this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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Economics

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Papa Johns is the latest pizza chain to close hundreds of locations following a tough quarter as customers pull back on spending.

The company revealed during Thursday’s earnings call that approximately 300 underperforming restaurants in North America will close by the end of 2027, with about 200 of them shuttering this year.

The affected restaurants are those “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,” said Ravi Thanawala, Papa Johns chief financial officer and president of the chain’s North America operations.

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[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 5 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Can someone explain if this is going to be common? The poverty line is just going to go up indefinitely so will this just be the normal?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 10 hours ago

Likely. A lot of consumer facing companies have issued warnings that working and middle class spending is cratering because people don't have money to spend. I won't be surprised if a lot of fast food restaurants go under or at least shrink considerably due to a collapse in market demand.

[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

If anybody DOES explain whether it's going to be common, take that person's words with an appropriately large amount of skepticism. At the end of the day, "common" is a pretty ambiguous and subjective qualifier, and no matter how smart someone is, they aren't psychic.

From a near(ish) term perspective: The USA is said to be experiencing a K-shaped economic recovery, and to some degree, the economy is bifurcating.

One simplistic way of viewing this is: Businesses that resonate with upper middle class and higher income consumers are, by and large, doing quite well. Businesses that can operate on low margins (often b/c of operating on enormous scale, ability to race to the bottom or already there, limited/no ethical principles, etc) are doing okay.

For everything else, it's volatile. In my opinion, a lot of this is due to unprecedented, senseless, and chaotic federal polices that are unpredictable and occurring at a pace too frenzied for all but the nimblest or luckiest (well-positioned) businesses to successfully adapt without a lot of pain.

A lot of these middle ground establishments won't survive if they don't change, navigating that change is hard. They'll have to join the race to the bottom, be lucky, get bought out, partake in massive layoffs/closures, and things like that.

So, from that perspective, I would expect to see this happen more often than before to former big and recognizable names.

If by some chance there is a massive shift in federal policy sometime soon, that could obviously alleviate some of this. Hard to say though, the damage may already be done or worse things may be on the horizon (remember how COVID went down?).

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Thing is, Papa John's is WAY overpriced. Last time I got a pizza there it was over $30.

So PJ's isn't exactly for "lower income".

Little Caesars is 1/3 the price and not really a lesser pizza. PJ's just ain't that good.

My local joint sells a pizza that's 10x better than PJ's for $20.

Then PJ's tacked on major delivery fees to boot. Fuck em.