The Secret Message Hiding In Domino's Pizza Logo

We live in a time where corporations routinely cut corners and dare the consumer to do something about it, so actual, significant improvement is worth applauding. Fifteen years ago, Domino's reputation was as close to the bottom of the barrel as one can get: a consumer survey placed it last for chain pizza, tied with Chuck E. Cheese. But after several years, a reinvention of its pizza, and an extensive ad campaign, Domino's is now seen as a perfectly respectable chain pizza. Even without the 30-minutes-or-less campaign, the company is worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with others, such as Pizza Hut, which overtook it in sales in 2023, and Papa John's.

Such a reinvention doubtlessly required a great deal of focus and determination — but then again, that's nothing new for Domino's, whose humble beginnings are immortalized in a hidden message in the company's logo. If that all sounds a little too "treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence" for you, it's really pretty straightforward: The three dots represent the three original stores. 

Domino's started life as a small pizza restaurant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, called DomiNick's, bought by Tom and James Monaghan. Tom got into the pizza business to help pay his way through architecture school (this being back in the days where you could just casually buy a pizza restaurant to pay your college bills). After renaming the store Domino's, he bought his brother's half of the store by trading his Volkswagen and opened up three more locations — hence the three dots.

Originally, Tom Monaghan had planned to add a dot for each location opened, but business boomed to the point where that became infeasible very quickly. (If they went through with it, the Domino's logo would have almost 21,000 dots on it today.) The chain became successful enough that Monaghan could afford to buy just about anything he desired, including luxury cars, various artifacts related to the iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Detroit Tigers baseball team, which he owned until 1992. A devout Catholic, Monaghan read a passage from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity," which inspired him to give up most of his most luxurious possessions, including the Tigers.

After selling most of the company to Bain Capital and stepping down from day-to-day operations, Monaghan has devoted himself to Catholic causes and became known for funding various Catholic educational institutions, at least one of which turned into a multi-million-dollar boondoggle. Still, we'll always have Domino's and those three dots — not to mention Domino's Loaded Tots.