Papa John’s to close 300 locations across the US

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Another giant in the pizza game has announced it will be closing hundreds of stores nationwide.

Papa John’s CFO and North America President Ravi Thanawala said the restaurant company would be closing an estimated 300 restaurants throughout the U.S. in the coming years, around 9% of their total restaurants in the country. 

He said the decision came after a “strategic review” of the company’s restaurant fleet.

“We have identified approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across North America that are not meeting brand expectations or lack a clear path to sustainable financial improvement, as well as locations where we can effectively transfer sales to a nearby restaurant,” Thanawala said during the company’s most recent earnings call. “We believe these closures will further strengthen the system…and improve franchisee health by allowing franchisees to reallocate resources towards operational excellence in their remaining restaurants and open units in priority markets.”

The majority of the 300 locations, which are primarily franchise-owned and over a decade old, will be closed in 2026, while the rest are scheduled for closure in 2027, according to Thanawala. Company officials did not specify where the restaurants planned for closure are located.

Officials also said they were also planning to accelerate their refranchising program to reduce the number of company-owned restaurants to a mid-single-digit percent to further cut costs.

A similar announcement was made three weeks ago by one of Papa John’s biggest competitors: Pizza Hut. That company announced at the beginning of February that it plans to close 250 locations during the first half of 2026, around 3% of the chain’s locations nationwide, due to declining sales. Pizza Hut officials also did not share specific details on which stores would close, but also described the locations as “underperforming.”