Marino Petro

I can probably credit my lifelong love for travel and restaurants for ending up a restaurant owner with a penchant for marketing communications. I have always had that wanderlust itch to seek out new places and experiences. This gives me a fascination with sub- and micro-cultures that are waiting to be discovered and finding opportunities to curate distinct and relevant experiences.

After graduating from college and spending several years working in marketing, publicity, and promotion roles in the entertainment industry, I decided to go to graduate school for marketing communications and deep dive into the world of engaging, serving and communicating with consumers and other audiences.

After graduating from Northwestern with a masters degree in Integrated Marketing Communications, I spent several years with Yum! Brands working in Communications roles across the KFC and Pizza Hut businesses both in the U.S. and U.K. After having my daughter though, I decided it was time for a change and that I wanted to build something of my own. So I began freelancing and providing marketing, communications and social media consulting to small to medium sized restaurant groups across the country.

At the same time, my husband and I began researching opportunities to become restaurant franchisees. With my husband’s management consulting background, we believed we had a unique blend of business, marketing and restaurant experience that made us ideal franchise owners.

We both loved the Blaze Pizza concept and that the entire premise is about taking fantastic ingredients and allowing guests to build their own pizza – free from any artificial ingredients, preservatives, additives, etc. Basically, it was a place we felt good taking our kids to and it was important to us that whatever business we ran was one that we personally believed in and would support. After extensive research, finding an operating partner we trusted and respected, and development of a multi-year business plan, we were able to get the brand to take us seriously and finally become franchisees. 😉

We now own and operate six Blaze Pizza locations across the DFW area, including Fort Worth Waterside. I am responsible for all of our local restaurant marketing and also manage social media and influencer partnerships for our DFW Franchise marketing co-op.