Blaze Pizza to move headquarters out of California in wake of state’s minimum wage hike

Blaze Pizza is the latest restaurant chain to move out of California, and it plans to relocate its headquarters to the East Coast.

The pizza chain, owned partly by Los Angeles Lakers star Lebron James, will move its headquarters from Pasadena, California, to Atlanta by September. The move comes after California mandated a $20 minimum wage for fast-food restaurant employees under a new law on April 1.

“California is where this brand was born more than a decade ago, and we have a tremendous heart for communities across the state where so many of our restaurants are,” Blaze Pizza CEO Beto Guajardo said. “Moving our corporate headquarters to Atlanta will help us drive our next wave of growth.”

Guajardo clarified that a majority of the company’s 60 corporate employees will remain remote, and a “small percentage” of workers in southern California will be offered to relocate to Atlanta. California is home to 96 of the pizza chain’s locations, while Georgia has six restaurants.

The Golden State’s mandated $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers has caused multiple chains to reevaluate their business. Rubio’s Coastal Grill announced last week that it is closing almost 50 locations in California. The majority of these closures took place in the southern part of the state.

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In-N-Out, an iconic West Coast burger chain with most of its locations in California, recently revealed that it raised its prices in the state — the same day the increased minimum wage went into effect.

Almost 10,000 jobs have been cut across fast-food restaurants since Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed the bill to raise the minimum wage to $20 last year, according to the California Business and Industrial Alliance, a nonprofit organization.