The owner of Mike's Pizzeria, formerly Mark's Pizzeria in Skaneateles, is explaining why the restaurant has changed its name.

Mike Harvard and Jamie Schneider have co-owned the pizza shop since 2003, but the new, renamed business quietly launched in the same location last month. Harvard tells syracuse.com that the move will help keep costs down so they can avoid raising prices for customers.

"I pay my employees well," Harvard said. "It was $5 an hour when I started [in 1999] and I worked my way up, making more money, because I work hard. Therefore my bosses gave me more money and I was able to buy the [restaurant] because of my hard work."

Harvard recently told The Auburn Citizen that he and Schneider reached a mutual agreement with Mark's Pizzeria Inc. to re-open as a separate business because of the state's rising minimum wage requirements. Fast food establishments, defined by the Department of Labor as a chain with 30 or more locations, must pay workers at least $15 an hour by the end of this year in New York City and by 2021 in the rest of the state.

New York minimum wage was $9 in 2016 when the new legislation passed.

Other, non-fast food businesses in Upstate New York are required to increase minimum wage at a slower rate: 70 cents more an hour each year until it hits $12.50 at the end of 2020. Future increases in the Upstate minimum wage will be tied to an inflation index until the rate hits $15 an hour, but no schedule has been set.

Harvard said he'll follow the slower requirements for increasing the minimum wage, which will help keep costs down so he can remain competitive with other local pizza shops that have the same minimum wage requirements. Otherwise he'd have to charge 20 dollars for one large pizza, he said.

"I'm talking about the hardships of a small business," Harvard continued, noting that many of his employees are young and in their first career.

"I have no problem paying someone well, but when you're training someone who's never had a job before -- why should I have to pay them $15 an hour?"

Mark's Pizzeria, based in Fairport, had more than 40 locations last year but started closing some restaurants, including in Elbridge, Manlius, Clay, and Cicero. Some reopened with new names, like Mike's Pizzeria and Uncle Mike's Hometown Pizza, owned by Mike Haynes, in Camillus.

Today, there are just 29 Mark's locations -- including in Auburn and much of the Rochester area -- allowing the company to avoid the faster minimum wage hike for fast food eateries.

A representative for Mark's Pizzeria told the Auburn Citizen that the minimum wage law was not the basis for recent closures. Joe Kondas, the company's director of communications, said those that closed were not profitable enough for Mark's to continue operating.

The Skaneateles location could have closed, Harvard said, and more than a dozen employees would have been put out of a job if he didn't change the business.

"We take care of our employees. Everyone's that ever owned a Mark's started at the bottom. No one came in with a silver spoon in their mouth. Everyone busted their ass and worked their way up," he told syracuse.com.