Hungry Howie’s pizza opens on Glenoaks Blvd.

Michigan-based chain opens its first store in an area heavy with eateries. The first Hungry Howie’s pizza in Glendale opened Tuesday completing a culinary row on Glenoaks Boulevard.

Hungry Howie’s and Maui Wowi will soon sandwich the Quizno’s sandwiches while Yum Yum Donuts anchors the southwest corner of West Glenoaks and Kenilworth avenues.

Howie’s, the Michiganbased pizza chain that features six different flavored crusts, started with 200 stores in Michigan and quickly spread to Florida where it opened another 200, said Howie’s franchise consultant Dave Stuart.

Now the chain has set its sites on expanding into Southern California and Glendale brothers Armen and Artek Dovlatian, who both graduated from Hoover High School and Glendale Community College, hope to populate the area with franchises.

Armen Dovlatian opened a Howie’s two years ago in Tujunga.

And when the brothers found a site they liked in Glendale, they decided to open one a few blocks from their childhood stomping grounds.

They hope the gathering of eateries on the corner will help all of them be more successful, said Armen Dovlatian, 35, who graduated from Cal State Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in real estate and finance.

“We were looking for a franchise to open in Glendale and we liked the Howie’s concept and we wanted to bring something fresh here,” he said, adding that Quiznos and Maui Wowi coffee and smoothies will open in March.

“We should do well here.”

Once the franchise is established, the brothers plan to open stores in Burbank and La Crescenta, as well.

“The flavored crust is what we’re famous for,” Armen Dovlatian said. “We make the dough fresh every day and use fresh ingredients and we have a huge variety of salads, subs and calzones.”

Sam Kratian, of Glendale, has been driving all the way to Tujunga to pick up Howie’s pizza, he said.

“I was hoping they’d open one in Glendale,” Kratian said. “It’s different from the others. It’s like the same old thing everywhere else. Here, the crust makes it different. Always different.”

The company hopes to open as many as 40 stores in the Los Angeles area in the next two to three years, Stuart said.

Howie’s is a take-out or delivery restaurant with no dining room.

It opens at 11 a.m. daily. It closes at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.