Riko's Pizza, the Connecticut chain built on super-thin tavern-style bar pies and a signature hot oil pie, now owns its two Long Island restaurants outright. The company announced Monday that it has acquired its Merrick and Levittown locations from the franchisee who built them, in a deal that closed August 31. Both restaurants stay open, in the same spots, with no interruption.

On its face that is an ownership shuffle a customer never notices. What makes it a Long Island story is the reason the company gives for doing it: Riko's is converting the two restaurants into corporate operations because it intends to build around them, with further investment in Merrick and Levittown, a brand-new restaurant coming to Holbrook, and what it describes as strategic growth across Nassau and Suffolk.

The first franchise Riko's ever sold

The two restaurants changing hands carry some history for the brand. When the Levittown shop opened at 3120 Hempstead Turnpike in 2020, it was the first franchised Riko's anywhere and the company's first restaurant outside Connecticut. The same franchisee followed it with a Mineola location in 2021, then moved that operation to a larger space at 68 Merrick Avenue in Merrick in 2023, where it has run since.

Six years after taking the first bet on the brand, that founding franchisee is selling both restaurants back to the company. Terms were not disclosed. With the deal done, Riko's counts eight corporate restaurants and five franchised ones across Connecticut, New York, Florida and North Carolina, and Long Island is now the only market outside Connecticut where the company itself runs the kitchens.

Why a chain buys back its own stores

Restaurant companies generally buy back franchises in the markets they care most about, because corporate ownership lets them invest, test and expand on their own schedule instead of a franchisee's. Riko's chief executive, Carl Bachmann, framed the purchase as proof the franchise model can produce a successful exit for an early operator, but the more telling detail is his own resume: before joining Riko's in 2025 he ran 13 Ruby Tuesday restaurants on Long Island and held senior roles at Smashburger and BurgerFi. The person steering the chain's growth knows Nassau and Suffolk as an operator, not from a map.

Holbrook is next

The concrete piece of the growth plan already has an address. Riko's says it will open a new restaurant in 2027 at the Shops at SunVet in Holbrook, the redevelopment of the old Sun Vet Mall on Sunrise Highway. That project has been steadily collecting first-on-Long-Island tenants, including NAYA, the Lebanese fast-casual chain making its Suffolk debut there. A corporate-owned Riko's would give the center a sit-down pizza operation from a chain that, until now, has never been east of Nassau County.

What the fuss is about

For anyone who has not been, Riko's pies are the Connecticut bar style: cut thin enough that the crust snaps, served in a full-service setting rather than by the slice. The one the chain is known for is the hot oil pie, which bakes a spicy pepper oil into the pizza instead of offering it on the side. The company was founded in 2011 and has ridden that specific style, unusual on Long Island, since the Levittown opening introduced it here.

For Merrick and Levittown regulars, nothing changes at the counter this week. The menu, the locations and the staff carry on under a different owner. What changed is upstream: a growing regional chain looked at its 13 restaurants and decided the two on Long Island were worth owning itself and worth building around. The next few years of that decision will show up as new Riko's locations on roads you already drive, starting with Sunrise Highway in Holbrook.