One of my favorite pizza joints in college was Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan in Peoria. Fortunatey, they also had a location in Columbus where I went to grad school.
Anyway I was having to go to Peoria for business and tried to look these guys up but am seeing a lot of internet references to the stores closing all over Central Ill. I know Columbus closed down a few years ago.
Does anyone in Central Illinois happen to know what happened to the chain? Is it now defunct?
As of last year they were down to a single outlet, on Green Street in Champaign, Illinois. Some of the online sites seem to indicate that they have since returned to Rantoul, which they had abandoned during the 1990’s.
I don’t know why the chain fell on such hard times. I’ve heard vague stories that Ralph and Joe weren’t very good businessmen, and failed badly when they tried to expand throughout the Midwest. It also seems that at some point their pizza fell out of fashion with a new generation of college students. But I don’t know why or when.
We just got two restaurants named “Garcia’s Pizza” here in Decatur, but I’m not sure whether they’re franchise outlets or just some guy named Garcia who’s running a couple of pizza joints.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the Champaign location is doing ok. The development on Green Street seems to be heading the other way though (toward campus) or on the extreme other end (downtown), so maybe they aren’t getting on like they used to. Seems to be businesses like that in every college town, if not every town – development just sort of moves someplace else and leaves them behind.