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 ...
They opened a Lou Malnati’s near me and I’ve been meaning to try it.
Untrue. I will not order pizza in a restaurant or a pizza parlor but that is because I have to make 500 dollars worth of pizza at home to pay for my pizza oven.
Its fantastic. I just get their deep dish cheese. Do yourself a favor and get double sauce/tomatos.
We have pizza every Friday night. And I make it from scratch and we have exactly the toppings we like. Actually I make two, one usually goes to a widow from our church who has no really close by relatives. Sometimes I make 4 and the extra two go to a church member who’s had surgery and is home recovering, sometimes it goes across the street to my grandson and his family. Sometimes we just surprise the pastor. So nope pizza hasn’t fallen on hard times in our neighborhood. We just like the homemade version that we eat hot, right out of the oven!
There used to be mass market pizzas that weren’t bad. Now it’s all Cisco ingredients, poor service, the eat-in places used to be fun and now they aren’t. And the alternative is a lot of chick-food pizza with chicken, artichoke, pesto sauces and other strange things.
Throw in a measure of private equity, and here we are...
Dang. You could write ‘An Ode to Pizza’.
Yes, too great a carbohydrate load.
I watched a Matt Walsh video about this. He says 88% of pizza chains use the same cheese because only one company can produce enough cheese for every chain and they have a patent on the process giving them a huge advantage.
Yes, in my hometown, we always went to Pizza Hut after high school football or basketball games. Then a decade later they put those little mini pan pizzas in all the airports and I haven’t touched Pizza Hut since. Too many times while jamming through the concourse I was forced to choke down a pan pizza that had been sitting under a light all day since nothing else was available.
Let me tell you-if anyone had the emotional underpinnings to take on that task, it would be me!
I absolutely love pizza...:)
Costco is the number one pizza brand in America. If all you ever had was Costco pizza you would get tired of it after a while. It’s just not that good.
I am getting pretty sick of Mexican too...
National pizza chains are dismal and have been for some time. Trendy pizza spots pop up like microbreweries, and seem to try to stand out by being gimmicky.
Albuquerque does have one local “chain” founded in 1972. Dion’s produces a good product, keeps their menu simple and has a business model that has both customer and employee loyalty (it’s not uncommon for the children of employees to work there once they are old enough, and I know several siblings who also did.). The problem for me is the closest is 20 miles away, and pizza just doesn’t travel well.
We did have a place in Tijeras, in a single wide trailer next to Molly’s Bar, but they moved to a better spot (for them).
About three years ago I decided if I wanted decent pizza I’d have to make it myself. Started working on dough recipes, and using a small stone in the toaster oven. Results not great, but fresh. The problem was not enough heat. Researched home pizza ovens.
A year ago Costco had the Solo Stove Pi Prime bundle for about $100 less than regular price, and I bought one. It’s propane, so you have to use it outdoors. It gets the stone to 700 degrees relatively quickly, and cooks a pie in a couple minutes, but you do have to tend to it.
So now I have quality pizza 10 minutes from stretching the dough to done.
(PS, I cold ferment the dough for 48 hours for best results)
Thank you for your summary background on Mozzarella. Didn’t know that...just knew that it’s crap today.
Pineapple was the harbinger of doom. It brought on a wave of ‘gourmet’, ‘alternative’, hippified BS not-pizzas that diluted the originals. Tony Manero would not get caught dead with such a slice, no matter how cool his boots.
“To be more accurate, America has fallen out of love with corporate food,”
THIS...
“””””I am getting pretty sick of Mexican too...””””””
Replace Mexican with something new.
Discovering the Taste of Somalia: A Look into Traditional Recipes
https://medium.com/@Somalimind/top-10-traditional-somali-dishes-everyone-should-try-41047d126090
You can literally order a pizza any way you want it. I only get Canadian bacon and pineapple on mine.
I think it merely the price and what one gets at that price.
Agreed.
But NO ONE locally here knows how to keep an oven hot and fire a pie!!! I know: I’ve tried most of them. Gave up.
At one time I heavily modified my bbq grill to become a pizza oven. That’s when I discovered the burner knobs were plastic when I found them on the ground, melted.
Best pizza I’ve ever had, and that was before I nailed the dough.
Rework of version II of that grill with all of my learned experience is in the works (portable, stainless, multi fuel and should easily achieve temps greater than 700 F).
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