Pizza Hut Will Shutter 250 U.S. Locations As Yum Weighs The Brand's Future

One of the biggest names in American chain restaurants will be taking a hit to start this year, as Yum Brands has announced it will be closing 250 Pizza Hut locations in the first quarter of the year. The revelation came from the recent Q4 2025 earnings call for Yum Brands, which also owns Taco Bell, KFC, and The Habit. Last year, the corporation announced a "strategic review" to maximize shareholder value for the massive pizza chain, which included hints that it was considering a sale of the brand. On the recent call, Yum Brands CFO Ranjith Roy says the 250 underperforming store closures in the United States are tied to what Yum is calling the "Hut Forward" program to get Pizza Hut back on track.

The 250 Pizza Hut locations Yum is closing represent about 4% of the country's total locations, which currently stand at slightly under 6,400 restaurants. That number already represents a decline of 6,550 locations at the start of 2025, indicating around 150 locations were already closed last year.

Pizza Hut has been struggling to compete with Domino's and other pizza chains for a long time now, but the last few years have been especially bad. In 2025, the brand saw a 1% decline in same-store sales worldwide, but it was even worse in the U.S., as sales declined around 5%. And that trend isn't new, as Pizza Hut has seen declining sales for 12 of the last 16 quarters, going back to 2022.

While chain restaurants have been facing difficult conditions across the industry, Pizza Hut has performed particularly poorly. Domino's sales have actually steadily grown over the past two years, and the third-largest pizza chain in the U.S., Little Caesars, has actually been one of the fastest-growing pizza brands in the country. Pizza Hut's struggles are particularly noticeable next to its Yum Brands sibling, Taco Bell, which has remained one of the strongest performers in fast food for years.

Yum has not outlined what the future looks like for Pizza Hut beyond this, and says the strategic review is still ongoing. Its only other suggestions as to what the Hut Forward program to turn the chain around might look like include vague statements about vibrant marketing and modernization of technology. However, Yum did say it plans to complete the review of Pizza Hut's business this year. Over the last decade, it has been increasingly moving away from its larger, sit-down stores to takeout-and-delivery focused locations, but that has not yielded improved sales. Without its defining difference, Pizza Hut's once popular products have been left floundering in a sea of competitors, which usually offer better prices, in a time when customers are looking to cut back on spending due to inflation. Pizza Hut is still a huge name, so it will be here to stay for a while, but it may not be with Yum Brands for long.