A Take-and-Bake Giant Is Closing Up to 50 Stores, and It Says Something About What Diners Really Want

Papa Murphy's parent company just confirmed dozens of store closures nationwide, and the reasons behind it point to a simple truth: people are tired of finishing the cooking themselves.

The Announcement, Plainly

MTY Food Group, the Canadian company that owns Papa Murphy's along with a wide portfolio of other quick-service brands, told investors on its July 10 second quarter earnings call that it would shutter 68 corporate-owned restaurants across its network, and that 45 to 50 of those would be Papa Murphy's locations. The affected stores had collectively generated more than 10 million Canadian dollars in losses, and MTY says each one was evaluated individually against its own financial forecast and local market conditions before the decision was made.

CEO Eric Lefebvre put it plainly on the call, saying that where the fundamentals no longer support a location staying open, the company will close it. Closures began the week of July 13 and will roll out gradually over roughly six to nine months, MTY said, to manage staffing, lease negotiations and supply chains as they go. The chain had already slid from 1,168 restaurants in 2023 to 1,014 by 2025, so this new round of cuts touches the majority of what remains of its company-owned footprint.

Why the Take-Home Box Is the One Struggling

Papa Murphy's occupies an unusual corner of the pizza business. Unlike a delivery chain, it sells you a raw, assembled pizza and sends you home to bake it yourself. For years that model worked because it split the difference between a frozen pizza and a delivery order, cheaper than dinner out, fresher than the freezer aisle. But it also asks something no other format does: that the customer finish the job, timing an oven correctly, cleaning up the mess, and hoping the crust came out the way the picture on the box promised.

That extra step has become a harder sell in a year when diners already feel stretched thin on time and patience. Pizza Hut and Papa John's have each announced their own rounds of store closures in 2026, so Papa Murphy's is not alone in the retrenchment. But those chains at least deliver a finished pie to your door. A take-and-bake concept is asking people to do more work for less certainty about the result, and in a crowded pizza market, that is a tough pitch to keep making.

What We Think This Means for How Vegas Eats

None of this is really about one chain's balance sheet. It is about what people want from a night with pizza on the table, and the answer keeps pointing the same direction: away from anything that feels like a project. Whether it is a take-and-bake box that needs 15 minutes in a home oven or a frozen pie from a grocery freezer, the appetite for doing the cooking yourself is shrinking, and the appetite for someone else handling it, start to finish, is growing.

We see it in the questions people ask us on a busy Friday night, whether the dough is made fresh that day, whether the oven is wood fired, whether the sauce comes from a jar or a stovetop. Those questions are really about the same thing Papa Murphy's customers were quietly voting on with their wallets: they want the whole experience handled, not handed to them half finished. A dining room where the pizza comes out already perfect, with the smell hitting the table before the plate does, is exactly the opposite of a cardboard box and a set of baking instructions.

A Category in Retreat, Not a Craving

It is worth separating the two things happening at once here. Pizza itself is not struggling. Chains like Domino's have posted strong sales this year even as rivals cut locations, which tells you the demand for a good, hot pie has not gone anywhere. What is struggling is any format that puts distance between the oven and the moment you eat, whether that is a long delivery wait or a box you finish cooking yourself at home.

That is the gap a neighborhood Italian kitchen is built to close. There is no assembly required, no guessing at oven temperature, no cardboard smell lingering after the box comes out. Just a pie built and baked the same night you eat it, by someone who has done it a few thousand times before.

Why a Finished Pie Beats a Kit Every Time

If the take-and-bake slump has taught the pizza world anything, it is that most people would rather eat than assemble. Here is what a made-to-order pie gives you that a box in the back seat never can.

1. An oven that actually gets hot enough: A home oven rarely clears 500 degrees. Ours runs far hotter, which is the real reason a crust blisters and chars instead of just turning tan.
2. A crust that never sat in a cold car: Dough that goes from prep to oven in minutes bakes differently than one that traveled home first and waited its turn.
3. Someone watching it the whole time: No guessing at a timer. A cook who has fired hundreds of pies knows the moment a pizza is actually ready.
4. No cleanup afterward: A box means a pan to wash and a kitchen to wipe down. A dining room means you just get up and leave happy.
5. Real-time changes: Want extra basil or a lighter hand on the sauce? A kitchen can adjust mid order in a way a sealed box cannot.
6. The smell before the first bite: Half the pleasure of a good pizza is walking past the oven on the way to your table. A box skips that entirely.
7. A glass of wine that actually pairs: A Chianti or a cold Peroni alongside a hot slice is part of the meal, not an afterthought bought separately.

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