How A Family Disagreement Shaped One Of Indiana's Favorite Pizza Chains

If you were to travel across Indiana on a quest to eat at all the Pizza King restaurants, you'd notice subtle differences in branding (some have a crown logo while others have a king character) as you make your way from one end of the state to the other. This is because the Swartz brothers — the two brothers who opened the original Pizza King in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1956 — ran into creative differences after the first year of operating. Unlike the two brothers behind Pizza Hut, whose differences in personalities reportedly made a great team, the Swartz brothers' creative contrasts led them to split the state of Indiana, dividing the territory between two Pizza King companies. And while this sibling competition didn't make our list of top U.S. restaurant rivalries, it's still an interesting chapter in the chain's history.

Bob Swartz went on to open Pizza King in eastern Indiana, which now has 59 locations. The eastern Indiana Pizza King maintains the catchphrase "Ring the King," and customers at several locations can order a pizza using a phone in the center of the table (a vestige of the original concept) rather than give their order to a server.

Wendell Swartz opened Pizza King Inc. in the western part of Indiana, which has 63 locations listed (plus one additional location in Hoopeston, Illinois). Pizza King Inc. is based out of Lafayette, which is now the company's "commissary office."

While Pizza King didn't make our ranked list of 30 popular pizza chains, it's a household name in many regions of Indiana. Ed Bogan, one of the two brothers who currently owns Pizza King Inc. in Lafayette (originally Wendell Swartz's territory), explained during an interview with WHAS 11 that the regional preferences and loyalties run deep across the state, depending on where the customers grew up. 

Locals on Reddit discussed their feelings at r/Indianapolis, with some offering their own understanding of the Pizza King origin story and the split between the Swartz brothers. Users had mixed reviews but appeared to agree that the experience with the food was vastly different by location, and from region to region. Several users named locations in Muncie, Indiana, as their preference for quality.

On another thread, a user stated they grew up eating Pizza King, enjoyed it, but later came to realize not all Pizza Kings are the same across the sate. One user attempted to simplify the complicated issue for the group by stating, "The general rule of thumb is that if the Pizza King has the Royal Feast Pizza on the menu, it's one of the good ones." Another responder said they preferred the Pizza Kings with the crown logo to the Pizza Kings with the logo that features the character of the king.