The pizza chain Papa John (NASDAQ: PZZA) announced plans to close 300 US eateries by the end of 2027.
Restaurant Dive reports the company, which is the fourth largest US pizza chain by sales, plans to shutter most of the targeted eateries this year. The locations being closed are underperforming outlets that are more than 10 years old and owned by franchisees.
The announcement comes after the company posted a 5% same-store sales decline in North America during the fourth quarter of 2025. Papa Johns has also cut 7% of its workforce as part of a corporate cost efficiency campaign.
“We took a pretty surgical approach of looking at quality of operation, quality of the trade zone, quality of the assets itself, and made a pretty clear determination restaurant by restaurant, which are the ones that we thought should close,” said CFO and North America President Ravi Thanawala. “We’ve had great partnerships with the franchisees to make sure [when] we’re thinking about each market holistically that we’re setting ourselves on for a stronger system.”
The closures follow a recent decision by rival Pizza Hut, which announced plans to shut down 250 US stores in the first half of this year.
