This Fast-Casual Trendsetter Changed How We Eat Pizza — And Is Disappearing

Being one of the first movers in a new industry is usually a huge advantage that leads to a company becoming one of the established big players, think Chipotle and fast casual dining, but as plenty of aspiring innovators have learned in the past decade, pizza chains are a brutal business. The 2010s were rife with new pizza concepts, like Blaze and MOD, and each were anointed the future of the industry at some point. In fact, fast casual pizza was so considered the next big thing in that even big name celebs were getting involved in the restaurants, with basketball stars LeBron James and Dwayne Wade owning portions of Blaze and 800° Woodfired Kitchen respectively. But the 2020s have been less kind, and one of the founding brands of the sector, Pie Five, is now in danger of disappearing completely.

Pie Five was once one of the growing stars of fast casual dining. They were an innovator in the "make your own" customizable pizza industry, with a unique-for-the-time concept that emphasized fresh, made-to-order pizzas that were ready in just five minutes. The chain was actually created by the popular pizza buffet business, Pizza Inn. The brand opened the first Pie Five in 2011, a time when Pizza Inn itself was struggling with its business. This was a year before the first Blaze Pizza opened, and Pie Five managed to get a jump start on the burgeoning fast casual pizza trend, expanding to 100 locations in just five years.

Pie Five's success peaked in 2017, but unfortunately that was also around the peak for fast casual pizza. At the time fast casual pizza was rapidly growing in sales, even while the industry as a whole was contracting, and pizza was the single largest sector in the fast casual space. The build-your-own pie concept, and the speed of cooking made pizza a natural fit for the fast casual model, and of course everybody in America loves pizza.

But it was in those last few facts that you could also see the beginning of Pie Five's downfall, along with the rapid decline of fast casual pizza. Even just a few years after the trend kicked off the market was already saturated with competition. In addition to Blaze and MOD, Pie Five was facing off against 800° Woodfired Kitchen, &pizza, Pieology, and upstarts that never quite made it big, like PizzaRev from Buffalo Wild Wings. Blaze and MOD had become the big names in the industry, the Chipotle of pizza they were all competing to be, and the others quickly fell off the map.

Despite peaking in 2017, Pie Five was already showing signs of distress that year. It ended 2017 down to 84 restaurants, and faced a lawsuit from franchisees claiming the company had misled investors about just how profitable the chain really was. And then there was competition from the larger pizza industry, including from its own business partner.

Pie Five never stopped shrinking after 2017, and the chain is now really struggling, being down to only 17 locations. It was hit hard by competition in a growing industry, and that made the pandemic even harder to survive, forcing the chain to close ten locations in 2020. Pizza sales overall have also slumped since the pandemic, but fast casual pizza has been particularly hard hit, with every major player seeing sales declines in 2024, and MOD Pizza almost declaring bankruptcy.

The few bright spots have been older brands like Dominos and Papa John's, and that shows part of the problem with Pie Five, and fast casual pizza. While seeming like a match made in fast food heaven, the reality is that most popular pizza chains, and local spots, are already very fast and offer plenty of customization. Waiting five minutes for a pizza in store isn't much more convenient than ordering ahead and grabbing a pizza to go. In fact, one of the other recent success stories is Pie Five's partner, Pizza Inn, which also saw strong recent sales growth that beat the market. It's gotten to the point where some Pie Five locations are being used as ghost kitchens for Pizza Inn. When a parent company has a brand in the same market that's outshining you, it's bound to get the financial support. Pie Five isn't dead, but its days may be numbered.