A nearly 60-year-old Middle Tennessee pizza chain is accusing its former Hermitage franchisee of stealing its secret recipes and cashing in on its name after the two sides split this summer. Sir Pizza of Tennessee, Inc. filed a lawsuit Monday against King Pizza, LLC and its owner in Davidson County Chancery Court, seeking a restraining order and an unspecified amount of damages over what the complaint calls a scheme to keep using proprietary food formulas under a new banner.
Franchise Split Turned Legal Fight
According to WKRN News 2, the Hermitage franchise owner and franchisor parted ways on July 31 over a disagreement about menu offerings, and the location at 4969 Lebanon Pike quickly reopened as King Pizza. That address is the same spot where Sir Pizza of Hermitage previously operated, according to the restaurant's own Uber Eats listing. Per the complaint, King Pizza has weaponized its former franchisee status, breaking its contract under false pretenses to avoid fees while continuing to trade on Sir Pizza's identity.
The lawsuit alleges King Pizza kept using Sir Pizza's trade-secret recipes even after the split, including a proprietary bleu-cheese dressing that Sir Pizza's founders developed and that won the chain an award in 2025. The complaint claims King Pizza still displays that Sir Pizza award, even though, per the filings, it has not obtained Sir Pizza's proprietary Iowa meat blend. Instead, the suit alleges King Pizza ran its own do-it-yourself meat-grinding operation in an apparent attempt to copy the look of the chain's authorized slices.
Menu Branding and Social Media at Issue
Online delivery menus for King Pizza in September still listed medieval-themed items such as Knights Knots and King's Cheese Sticks, according to a menu reviewed on Uber Eats. The complaint also alleges King Pizza continued using franchise-associated social media accounts and food delivery pages, and that its owner capitalized on the resulting consumer confusion to generate and retain business rightfully belonging to Sir Pizza. That confusion, the complaint states, has harmed Sir Pizza's reputation.
Sir Pizza's roots run deep in the region. The chain opened its first Tennessee store in Murfreesboro nearly 60 years ago and has since expanded to hundreds of locations across the country. Founder Robert Fortner brought the brand to the state in 1965 after moving his family from Muncie, Indiana, and opening the state's first location at Jackson Heights Plaza in Murfreesboro, according to Sir Pizza. Today the chain still operates in Middle Tennessee suburbs including Antioch, Bellevue, Fairview, Goodlettsville and Murfreesboro, per Wikipedia.
A Brand Built on a Distinct Style
Sir Pizza built its identity around what it advertised as being “Good to the Very Edge,” a style featuring flat eggless crust cut into squares with ground meat toppings spread across the entire pie rather than traditional sliced pepperoni, as detailed by the Boro Pulse. That meat-grinding technique sits at the center of the trade-secret dispute, since the complaint alleges King Pizza tried to replicate the look of Sir Pizza's product without access to its actual recipe.
There's also a layer of historical irony in the new name. Sir Pizza shares roots with Indiana's Pizza King chain, founded by brothers Wendell and Robert Swartz in the late 1950s, before the company expanded out of state under the Sir Pizza name in 1966 specifically to avoid conflicts with existing Pizza King territories, per Wikipedia. Nearly six decades later, a Tennessee competitor built on the same recipes has taken the name King Pizza.
What Sir Pizza Must Prove in Court
Misappropriation claims like these fall under the Tennessee Uniform Trade Secrets Act, which authorizes chancery courts to issue injunctive relief and award up to double exemplary damages for willful violations, according to DearLegal. Sir Pizza's request for emergency relief would proceed under Rule 65 of the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure, which lets judges issue temporary restraining orders to prevent irreparable injury before a case goes to full trial, per DocDraft.
To win a preliminary injunction, Tennessee chancery practice requires a party to show a strong likelihood of success on the merits and demonstrate that money damages alone cannot fix the ongoing commercial harm, according to Justia Law. The timing also lands just months after Tennessee overhauled its rules on non-compete and restrictive business covenants; Governor Bill Lee signed that legislation on May 7, with the changes taking effect July 1, weeks before the Hermitage franchise split. As it stands, the allegations in the complaint remain unproven in court, and no ruling on the restraining order request has been reported.
