In 1993, the first restaurant location in Las Vegas, Nevada was opened on Sahara Avenue, near Las Vegas Boulevard. In 2004, Ashley Morris and Jason Smylie opened a franchise in Las Vegas. At the time, Morris was the youngest financial adviser at Wells Fargo. Smylie was a software engineer at Bechtel Nevada. Morris and Smylie were also investors in the housing market and made the decision to invest in a franchise after learning that the return on investment was higher than anything they were looking at investing in. In 2007, Morris and Smylie put the company in escrow. In the following year Morris, Smylie and a group of investors consisting of 95% Las Vegans bought Capriotti's. Capriotti's had 44 restaurant locations by the end of 2008. Morris is the CEO of the company. In 2008 and 2009 the chain was the official sandwich sponsor of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Capriotti's was ranked in "Entrepreneur" magazine's top 500 franchise list in 2010 and remained ranked through 2014.