A $10,000 Bet on Pizza Built a Detroit Empire

In 1959, a young married couple in Garden City, Michigan, took their entire life savings — $10,000 — and bet it on a snack food that most Americans had barely heard of. Mike and Marian Ilitch opened a single carry-out pizza shop on May 8, 1959, and called it Little Caesars.

People told them a pizza place with no tables and chairs would flop. It did not. The carry-out idea — low overhead, fast service, friendly prices — caught fire. The famous “Pizza! Pizza!” two-for-one deal arrived in 1979, and by 1987 Little Caesars had stores in all 50 states.

But here’s the part that makes it a true Michigan story: Mike Ilitch had once dreamed of playing for the Detroit Tigers, and even spent a few seasons in their minor-league system before a knee injury ended that road. Decades later, pizza money let him buy the teams he loved. In 1982 the Ilitches bought the struggling Detroit Red Wings for about $8 million (the team would go on to win four Stanley Cups under their ownership). In 1992, Mike bought the Detroit Tigers themselves for $85 million. Along the way the couple rescued and restored Detroit’s gorgeous Fox Theatre in 1987 and made it their company headquarters.

Not bad for a $10,000 gamble on pizza.