People Are Ordering Smaller Pizzas and Fewer Toppings. What Does That Tell Us?

For much of this year, business at Prima Pizza Kitchen in Somerville, New Jersey, was booming.

On most Fridays, as many as 325 pizzas would fly out its doors, with customers frequently adding drinks and side orders. But in recent weeks, orders began to change, owner Jerry Carollo said.

“Before, a customer would get two pies, wings, garlic knots and soda, all of the extras,” Carollo said. “Now, they’re just doing the pizzas.”

To varying degrees, those sentiments are being echoed across the country by large pizza chains and small independent restaurants. Pizza, with its gooey cheese, sometimes topped with crisp, glistening rounds of pepperoni or bright strips of green peppers, has long played a quintessential role in American households. It is a comfort food for uncomfortable times that traditionally could feed an entire family relatively inexpensively.

But now, as the national average price of a large cheese pizza has crept up to nearly $17, according to Slice, an online ordering platform for pizzerias, sales are slowing. Competition from other restaurants on popular delivery apps and shifting eating habits are partly responsible, but it is also an indicator that some consumers are struggling.

This summer, Bria Celest, 30, was surprised when she and her boyfriend ordered an extra-large pizza with pepperoni from Pizza Hut and the bill was nearly $30.

“I was like, ‘Wow, pizza prices have gotten insane,’” said Celest, a photographer in Los Angeles. “When I was growing up, we used to order from a local pizza place that gave us two extra-large pizzas, a two-liter soda and a side for $25.99. I would faint if I saw a deal like that these days.”

For now, pizza chains, which make up two-thirds of the nearly $50-billion-a-year industry, have seen basically flat sales since 2023, according to Technomic, a research and consulting firm for the food industry.

In October, executives at Papa John’s said customers in the most recent quarter were trading down from large to medium pizzas and adding fewer toppings. Pizza Hut, the dominant player in the 1980s that hosted children’s birthday parties and Little League Baseball celebrations, has had eight consecutive quarters of declines in same-store sales. Its parent, Yum! Brands, is weighing its options, including a possible sale of the chain.

Pizza Hut and Papa John’s declined to comment.

“The pressure on sales, particularly from lower-income consumers, is not exclusive to pizza restaurants,” said Sara Senatore, an analyst at Bank of America. “We’re hearing it across the board from other fast food and fast-casual chains, that that cohort has been under pressure for some time. And now, it’s creeping up into the middle-income consumer.”

On social media, consumers are sharing tips on how to buy pizza for less. (Download the chain’s app. Join rewards programs. Search for deals on the app.)

But an anxious consumer isn’t the only battle pizza restaurants are facing.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, pizza sales soared because it was already an established takeout or delivery food for families stuck at home. But as the use of third-party ordering and delivery apps such as Uber Eats and DoorDash rose, and other chains and food options jumped onto the platforms, pizza faced new, stiff competition for consumer dollars, analysts say.

“Pizza is still huge,” said David Portalatin, an adviser at the research firm Circana. “But chicken strips and wraps, that area has seen a lot of growth. That market share has to come from somewhere.”

On top of that, consumers are increasingly embracing wellness trends while others are on GLP-1 medications that curb their appetite. Those shifts are challenging a product that is often made with a white-flour crust, processed meats and copious amounts of cheese.

“We’re kicking around the idea of a GLP-1-friendly pizza,” said Casey Terrell, the chief marketing officer for Blaze Pizza, a chain of 270 franchised restaurants, where customers choose unlimited toppings for their 11-inch pizzas before the pies are put into an 800-degree oven for three minutes. “Something where we would embrace protein, but it would have a lower calorie count because of a cauliflower crust.”

For now, pizza chains are lining up promotions and meal deals, hoping to win back some customers.

In late August, Domino’s, the market leader, came out with a limited-time offering of $9.99 for any pizza with any toppings. The deal was popular, and the restaurant’s same-store sales increased 5.2% for the quarter that ended Sept. 7.

Executives said they were continuing to offer the pizza deal because its franchisees said it was working. “This is driving business in their stores, and it’s driving profitable business,” Russell Weiner, CEO of Domino’s, said on an earnings call with Wall Street analysts in mid-October.

Domino’s did not respond to requests for comment.

For independent pizza shops, the picture is slightly different. Overall, they are not seeing the same declines in sales as some of the chains, even though their offerings tend to be more expensive because they don’t buy in bulk, said Loren Padelford, the chief revenue officer at Slice, which has 15,000 independent pizza restaurants on its platform.

“The average independent operator is growing,” Padelford said. “It’s not a knock on Domino’s, but most of the local shops make better pizza.” He noted, however, that customers were adding fewer chicken wings and appetizers to their orders and increasingly picking up their pizzas rather than paying delivery fees.

Still, many independent pizza chains say their profits are shrinking as expenses for certain ingredients rise along with the fees to list their restaurants on platforms such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Slice. Some say they have to offer deals to compete.

“I am pushing out certain specials, a different selection of pies, across all of our social media platforms,” Carollo of Prima Pizza Kitchen said. “You really have to be in people’s faces.”

Carollo added that some costs had gone up considerably. A 25-pound box of the special pepperoni he uses has jumped to $140 from $110 just two years ago. He is also on all the third-party platforms, a necessity, he says, because they make up as much as 30% of his business even as they take 15% to 25% of his sales in fees.

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Daniel Dinari, who bought Braazo Pizza in Downtown Los Angeles two years ago, said that the restaurant was surviving, but that it wasn’t enough.

“At first, we saw an increase in sales, but it has been a constant battle, a struggle to keep it that way,” Dinari said as he strolled through a Restaurant Depot in Los Angeles, filling his cart with olive oil, ground beef, parsley and ranch dressing. He was preparing for the day before Thanksgiving, one of the biggest days of the year for pizza sales.

“Now people are more careful with money,” Dinari said. “There’s definitely a hesitation before ordering an extra appetizer or a drink.”