group has approximately 2,500 employees. This scale necessitates evaluating new acquisitions not only in terms of real estate and sales performance but also in terms of human resource management.

Lessons for restaurant franchise operations in Turkey

The acquisition of five restaurants by a pizza chain in the U.S. cannot be directly compared to the Turkish market. However, the transaction highlights a more general point about the franchise growth model: chain expansion is not solely about opening new branches.

In Turkey, acquiring existing franchise locations can be an alternative growth method for multi-unit restaurant operators when proper financial and operational due diligence is conducted. The critical issue here is the sustainable performance of the acquired units rather than the number of restaurants.

Before an acquisition, factors such as store-based profitability, rental burden, employee turnover rate, equipment investment needs, delivery platform commissions, regional competition, and the conditions of the existing franchise agreement should be evaluated.

Stafflink’s perspective

Hoogland Restaurant Group’s acquisition demonstrates that large franchise operators can use both new store development and the acquisition of existing restaurants in their growth strategies.

In our view, the real scale advantage in multi-unit restaurant operators comes not from the number of restaurants but from the ability to establish common systems. If human resources, training, purchasing, field control, and financial reporting do not develop at the same pace, growth in the number of restaurants can increase management burdens.

Especially in the acquisition of existing businesses, the key question to be considered is not "how many new branches were added?" but rather how these restaurants can be integrated into the existing organization at what cost and how healthily. Sustainable scale in franchise growth requires operational standardization before an increase in numbers.