There are a couple franchises in the NE Ohio area that are small but growing rapidly. One of them is Pizza Oven here in Canton. People love their pizza and they are constantly getting rave reviews. Saw an article last year about how much pizza they half cook, then freeze and ship to people that had their pizza and are hooked.
Another one is Rascal House Pizza in the Cleveland area. I did their website and it started with only four stores when I took over and did a redesign. A year later there are eight stores and they wanted to go to another web partner (mainly because my boss was a dumbass and didn't handle the account very well). Though, I thought their pizza sucked.