Posted on 07/24/2026 5:39:07 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Florida Pizza Kitchen. It doesn’t have quite the ring to it that California Pizza Kitchen does. But had the iconic chain been dreamed up in the 2020s rather than the 1980s, it would have been FPK rather than CPK, not because the California Pizza Kitchen’s co-founders moved to Florida, though one did a couple of years ago, but due to the Golden State’s corrosive business policies.
Not that long ago, California was “the greatest place to do business,” Rick Rosenfield, the CPK co-founder who fled to the Sunshine State, told Fox News Digital.
“If it were me today, I would open in Florida before I would open it in California,” Rosenfield said. “California is less business-friendly today, and they make it apparent.”
Rosenfield and Larry Flax started CPK in Beverly Hills in 1985, before the state became a tax-regulate-and-degree nightmare for businesses. Today the state is more well known for the steady flight of companies, capital and vital human resources, all seeking liberalized markets where entrepreneurship, innovation and hard work are rewarded rather than punished.
That describes Florida, which Rosenfield says is “quite friendly,” and relative to California and the rest of the blue states, an oasis where “there’s less bureaucracy.”
California is actively hostile to business. Rosenfield told Fox that the business climate sharply changed after COVID, which is true, but it didn’t begin there. Not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of businesses have quit on the state and relocated either fully or partially elsewhere since 2008. The list of high-profile and California legacy companies that have fled, according to a Pacific Research Institute report, includes “Hewlett-Packard, whose founding is recognized as the birth of Silicon Valley; entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX; Charles Schwab, founded in San Francisco in 1971; Mitsubishi; Nissan North America; Toyota Motor North America; Oracle; Palantir Technologies; and Jacobs Engineering.”
Trying to do business in California means being tangled in red tape, choked by regulation and taxes, smothered with various fees, and bogged down by crumbling infrastructure.
It was not last week but more than a decade ago when Steve Sather, then El Pollo Loco’s chief executive, said he would not start a business in California because there’s too much bureaucracy. It’s “too hard to get things done,” he said, taxes are too heavy, and it’s “hard to get people to move into California.”
“There is a big barrier for entry for new concepts coming into California,” Sather said, and “hard to get locations” in an environment in which permitting is a slog.
Meanwhile, businesses are thriving in states, particularly Florida, where taxes are low and regulation is light, which means workers and their families are benefiting, not losing their jobs because activist legislators hiked the minimum wage far beyond manageable levels or ran their employers out of the state because they’re wedded to a progressive agenda that abuses businesses.
The question is old, but it still needs to be asked: When is California going to turn things around? The answer is unknowable, but now would be a good time to start, because the bottom is closer than ever and coming up fast.
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I just hope Californians fleeing to Florida don’t do what they did to Colorado.
Don’t mess with Florida: Progressive and Communist ideology not welcome here.
Coastal CA has great weather all year. It should be the best state to live in.
NYers are destroying NC.
They bring their nasty attitudes, their condescension and their voting habits here. They don’t realize that THEY are the problem and they just infect everywhere they go.
Maybe not “Florida” Pizza Kitchen, but how about:
Gulf Coast Pizza
South Beach Pizza
Key West Pizza
Panhandle Pizza
Hurricane Pizza
Spring Break Pizza
Red State Pizza
Alligator Pizza
Hmmm... I don't know what the cure for insanity is but it's probably not moving to another state...
“NYers are destroying NC.
They bring their nasty attitudes, their condescension and their voting habits here. They don’t realize that THEY are the problem and they just infect everywhere they go.”
???????????????????????
Sorry, but I must VEHEMENTLY disagree here.
I was born and raised in Syracuse, NY, and moved to Charlotte in my 30’s. I have yet to meet ANYONE to the Right of me, on this board, or anywhere else.
A lot of us conservatives fled NYState because of the politics - political refugees, as it were.
Please don’t be so narrow-minded as to think ALL NYers are like Zohran Mamdani.
And NC has PLENTY of home-grown Liberals, too. It can be a fine line sometimes between the political voter makeup of one state vs another.
No matter the name.....if the food is of consistent quality at a competitive price people will patronize it.
We have a new pizza place around the corner called “Space Pie House”....not exactly a name that harkens back to old Italy, the proprietor isn’t even Italian and it’sprimarily a takeout place, but we prefer it to the proper Italian restaurant right across the street that’s owned and operated by an Italian family that have owned several restaurants here for decades.
Gator Pizza, loved by Noles and Seminoles alike
I agree. I grew up and still live in New Bern/Morehead City area. When I was a teenager our neighbor who was a Yorker was complaining about NC.
Anyhow I got tired of his mouth and I told him to go fornicate himself. Of course he complained to my Dad.
I didn't apologize either.
Only if climate or weather is the only metric applied. Wise people don't do that.
But that's not enough. Taxes and bureaucrats make Florida, with its muggy and buggy summers and its hurricanes, more attractive.
Oh, man....shrimp burgers at El’s Drive In...... ❤️
My boyfriend’s family had a home in Pine Knoll Shores and I spent almost a decade around that area. Wasn’t unusual for my and my best friend to leave a bar in Greenville at 2 am, get a 6 pack and watch the sun rise at Atlantic Beach and drive back in time to make our 8 am classes at ECU!!!!
Sorry but I disagree. Some are nice but they are DEFINITELY bringing their liberal voting habits here. AND they think we are all backwoods hillbillies who are idiots.
I have live in The South my entire life and yes, there are some Conservative northerners but a majority of the ones here are LIBERAL. I live on the coast and they are changing our landscape and not for the good.
However, I do appreciate YOU.
I like some of those names.
GingisK ~ Only if climate or weather is the only metric applied. Wise people don't do that.
Beaches, mountains, fertile valleys, rain forests, deserts, lakes and rivers, gold, oil, and other mineral riches, etc.
It was a wonderful place to live, before the control freaks took over...
I am a ECU Grad. 1993.. Understand the 2 AM late nights or mornings. But only a six pack. That’s weak. :>)) El’s rocks.
When pressed, I say, "Yes, I'm from California. Yes, I brought my politics with me, but I left because MY politics are NOT their politics!"
I used to get the personal size frozen microwave version of Sicilian Recipe, but that hasn’t been sold around here in years.
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