Posted on 01/05/2026 6:44:58 PM PST by logi_cal869
The restaurant industry is trying to figure out whether America has hit peak pizza.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Before my time out here.
I may try that! I like spicy, but spicy with great taste is even better...:)
Thank you!
I only pick-up or sit in the pizza place:
https://www.fox4news.com/news/door-dash-driver-pepper-sprays-food-indiana
I did not know that! See? There is a term for EVERYTHING! Now, I had no idea how to do that, I just worked it out on my own because it seemed like a good way to do it.
I have been “chiffonading” all these years and didn’t know it!
Ironically, I’ve rarely ever had pizza delivered. In part due to where I lived but, even when I was in town, I can probably still count on my fingers how many times that’s happened in my lifetime.
Fraught with disappointment, delivery.
I don’t get the allure. Smacks of lazy and incredibly low expectations (plus undeserved trust).
Matt Walsh did some videos a few weeks ago about why everything sucks. Restaurant food was one example. Restaurants procure the majority of their ingredients from one of four national distributors.
Pizza cheese is even worse. Virtually all pizza chains source their cheese from one company.
16 years ago we moved from Michigan to Maryland. (don’t start. I needed a job)
We had a favorite Mexican place in Michigan. Haven’t found anything close in Maryland.
We go back home to Michigan at least a couple times a year. Not once have we not gone to El Charro for dinner. Sometimes multiple visits.
Hahahahaha! Many years back, I worked in a Radiology department, and we hired a woman to be the Department Chair. She was a short (probably 5'4") woman but somewhat stocky, and she was Indian. (From India).
She had been a Bird Colonel in the Army and was used to giving orders. She was an extremely aggressive personality, and people were scared to death of her.
She liked it that way.
She could be quite cruel with people, and...she liked it that way too.
One day I was in a meeting in a small room with three other people, one was her direct subordinate she brought to our facility with her, a genuinely remarkable, even, and gentlemanly man. In the constant "Good Cop-Bad Cop" scenarios, he was always the "Good Cop". Suddenly, the door bursts open, and this woman sticks her head in the semi-open door so we see only her head, and she begins loud and profane ranting about someone who broke a promise to give our department some thing, and she said in a yelling voice "I'M GOING TO GET A SHOTGUN AND SHOOT THAT F*****G *%$#$*&^% IN THE KNEES!"
It was shocking to me, and this guy who worked under her for a long time was totally unfazed (very used to this kind of behavior) looks placidly at her, leans back in his chair as he steepled his fingers in front of him and says calmly: "Dr. X. You cannot go around threatening to shoot people in the knees with a shotgun."
The look on her face changed suddenly from rage to the delighted look a toddler gets when they utter a filthy word that gets an immediate reaction from every adult in the room, and she says with wide eyes..."Oh. Okay." and she leaves.
She always treated me well, because I think she was accustomed to dealing with military men, and I was ex-military.
I was also no-nonsense, direct, and gave concise, completely honest explanations and opinions on things, even when it was me screwing them up. I remember when 911 happened, she called me to her office and said she had been trying to contact a friend of hers in the Pentagon, with no success and was worried. She opened her drawer and gave me one of her collar insignias. I was touched, to get something like that from someone like her...
Anyway, to make a long story short,, she made a lot of enemies, and eventually someone put the knife in her back. She moved out to the Northwest USA somewhere and opened her own imaging center.
Apparently, she got sued by some other competing Radiology group in the area she moved to, and in trial the doctor said:
"She told me she had been in the Army, she had been trained on how to use a flamethrower, she knew where to get one, and she was going to use it on me!"
I found out about this, because it showed up in a newspaper out there, and one of the doctors I worked with had been terrorized by her and was scared to death of her...he found the newspaper, cut the article out and sent it anonymously to me! (I figured out immediately who had sent it-never even needed to ask...:)
Heh, your flamethrower comment brought back that memory!
Great visual, I remember a place up North where the floor creaked when you walked in, and the same set up of counter top, register, and ovens had been there at least 50 years. Amazing pie…
While what you say is true, the small and good pizza joints can’t serve their market.
I have tried to order delivery from two excellent small producers and they simply lack the capability to produce reliably and timely under the stress of success in the form of increased business.
I have observed the larger market and it is easy to see that the chains are attempting all sorts of stuff to keep alive. The competition is going to result in the death of some of the large chain producers. The death of only one would offer some respite for the others.
Meanwhile, the largest producer of mozzarella cheese has closed the flagship plant in California and is moving to the panhandle og Texas. That move is almost certainly an indicator of the pizza business.
My wife can and does make very good pizza but I like storebought too
I went down to New Haven some years back and tried some pizza at the famous place they had in the movie “Mystic Pizza” (or at least, it had the same name!)
It was okay. LOL, my mistake was probably going there. It would be like going to the Bull & Finch Pub in Boston that the sitcom “Cheers” was based on, and thinking that was Boston food or something!
Fantastic! Thank you.
Sacrilege!
Most welcome! Pizza threads and Bacon threads are my favorite food threads!
Hahahaha! I am too much of a perfectionist-you should have seen me the first time I tried flipping an omelette in the air which turned a perfect omelette into scrambled eggs!
That kind of thing usually involves my wife, hearing my cussing, sticking her head into the kitchen to see what kind of calamity has occurred!
2 observations which stand on their own:
“the stress of success in the form of increased business.”
and
“Meanwhile, the largest producer of mozzarella cheese has closed the flagship plant in California and is moving to the panhandle og Texas. That move is almost certainly an indicator of the pizza business”
Maybe it’s my mindset this morning, but wow.
smh
Floor creaks.
Wooden benches/tables.
Old style window booths.
Yeah. Should be on list of historical places.
Excellent! I may experiment with this. I am very intrigued by the Grape Jelly!
I will never not like pizza. That said, there is a lot of awful pizza out there. I would never call or go to a chain pizza place anymore. Fake plastic cheese, cardboard crust, sugary sauce.
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