By Charlie Pogacar
Wayback Burgers, a fast-casual “better burger” concept based in Connecticut, is getting into the pizza business.
Its new pizza concept, Molte Pizze, will offer three different styles of pizza: New York, Detroit and thin-crust Tavern style. Its diverse range of offerings, however, only touches on what makes Molte a unique entrant into the pizza space.
Molte Pizze is part of an ambitious franchising vision recently launched by Hubspoke Brands, parent company of Wayback Burgers. Hubspoke CEO John Eucalitto sees a world where his company offers co-branded locations and streamlined kitchens that offer franchisees a turnkey, diverse portfolio. The early returns of the first Wayback Burgers and Molte Pizze co-branded location—which opened in Emerson, New Jersey, earlier this month—are promising, Eucalitto said.
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“We knew it was the future,” Eucalitto said. “Private equity has done a great job of acquiring brands and giving franchisees different options to invest in, but most of those brands still operate independently because they’re large companies. We’re still small—we’ve got a great group of franchisees and a great staff—and people that are very passionate about franchising and food.”
Molte Pizze is just one of the new concepts that Hubspoke is in the process of launching. Other brands include Pane & Mozz (sandwiches), Citta Pasta and Uncle Willie’s Smokehouse. The concepts are united under the Hubspoke Kitchen umbrella, which can offer customers a wide array of foods in a shared space. The idea, Eucalitto added, is for each concept to be able to achieve success as a standalone restaurant or part of a co-branded location.
There’s already been a warm response to Hubspoke’s new franchising strategy from both existing franchisees as well as prospective ones. They see several advantages in the model, including the ability to deploy regional managers to restaurants that either share space with or are located closely to a sister concept. (For this reason, Eucalitto sees potential for growth in a wide variety of spaces, including nontraditional ones like airports and college campuses).
“It’s easier if managers are going to one business school to learn how to operate a restaurant rather than three,” Eucalitto said. “And the tech platforms they’re working with and learning can be the same—rather than operating with three different platforms, from POS systems to back office systems to scheduling systems. They’re all different, and they need to learn all of them. So the efficiency of the next level of management is better in this model.”
That message resonates with Hubspoke’s franchisees. Rob Obernauer, a seasoned franchisee and owner of the first co-branded Wayback/Molte location in Emerson, said the advantages have already born fruit.
“The efficiencies that come with operating multiple brands from one franchisor are undeniable,” he said. “I take great pride in being the first Hubspoke Brands franchisee to open a co-branded location and more importantly, the first to debut Molte Pizze.”
Molte Pizza was a logical concept to kick off the new franchising strategy, Eucalitto said, thanks to his team’s familiarity with the pizza space. For years, Eucalitto and some of his family members have owned and operated Pizzeria Marzano in Torrington, Connecticut. Eucalitto’s nephew, who is AVPN certified, runs the kitchen at Pizzeria Marzano. (It’s worth noting, too, that Eucalitto himself hand built a pizza oven in his backyard in 2006 and still uses it for family pizza nights).
In fact, one of the urges Eucalitto had to fight against was to offer Neapolitan-style pizza at Molte Pizze. The style is Eucalitto’s favorite, but when they were working on the Molte menu, they found Neapolitan was too complex to scale. Having already made the decision to serve Detroit and New York styles at Molte, they ultimately replaced Neapolitan with one of the country’s trendiest styles: Tavern-cut thin crust.
“We talked about growing [Pizzeria Marzano], but it’s just too difficult,” Eucalitto said, saying the training and unique hands-on nature of cooking Neapolitan pies wouldn’t translate well in a franchise format. “But we love pizza and we felt like every time you go to get pizza, people like different styles—not everyone wants the same thing.”
The brand’s name, Molte Pizze, translates to “many pizzas” in Italian. “We wanted to come up with something that was authentic,” Eucalitto said. “We will always offer many different flavor profiles. Our goal is to satisfy all of the pizza needs or as many as we can—takeout, delivery, eat-in, whatever the case may be.”
The Emerson opening will be followed by two more co-branded locations in Hubspoke’s home state of Connecticut: a new site in Bridgeport and a relocation in Orange. Both are under construction and expected to open by early 2026.
Eucalitto believes Molte Pizze is just getting started. He says the model has national potential, both as a co-brand with Wayback Burgers and eventually, hopefully, as a stand-alone pizza chain. It’s worth noting, too, that Molte’s menu is hardly limited to pizza. The concept has a robust salad menu and co-branded locations will have the advantage of offering consumers a slew of choices. With Hubspoke Kitchens offering burgers, milkshakes, tavern pies, salads and caramelized-edge Detroit-style pizzas all now under one roof, Eucalitto and his team are betting that its “many pizzas”—and many efficiencies—will add up to a powerful new model in fast-casual franchising.
At the same time, Eucalitto stressed that Hubspoke is not chasing fast growth. “I never think about the ceiling,” he said. “It’s not important to us. We’re in it for the long haul. We just want our franchisees to do well, to live a good life, to enjoy life. We’re a very family-oriented group. Your family and friends come first—you have to work hard, but that comes second.”
