Continuing its aggressive expansion strategy, LIT Pizza—the Baton Rouge-based, fast-casual pizza concept known for its wood-fired brick oven—is entering the Lafayette area, with a new restaurant slated to open in Youngsville next spring.
Ozzie Fernandez, founder and CEO of GOEat Concepts, which includes LIT Pizza, Izzo’s Illegal Burrito, Rocca Pizzeria and Central Kitchen, recently signed a lease on a 2,300-square-foot building in the Metairie Centre on Centre Sacrelle Boulevard, where he plans to employ 30 workers.
The Youngsville location will be the restaurant’s first outside the Capital Region. In a prepared statement, Fernandez says he chose Youngsville because it’s a “vibrant and growing community,” adding the city marks the first of what he expects to be “several new locations planned in the Lafayette area.”
“Visitors to our Baton Rouge restaurants from the Lafayette area have been asking when we would open a LIT Pizza nearer to them,” Fernandez says. “We’ve been looking at bringing the LIT Pizza concept to Acadiana for a while and feel the timing is perfect to expand our business.”
The news comes a couple of months after Fernandez announced LIT Pizza received an investment to open at least 20 stores across Louisiana over the next three years from a local group led by attorney and businessman Gordon McKernan.
The concept currently has six locations in the Baton Rouge area, with a location in Brusly scheduled to open before the end of the year. The newest restaurant opened last week on Corporate Boulevard.
