John Owen, the CEO of Blaze Pizza since January 2026, has brought 20 years of experience as a former McDonald’s executive to bear on the fast-casual pizza segment. His latest brainstorm: a menu just for kids.
And it’s one that features actual pizzas built with the young’uns in mindrather than the standard chicken tenders and fries.
It’s even customizable. And it fills a surprising gap in Blaze Pizza’s menu.
“More than half of our guests are families with children, so we designed this menu around what matters most: more choice, more flexibility and an easier way to enjoy a meal together,” Owen said.
The Kids Menu, he added, “gives every guest at the table something made for them, with the ability to personalize their pizza exactly how they like it.”
It has become something of a truism in the pizza restaurant business: Kids often have an outsized voice in deciding where the family goes out to eat. And who says they shouldn’t be able to make up their own minds about their pizza toppings?
The Kids Menu quietly debuted in late August, but it represents more than a back-to-school promotion. It also reflects Blaze’s larger effort under Owen to make the pizza experience less transactional and give families more reasons to visit its restaurants. That, in turn, helps forge relationships between Blaze Pizza team members and the families, which is one of the best ways to keep those families coming back.
As Restaurant Dive has reported, Owen spent his first week as CEO working the makeline at a Blaze store in Orlando. During that time, he said he asked employees about any gaps they perceived on the menu and problems with specific menu items.
Perhaps one glaring gap he learned about was the lack of menu offerings that cater to an entire family.
So Blaze Pizza has now created a new 7” pie, presumably a more kid-appropriate portion that helps ensure parents don’t have to pay adult-menu prices for food a child won’t finish.
The Kids Menu includes:
- 7” Kids Pizza for $5.95, available with cheese, pepperoni or up to three toppings of the customer’s choice
- Complete Kids Meal for $7.95, featuring the same 7” kids pizza, plus a drink, dessert or applesauce, and a coloring sheet
Like so many fast-casual pizza brands, Blaze has faced its share of setbacks recently. In 2022, it had about 340 stores in 38 states and six countries. Now it’s down to about 250 locations in 30 states and three countries.
An Atlanta website reported that Blaze apparently closed down two of its locations in that city’s metro area—one in Buford and one in West Midtown—just last month.
Under his leadership, Owen told Restaurant Dive, “We’re going to lean in heavily on [hospitality] and make sure that the differentiation in the experience compared to competitors is the fact that we make a connection with you. It’s not just a transaction of ordering the pizza online or ordering the pizza in the store. It’s an experience.”
