Everyone loves pizza... right? Well, recent consumer trends seem to disagree. A beloved pizza chain is set to close scores of its restaurants.
As reported by KTLA 5, Papa Murphy's has plans to close up to 50 of their restaurants. Their parent company, Canadian company MTY Group, announced the bombshell measure during their second-quarter earnings call. They had first acquired the Papa Murphy's brand in 2019.
They explained that they were planning on closing 68 company-owned restaurants across their brand portfolio. And it appears that around 50 of those were Papa Murphy's chains.
The closures are expected to kick into gear over the next 6 to 9 months or so. MTY Group says that they first need to look into lease agreements, staffing changes, and distribution, among other things, before the closures happen.
They did not seem to indicate which restaurants could be axed, but they could be any of the US locations, spelling trouble for pizza lovers nationwide.
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Why Are They Closing the Pizza Restaurants?
Well, it all comes down to money (when doesn't it?) They announced that the locations they're closing have "collectively lost over CAD 10 million" over the past year. In USD, that's around $7,000,000 in hemorrhaged funds.
They added that the reason why the stores are closing is to help the brand as a whole. They said the closures were intended to "improve the health of the brand by focusing on stronger-performing restaurants rather than continuing to operate locations that consistently lose money."
This comes after the pizza chain's numbers have been consistently declining over the past few years. In 2023, their restaurant numbers were sitting at a comfortable 1,168, but by 2025, this had fallen to 1,014. These extra closures are therefore part of a much bigger, and unfortunate, trend.
People on social media have mourned the loss of their favorite pizza brand. One commenter wrote, "Oh damn, they better not close the one in this area. We already lost Burger King and the Wendy's we used to go to. Oh, and Denny's," with another writing, "I hope it's not the one near us :(."
