Iconic California restaurant chain offers brutal takedown of home state

California has become so hostile to business that even the man who built California Pizza Kitchen says he wouldn’t start the iconic chain there today.Rick Rosenfield, who co-founded the restaurant brand with Larry Flax in Beverly Hills in 1985, said Florida, not the Golden State, would be his first choice if he were launching the company now.“If it were me today, I would open in Florida before I would open it in California,” Rosenfield told Fox News.“California is less business-friendly today, and they make it apparent.”The chain, famous for its California-style pizzas and its signature barbecue chicken pie, has grown to 185 locations, many of them still in California.But Rosenfield says the state that once helped define the brand has become a far tougher place to do business.He said California was “the greatest place to do business” a decade ago, but believes conditions deteriorated after the COVID-19 pandemic, pointing to labor shortages, soaring costs and the state’s fast-food minimum wage law.California Pizza Kitchen was among the restaurant chains battered by the pandemic as customers stayed home, ultimately filing for bankruptcy protection in 2020.Rosenfield himself relocated to Florida in 2024, according to the Los Angeles Times, and said the difference between the two states has been impossible to ignore.“Florida is quite friendly.”“There’s less bureaucracy in Florida, and there’s more bureaucracy in California, and that’s basically my experience,” he told the outlet.His criticism echoes a broader corporate flight from California that has reshaped the state’s business landscape.McKesson Corporation and Charles Schwab moved their longtime San Francisco headquarters to Texas in 2019.Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise followed in 2020, while Tesla shifted its headquarters in 2021.In 2024, Chevron, SpaceX and X also relocated their headquarters to Texas, with Elon Musk and the 145-year-old energy giant citing regulatory and pol...