America Is Falling Out of Love With Pizza

Restaurant chains are exploring strategy changes as sales slow for the food-delivery mainstay.

The restaurant industry is trying to figure out whether America has hit peak pizza.

For representational purpose only.

Once the second-most common U.S. restaurant type, pizzerias are now outnumbered by coffee shops and Mexican food eateries, according to industry data. Sales growth at pizza restaurants has lagged behind the broader fast-food market for years, and the outlook ahead isn’t much brighter.

“Pizza is disrupted right now,” Ravi Thanawala, chief financial officer and North America president at Papa John’s International, said in an interview. “That’s what the consumer tells us.”

The parent of the Pieology Pizzeria chain filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December. Others, including the parent of Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza & Wings and Bertucci’s Brick Oven Pizza & Pasta, earlier filed for bankruptcy.

Pizza once was a novelty outside big U.S. cities, providing room for growth for independent shops and then chains such as Pizza Hut with its red roof dine-in restaurants. Purpose-made cardboard boxes and fleets of delivery drivers helped make pizza a takeout staple for those seeking low-stress meals.

Today, pizza shops are engaged in price wars with one another and other kinds of fast food. Food-delivery apps have put a wider range of cuisines and options at Americans’ fingertips. And $20 a pie for a family can feel expensive compared with $5 fast-food deals, frozen pizzas or eating a home-cooked meal.

Major pizza players are rethinking their businesses. Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and the parent of Papa Murphy’s are considering potential sales, or other strategic moves. Midsize chains including Blaze Pizza and Mod Pizza have closed locations over the past two years as they work to turn around their brands.

Papa John’s is looking to change everything from its franchising strategy to how it builds its pizzas.

California Pizza Kitchen was sold in December to an investor group for under $300 million, according to people familiar with the matter. That is less than the $470 million it sold for in 2011, when the chain went private.

Piece of the pie

Americans still eat a lot of pizza. Pizza chains generated around $31 billion in sales from their restaurants in 2024, the market-research firm Technomic said. On any given day, around one in 10 Americans will partake of a slice, according to the Agriculture Department. Young people drive much of the consumption.

Pizza’s dominance in American restaurant fare is declining, however. Among different cuisines, it ranked sixth in terms of U.S. sales in 2024 among restaurant chains, down from second place during the 1990s, Technomic said.

The number of pizza restaurants in the U.S. hit a record high in 2019 and has declined since then, figures from the market-research firm Datassential show.

Austin Rowland ate a lot of pizza during the pandemic lockdown, but said he rarely orders it now because he sees better food options. The 26-year-old financial planner sticks with deals on the Domino’s Pizza app when he does.

“I’d feel silly paying 50% to 100% more anywhere else even if I can afford it,” said Rowland, who lives in Georgia.

As growth in pizza sales stagnates, competition between restaurants has intensified. Sales at Domino’s have grown as the pizza chain has rolled out deals such as a $9.99 offering for a large pie with toppings.

At Pizza Hut, U.S. sales at locations open at least a year have declined for eight straight quarters. Moreover, it has hundreds of dine-in locations, which occupy larger footprints, are more costly to operate, and account for a shrinking slice of where people eat pizza.

Chains seek ‘face-lift’

Papa John’s has opened the door to selling the company, though executives said they are focused on a broad turnaround strategy. The chain has spent the past year assessing its business, with executives looking to change everything from its franchising strategy to how it builds its pizzas.

Consumers are becoming choosier, and Papa John’s has to step up its menu offerings and value, said Thanawala, the chain’s CFO. That means offering more side dishes at good prices, including ones baked in the chain’s ovens.

Papa John’s found that its franchisees were cooking pizzas at a range of temperatures, making the quality of the pies inconsistent, Thanawala said. The company is working with restaurant owners to recalibrate their ovens and improve the final product through better pizza builds.

The chain is closing some North American restaurants to focus on boosting sales at locations the company believes are primed for growth. Other locations just need a face-lift, Thanawala said.

“It’s a brand that requires some work,” he said.

The new owners of California Pizza Kitchen are betting that people will keep eating pizza. Success, however, means offering more than the same basic pies people can get from fast-food chains, said Cory Baker, managing partner at Consortium Brand Partners, the firm that bought the pizza chain with other investors.

California Pizza Kitchen aims to highlight its diverse sit-down menu, which includes cedar plank salmon and braised short rib served with pappardelle pasta. The company also wants to expand its sales of products sold in grocery stores.

“There are certain things you can depend on in life, and death, taxes and pizza are among them,” Baker said.

Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com