America Is Falling Out of Love With Pizza

WSJ ^ | 1/4/2026 | Heather Haddon

[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.

[rlmorel]

Good question! It is the wooden thing that you build the pizza on top of so you can easily transport it into the oven:

LINK: WHAT IS A PEEL?

[HonkyTonkMan]

The corporate chain food/fast food experience is absolutely awful. Poor quality, expensive, abysmal service.

[Theodore R.]

The best USA pizza is in NYC. Has the quality there gone down? I think it is something to do with the water in making the pizza.

[kiryandil]

The key to that is to set the dough on end, then squash it down into itself.

That produces the round dough blank.

[rlmorel]

Ahhhahahahahahaha! I love that movie!

My wife teased me for years about my crush on Sandra Bullock! She would say to me in a lilting, arched eyebrow fashion: "This new movie has...Sandra Bullock in it! Don't you want to see it?"

[JimRed]

A pizza sized spatula.

[logi_cal869]

LOL

Well, we do now: I had never heard that prior and looked it up.

Rather than the mooslims, perhaps it was Taco Bell that rotted Europe from the bottom up...

[FreedomPoster]

Costco pizza is my cheap pizza guilty pleasure. Slice and a Diet Coke for <$3. My county GOP chairman’s comment - “That stuff is way better than it has any right to be.” He’s not wrong.

[Tunehead54]

Save this pizza recipe bump!

In Clearwater FL area we’ve got a small chain called Jett’s Pizza.

A Jet 10 (Most every thing in generous quantities) large thick crust with extra italian sausage but is like $32, add $8 tip and great pizza for two or three days but they’ve boosted pricing during the Bidding Admin.

So how long to make your pizza? Do you spin it around or just use a rolling pin? Sounds great just really time consuming - Jett’s delivered in 35 minutes - we’re close by.

;-)

[Tunehead54]

Save this pizza recipe bump!

In Clearwater FL area we’ve got a small chain called Jett’s Pizza.

A Jet 10 (Most every thing in generous quantities) large thick crust with extra italian sausage but is like $32, add $8 tip and great pizza for two or three days but they’ve boosted pricing during the Bidding Admin.

So how long to make your pizza? Do you spin it around or just use a rolling pin? Sounds great just really time consuming - Jett’s delivered in 35 minutes - we’re close by.

;-)

[logi_cal869]

LOL

Smart woman!

[doorgunner69]

I would guess they are toaking about garbage fast food type pizza, not da Kine pizza restaurants.

Do not eat that artificial crap.

Was not Pizza Slut sued for using fake cheese at some point?

[LegendHasIt]

I agree, I still love pizza. Just hate the chain franchise companies that make it, and the price. The quality went down as fast as the price went up, and the service either slow or surly, and often both.

I make a pseudo-pizza on flour tortillas for about 50 cents with two minutes prep time and 7-10 minutes bake time that tastes as good as anything Pizza Hut or Dominoes (the only pizza places within 50 miles of me) puts out these days. And two of my pseudo-pizzas for a dollar are about as filling as a medium pizza from P-H or D's. (Also works with bagels or english muffins, but need three on bagels or four on english muffins to fill me up.

I posted my recipe at FR a few years ago, but I'll post it here again if anyone wants it.

[doorgunner69]

Damn, bookmarked

[Tunehead54]

Sorry for the dupe post - it was tagged - reviewed ready to post but if I’d hit post it should have posted and gone back to the original article.

Thanks for the recipe!

[rlmorel]

Oh, it is! Sadly, I often cannot stomach red sauce even though I love it. The fact that it sometimes plays havoc on my stomach is not enough to keep me from eating pizza, though I sometimes suffer from indigestion afterwards...not even for a second!

But pasta with red sauce, unless I make it myself, is generally a no-go for me.

That is why I make mine as I do, with no red sauce.

One of the greatest yet most satisfying curses is learning how to well-prepare a dish that you absolutely love!

Okay...I am taking a thread detour! (my apologies, logi_cal869!)

Case in point (besides pizza) is a Spanish Tapas dish: Gambas al Ajillo...shrimp with garlic in sizzling olive oil. I have traveled long distances to get this. I cannot get sick of it, and I can make it as spicy as I want! (this picture below is nice, but I noticed they only put a single pepper on it...when I make it for myself, I usually put at least five or six!) Gambas al Ajillo (Spanish Tapas dish)

• INGREDIENTS
  • 10 medium to small shrimp (raw) MAKE SURE TO PAT THEM DRY TO REMOVE EXCESS MOISTURE

  • 3 cloves garlic

  • 1 Bay Leaf

  • 6 Peppercorns or lots of ground black pepper

  • 1/8 Tsp Kosher Salt

  • Fresh Parsley (to taste)

  • Dried Red Chili Peppers, dried (most restaurants put one or maybe two in, I use six or more!)

  • 1/3 cup Spanish Olive Oil

  • High quality crusty white bread. (I can't get the kind of Spanish bread, so I use Ciabatta rolls and slice them up about a half inch thick slices. No matter how much you slice up, you will end up using all of it! I brush them with olive oil on one side and put them under the broiler. Be vigilant and take them out as soon as they begin changing color.

• Fill a 1 cup measuring cup to the 1/3 level. I have a metal one, and I place it directly on the stove burner at medium-medium high heat. Then I prepare the other things.

• Slice the garlic cloves. I used to use a single edge razor to slice the garlic paper thin, but found a nice small mandolin that gets it nearly as thin...and this is key: You have to slice it as thin as you can. The reason is, unless you really like garlic A LOT if it isn't really thin, the dish is nearly inedible. I will explain later why this is important. So slice all three cloves up.

• Find an oven capable small dish or ramekin. Pat dry the shrimp and throw it in. Add all the other ingredients, Bay Leaf, peppercorns, garlic, parsley, salt, and of course, the Chili Peppers.

• Now, the olive oil in the metal measuring cup should be heated up, just about smoking. Really hot. Here is how you cook: Pour the oil into the dish.

• That's it. Just gently pour it it. It sizzles like mad, and if you were silly enough to not pat the shrimp dry, it is going to sputter too! When I do this, I have a metal copper clad dish with handles. So I put a big cast iron pan on the stove, set to med-med high heat, and an instant before you pour the oil in, I place the copper clad pan into the frying pan and immediately pour the smoking hot oil over the shrimp and other ingredients.

• It keeps the oil sizzling longer, and if the oil spatters, it is in the pan, not on the burner (why I don't put my copper clad small pan directly on the burner)

• Let it sizzle. Note-it is NOT deep frying it, but it is the pouring it over the ingredients that makes it sizzle. So, you can even turn off the burner as soon as you pour the hot oil in. Stir it once. Look at it. Pause. Stir it again. Do this three or four times to make sure everything gets mixed and immersed in the hot olive oil.

• Now, everything is cooked perfectly, no matter how long or how little you let it sizzle. You cannot overcook it or undercook it!

• Remove the small metal pot from the frying pan, and pour the contents into something that wont burn you as you eat it. Dip the bread in the oil, throw a shrimp and chunk of red pepper on top and eat it!

I have to take some extra time to explain the garlic aspect of this.

I cannot stand garlic when it has that taste where it hasn't been cooked enough or cooked the right way. Gives me indigestion, makes me reek of garlic. I don't like it. But this dish does not affect me this way.

Here is what happens. In this process of simply pouring the smoking hot oil over the pile of ingredients in the pan, the garlic nearly disappears, and if you slice it thin enough, it actually WILL disappear. Amazingly. It doesn't get brown or carmelized...or bitter. It just gets softer and softer, and loses the raw garlic flavor (which I dislike). If you don't slice it thin enough, you may still get that strong garlic flavor. I love garlic, but I don't like garlic, if you know what I mean.

Then when you eat it with the bread and the shrimp, often, you only find a few slices of translucent, completely cooked, non-garlicky...garlic. Better than oven roasted garlic done right. I am now four hours past dinner, and...no garlic aftertaste!

[ConservativeMind]

Wow! Beautiful walkthrough.

[rlmorel]

Egad! I know what you mean, that made me laugh...”rat turd sausage”!!!

It is always a disappointment when they bring it to my table (I order a Margarita pizza with Italian sausage) and I see those uniform clumps of sausage that look like, well...RAT TURDS!

Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

But...I usually eat it anyway!

Here where I live, I get my sausage from a place in Revere (an Italian town near Boston) called Bianco & Sons Sausage! When I put it on my own pizza, I usually steam it to get the fat out, then crumble it randomly on top of the pie! Steaming it keeps the pizza from getting greasy...:)

[rlmorel]

Ahhh! You can probably tell how much I love my pizza.

I have never been able to do the dough from scratch. I have to learn how to do that. I just cannot get it right.

[neverbluffer]

I agree