If you grew up ordering from Pizza Hut on a Friday night or grabbing Papa Johns after a long week, you might want to check if your local spot is still open. Both chains are bleeding locations in 2026, and it’s not a small number. We’re talking about more than 500 combined restaurant closures between the two brands, happening right now, this year. And they’re not the only ones.
The pizza industry is going through something ugly. Costs are up, customers are eating differently, and frozen pizza is stealing market share from chains that once dominated every strip mall in America. Here’s what’s happening and why it matters.
Papa Johns Is Closing 300 Restaurants by 2027
On February 26, 2026, Papa Johns dropped the news during its quarterly earnings call: approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across North America will be closed by the end of 2027. About 200 of those closures are expected to happen in 2026 alone.
The numbers behind this decision are rough. Papa Johns saw a 5.4% decline in same-store sales in North America during the fourth quarter. Revenue dropped 6% to $498 million. Net income fell from $15 million the same quarter a year ago to just $9 million. CEO Todd Penegor blamed a “weak consumer backdrop” and an “elevated promotional environment” — which is corporate speak for “people aren’t spending money on pizza, and everyone is running desperate deals to try to win them back.”
The stores being targeted generally pull in less than $600,000 a year in revenue. Many of them are franchise-owned and running at a negative profit when you look at their operating costs. In other words, these locations are losing money for the people running them. Papa Johns also slashed about 7% of its roughly 700-person corporate workforce as part of the cost-cutting push.
Pizza Hut Is Losing 250 Locations in Just Six Months
Three weeks before the Papa Johns news broke, Pizza Hut’s parent company Yum Brands made its own announcement. During its Q4 2025 earnings call on February 4, 2026, CFO Ranjith Roy confirmed that about 250 underperforming locations would be shuttered in the first half of 2026.
That’s roughly 4% of Pizza Hut’s entire U.S. footprint, which sat at about 6,360 locations as of Q3 2025. The closures are part of something the company is calling “Hut Forward,” a turnaround plan that also includes marketing changes, technology upgrades, and new franchise agreements.
Pizza Hut’s U.S. same-store sales fell 3% in Q4 and a painful 5% for all of 2025. That’s a full year of declining sales. Meanwhile, Yum’s other brands — Taco Bell and KFC — were crushing it. Taco Bell posted 7% same-store sales growth for the quarter. KFC opened its 30,000th international restaurant. Pizza Hut is the obvious weak link.
How bad is it? In late 2025, Yum Brands launched a strategic review of Pizza Hut. Translation: they were thinking about selling the whole chain. That review is still ongoing in 2026, and Yum has said a different ownership structure might be what Pizza Hut needs to survive its turnaround.
The Dine-In Pizza Restaurant Is Basically Dead
Part of what’s killing Pizza Hut specifically is that many of its locations are stuck in a different era. Think about the old-school Pizza Hut building — that signature sloped red roof, a big dining room with booths, maybe a salad bar, and those red plastic cups. That model made sense in 1990. In 2026, people want fast pickup and delivery, not a sit-down experience at a pizza chain.
A lot of those large, outdated dine-in spaces are expensive to operate. High lease rates, big utility bills, more staff needed. And the customers simply aren’t showing up to eat inside anymore. This isn’t speculation — it’s the same problem that led one of Pizza Hut’s largest franchisees to file for bankruptcy protection back in 2020, closing 300 stores at that time.
The irony is thick. Pizza Hut’s slogan is “No One OutPizzas the Hut.” But Domino’s actually has more locations — 21,750 worldwide compared to Pizza Hut’s 19,974. Domino’s figured out the delivery and carryout game years ago while Pizza Hut was still holding onto dining rooms.
Frozen Pizza Is Eating Into Chain Restaurant Sales
Here’s a detail that should worry every pizza chain executive in America. According to the 2025 Technomic Pizza Consumer Trend Report, 25% of consumers said they’re eating more frozen pizza instead of ordering from restaurants because of price increases. One in four people chose a $6 DiGiorno over a $16 delivery order. That’s a massive shift.
Delivery numbers are sliding too. In 2022, 61% of pizza consumers ordered delivery at least monthly. By 2025, that number dropped to 55%. Carryout is still holding strong — nearly two-thirds of consumers do it monthly — but delivery, which was a lifeline during the pandemic, is losing ground fast.
When a frozen pizza from the grocery store scratches the same itch for a fraction of the cost, chains have to work a lot harder to earn that order. And right now, not all of them are pulling it off.
Domino’s Is the One Pizza Chain That’s Actually Winning
While Pizza Hut and Papa Johns are closing stores and cutting staff, Domino’s is in a completely different position. The chain reported global retail sales growth of 4.9% for the fourth quarter and 5.4% for all of fiscal 2025. That’s while its two biggest competitors posted declines.
What’s Domino’s doing differently? Technology, mostly. Digital channels represented over 85% of Domino’s U.S. retail sales in 2024. Their app, their ordering system, their delivery tracking — all of it is smoother and more integrated than what Pizza Hut or Papa Johns offer. Domino’s invested early and heavily in making it stupid easy to order a pizza from your phone, and that bet is paying off while competitors scramble to catch up.
There’s also the store model. Domino’s never tried to be a sit-down restaurant. It was always focused on getting pizza out the door quickly. That laser focus on carryout and delivery means lower overhead, smaller spaces, and a business model that actually fits how people want to buy pizza in 2026.
Papa Johns Is Making Big Menu Changes to Try to Survive
Papa Johns isn’t just closing stores and hoping for the best. CEO Todd Penegor is pushing some real changes. He had the company recalibrate restaurant ovens to make sure food is cooked better — a basic move that says a lot about how far quality had slipped. The chain also rolled out a new pan pizza.
But the more interesting move is what’s getting cut. Papa Johns is phasing out Papadias — those flatbread sandwiches introduced in 2020 — and Papa Bites, the bite-sized dough balls that launched in 2022. CFO Ravi Thanawala admitted that dropping these items will probably hurt same-store sales in the short term, but the company believes a simpler menu will improve operations overall.
What’s coming instead? Papa Johns is testing toasted sandwiches made with ciabatta bread, brushed with that garlic sauce people go crazy for. They’ve also launched chicken tenders with dipping sauces in the U.K. and plan to bring chicken to North America. It’s a clear signal that pizza alone isn’t enough anymore.
It’s Not Just Pizza — The Entire Restaurant Industry Is Shrinking
Pizza Hut and Papa Johns aren’t alone. The closure trend is hitting chains across the board. Wendy’s announced it’s closing about 300 stores — roughly 5% to 6% of its U.S. locations — in the first half of 2026. Darden Restaurants is winding down all 14 Bahama Breeze locations and converting another 14 to different brands by April 15. Jack in the Box closed 86 locations during its fiscal year while only opening 31, dropping its franchised store count below 2,000.
Even smaller pizza chains are struggling. Seattle-based Mod Pizza, which had about 500 locations in 2024, was forced to sell its assets to Elite Restaurant Group after closing 27 stores. As of early February 2026, its website listed just 448 locations. Bertucci’s filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April 2025.
According to Black Box Intelligence, 9% of full-service restaurants and 4% of limited-service restaurants were at risk of closure in 2026. Rising labor costs, food costs, and lease rates are squeezing margins everywhere. The pandemic-era boom is over, and the chains that expanded too fast or didn’t adapt are paying the price.
Where This Leaves Pizza Lovers
If your go-to Papa Johns or Pizza Hut suddenly has a “permanently closed” sign on the door, you’re not imagining things. Between the two chains, more than 500 U.S. locations are disappearing in roughly a year’s time. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that when stores close, the nearby surviving locations tend to see a big bump in business. Jack in the Box saw a 30% sales lift at restaurants near closed locations. That usually means better staffing, fresher food, and faster service at the stores that stay open.
But the bigger picture is harder to ignore. The era of having three or four major pizza chains within a five-minute drive of your house might be winding down. Domino’s is pulling ahead. Pizza Hut might get sold. Papa Johns is trying to reinvent itself with ciabatta sandwiches and chicken tenders. And a quarter of Americans are just grabbing a frozen pizza from the store and calling it a night.
Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by two brothers who borrowed $600 from their mom. They picked the name because the sign only had room for eight letters. Almost 70 years later, the question is whether those letters will still mean anything a decade from now.
