Pizza should be the perfect food for challenging economic times.
It’s filling, relatively affordable, and comfortable. You can feed a family of four a pizza meal for under $30, and most people (especially kids) will be happy with the choice.
That doesn’t mean every pizza chain is thriving. Both Pizza Hut and Papa John’s are closing hundreds of restaurants, while Americans have significantly changed their eating habits.
“While food-service continues to dominate with ordering by nearly two-thirds monthly, delivery will decline from 61% in 2022 to 55% in 2025, according to the 2025 Technomic Pizza Consumer Trends Report. The most telling change: 25% of consumers report that they’d rather eat a pizza at a restaurant than pay for it.”
In a broader sense, pizza chains have struggled since the Covid-19 pandemic boom.
“In 2024, the pizza segment struggled significantly, with data from Technomic’s top 500 restaurants showing sales declines for 61% of pizza chains. Only one pizza brand—Fort Worth-based pizza buffet chain Mr. Getty’s Pizza—managed to achieve double-digit growth. It’s the super least where pizza sales declined. The coffee segment, where 88% of chains saw positive sales growth,” according to Nation’s Restaurant News.
Now, Gina Maria’s Pizza has closed all of its restaurants with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
Northern Brands, doing business under the Gina Maria’s Pizza brand name, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on March 26, according to court documents in PacerMonitor.
“Gina Maria’s Pizza abruptly closed its four western Twin Cities locations in October without giving reasons,” Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.
A Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing means a brand wants to liquidate, not restructure.
More pizza stories from TheStreet:
“Northern Brands Inc. — which operated Gina Maria’s Pizza locations in Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, Edina and Plymouth — has about $2.9 million in liabilities and about $64,000 in assets, according to court filings. The filing lists Porfioro Godinez as the official representative of Filio Itz as the company’s debtor Itz’s business representative. The Journal added.
A California pizza restaurant using the same name is not included in the filing and appears to have no connection to the entity that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Gina Maria Pizza sudden stop According to Bring Me the News, all four of its Twin Cities locations, Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, Edina and Plymouth, were closed in October 2025, with the chain announcing on its website that it had “officially closed its doors”.
came with the closure Small advance warning. All restaurant phone numbers now play an automated message saying the locations are permanently closed, Bring Me the News added.
According to EPLocalNews, Gina Maria’s is a longtime local favorite originally established in 1975.
Local coverage notes that the sudden closing reflects pressure from the broader restaurant industry in the Twin Cities by late 2025, according to Eater Twin Cities.
Debtor: NORTHERN BRANDS, INC., doing business as Gina Maria’s Pizza, is the corporate entity behind the pizza chain. Case Number: The bankruptcy was assigned case number 26-41005. Assets: Petitioner reported assets in the range of $0 to $100,000. Liabilities: The filing listed liabilities in the range of $1 million to $10 million. Filing Type: This was a voluntary filing initiated by the debtor (company). Court: U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. Sources: Bankruptcy Monitor, PacerMonitor
Pizza sales are down nationally. Shutterstock ·Shutterstock
“Nearly one in ten people eat pizza every day. It’s one of the most affordable, shareable and reliable foods in the country. What has changed is customer tolerance. normal Pizza (aka Chain Pizza), Slice.com reported.
A pizza-industry website asked more than 100,000 people for predictions about what 2026 will bring for pizza, and this is what they had to say.
Emphasis on digital ordering will increase.
Foot-traffic-only stores will not survive.
The $1 slice era is officially dead.
AI phone support will become an industry standard, versus a nice-to-have.
Consumers in 2026 will be looking for new menu items and more things they haven’t tried yet.
“Food trends move four times faster than before 2020 and stores need to adapt. When an influencer posts about a new flavor or topping, customers expect to see it locally within weeks. Stores willing to do this will get business,” shared the Pizza Business website.
Papa John’s CEO Todd Penegor, speaking at the annual ICR conference in January, thinks a return to simplicity is part of the solution, Nation’s Restaurant News reported.
“We’ve made it really difficult to operate our restaurants,” he said. “We’ve added a lot of SKUs over the last few years, and a lot of tie-breakers. We’ll look at some low-running SKUs and take them out of the rotation. We want to sprinkle some great innovation around the core menu…We really need to get back to being the best pizzamakers in the business.”
RELATED: After bankruptcy rescue, fast food chain faces Chapter 7
This story was originally published by TheStreet on April 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the Restaurants section. Add TheStreet as a preferred source by clicking here.
