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Papa Murphy’s is headed for more closures.
Parent company MTY Food Group told investors during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that it expects to close 68 underperforming corporate-owned restaurants over the next nine months. Of these, between 45 and 50 stores will be Papa Murphy’s branches.
Most of the closures will occur in the third quarter, with the first scheduled to begin this week. The 68 closures represent about 1 percent of MTY’s systemwide restaurant base.
The move comes after MTY attempted to revive a collection of stores it reclaimed from Papa Murphy’s franchises about two years ago.
“After nearly two years of efforts and some successful changes in those markets, we concluded that these markets are probably not appropriate for Papa Murphy’s at this time, and we decided to close many of these stores in these locations,” MTY CEO Eric Lefebvre told analysts.
The take-and-bake chain is one of several pizza concepts struggling to gain traction in the United States. Pizza Hut (which will be sold to LongRange Capital) and Papa Johns are closing hundreds of restaurants. In the fast-casual category, Blaze Pizza changed CEOs, Pieology filed for bankruptcy, MOD Pizza was sold to avoid bankruptcy and Pie Five, which once had 100 stores, now has fewer than 20.
Papa Murphy’s has seen a decline in the number of stores in the United States for nine consecutive years. It closed 523 national restaurants between the end of 2016 and 2025.
Here’s how the brand’s unit count has changed in the US. The figures below are year-end totals.
2016: 1,537
2017: 1,479
2018: 1,397
2019: 1,330
2020: 1,289
2021: 1,239
2022: 1,168
2023: 1,127
2024: 1,044
2025: 1,014
MTY’s general closure announcement follows a comprehensive review of the company’s operated portfolio. Collectively, the locations lost more than $10 million over the past 12 months, prompting management to take what Lefebvre described as a decisive step to improve the long-term health and profitability of the business.
The closures will cost between $10 million and $12 million due to lease termination and related expenses. Still, MTY believes the plan will improve future profitability by eliminating stores whose financial prospects no longer justify additional investment. Restaurants scheduled to close saw average sales declines of approximately 8 to 9 percent, significantly worse than the broader system.
“This was a store-by-store process in which we evaluated the performance prospects and economic profile of each location,” Lefebvre said. “When we saw a path to improvement, we decided to continue investing efforts to make our existing assets as productive as possible. When the fundamentals no longer supported that path, we made the decision to close up shop.”
