TORONTO — Michael Overs, founder of Pizza Pizza, lost his battle to cancer last week at the age of 70.
Overs founded the popular pizza chain back in 1967, when he opened a 300-sq.-ft. unit at Parliament and Wellesley in Toronto. From that unit, the company mushroomed into one of the country’s leading pizza chains with a total of 635 restaurants across Canada, primarily in Ontario and Quebec — and the Alberta-based Pizza 73 chain.
Overs is considered one of the foodservice industry’s key innovators. He coined the popular telephone jingle, 967-11-11 and is credited with creating what is believed to be one of the world’s first insulated pizza delivery bags.
Paul Goddard, Overs’s son-in-law, will replace him as CEO of Pizza Pizza.
