Jimmy's Pizza in Albertville now Aims for April Reboot

An update has developed in the strange saga of .

The store closed Monday, March 5 with very little warning.

A call placed to the franchise and to the Albertville location states the shop will open in mid-April, and thanks customers "for their patience."

Other stores within the franchise that have closed opened as a take-and-bake style, a la franchises.

Lights are on outside the building at night, and the counter lights inside the store remain on. Cheese and pepper shakers are still on tables.

The business opened in late summer 2011 after former general manager Andy Thompson decided to venture out on his own with , which is in Jimmy's former location.

Jimmy's found a spot in the former Carbone's Pizza, which had been for sale for about a year.

The two former allies turned rivals, with Jimmy's and going head-to-head in Albertville over the last several months. Both seemed to be surviving, until Jimmy's made the move to close for two weeks after the first weekend in March.

Corporate contacts could not be reached, and Jimmy's has removed all information from its website.

St. Michael-Albertville grad Andy Thompson and his wife, Christy, shed the franchise label, and are now running their own, hometown shop with Andy's. They said they left the Jimmy's franchise behind to have their own control in an interview with Patch last July.

"It gives us the freedom to build the relationships with our customers that we'd like to build, and that we have built over the last four years," Andy said.