The businessman, who is best known for turning a single pizza shop into a billion-dollar empire and later giving it all away to pursue a path of education, faith, and conservative Catholic values, Tom Monaghan’s story sounds like the stuff of movies.
Picture it: an orphan raised by nuns, who later joined the Marine Corps, served his country, then came home and bought a struggling pizza joint with a borrowed $900 at the young age of 23, which he would later flip into one of the largest pizza chains in the world: Domino’s.

In 1960, Tom Monaghan and his brother, James, purchased a little-known pizza spot called DomiNick’s in Ypsilanti, a place that mostly catered to hungry college students.
James threw in the towel early, yet Tom stayed on, eventually renaming DomiNick’s to Domino’s Pizza in 1965, greatly simplifying the menu and focusing on college towns where late-night food demand was sky-high.
What followed was one of the most impressive expansions in all of pizza (and food service) history.
Monaghan was a man obsessed with fast delivery speeds, consistency, and branding in equal measure. In fact, it was he who created the now infamous “30 minutes or less” delivery guarantee.
By the 1980s, Domino’s had become a national and then global staple, a company that, at its peak, was opening a new store every two hours on average.
Little did anyone know, pizza was just the beginning of Tom’s business endeavors.

At the height of his thriving pizza empire, Monaghan turned his attention to his other love: baseball.
In 1983, he purchased the Detroit Tigers, a move that saw him stepping into the spotlight in a major way.
However, unlike so many other absentee sports team owners, Monaghan gained a reputation for actually showing up.
He spent money whenever it was necessary, and in 1984, it paid off in the biggest way possible: the Tigers won the World Series, a defining sports moment not just for the city of Detroit but for baseball as a whole.

The win aside, Monaghan’s time as the Tigers owner would be short-lived. He shocked everyone by selling the team in 1992, stating that he wanted to step away from the public eye and focus on his deeper personal convictions.
He then did something even more shocking: a devout Catholic, he announced in the late 1990s that he would be giving away nearly all his wealth to religious causes, selling Domino’s Pizza to Bain Capital for an estimated $1 billion in 1998.
From that sale, Monaghan held onto a modest income for himself and sunk the rest into Ave Maria University, a conservative Catholic college with a strong focus on promoting traditional values, as well as Ave Maria School of Law out of Ann Arbor, both of which aligned with his vision of faith-driven education rooted in morality.

Tom Monaghan’s Detroit legacy is one of extremes – a driven, self-made entrepreneur who built one of the world’s biggest food brands, a baseball owner who brought a struggling team to championship winner status, and above all else, a man who ultimately chose faith over money.
All in all, Monaghan isn’t just the pizza guy; he is a Detroit billionaire turned believer, not to mention proof of God’s hand in all things.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: September 16, 2025