Major Pizza Chain To Close Up To 50 Stores: See WI Locations

Pizza chain Papa Murphy’s will close up to 50 stores over the coming months, according to the brand’s parent company.

The news came at a Friday earnings call for Quebec-based MTY Food Group Inc. — which owns Papa Murphy’s and numerous other food retailers — when CEO Eric Lefebvre disclosed MTY would shutter 68 underperforming stores across its stable of brands, according to a transcript published by Yahoo Finance.

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Of those closures, 45-50 will be Papa Murphy’s stores, he said.

“Papa Murphy's certainly in the U.S. has been struggling more than our other brands as of recent,” Lefebvre said in the transcript.

He described the pizza space as “extremely competitive in the U.S.,” despite a sales lift for Papa Murphy's that correlated with the U.S. team’s last World Cup game.

Papa Murphy’s location numbers have been dwindling for several years, from 1,404 when MTY acquired the chain in 2019 to 1,049 as of late last year, according to the parent company.

The chain is known for its take-and-bake approach to pizza, with customers buying pre-made pies to bake at home.

In Wisconsin, there were 68 Papa Murphy’s locations as of this week, according to the brand’s website.

Of the 68 stores slotted for closure across MTY, some are set to shutter as early as this week, but the entire process could take up to nine months and is estimated to cost $10 million Canadian to $12 million Canadian, according to Lefebvre.