The Once-Popular All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Chain That You Probably Forgot Existed

It's a sad, sad day when you bring up your old favorite restaurant chain and the name has become so obscure that youngsters don't even recognize it anymore. We've had to say goodbye to several beloved all-you-can-eat buffets over the years, but many former customers are still confused about the sudden and silent closure of Eatza Pizza. Eatza Pizza was a chain that many 2000s kids remember fondly, but barely a decade after opening, it vanished.

Eatza Pizza was best known for its all-you-can-eat buffet, which served rows and rows of endless pizzas and pastas, as well as fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and housemade Zatos (a fried potato specialty). There was even a salad bar. You could grab a slice or two of Sicilian pizza, fill up your salad bowl, stuff yourself on dessert, and send the kids off to play in the restaurant's decked-out games room. It was something like a CiCi's Pizza, with the elaborate pizza offerings and old-school arcades, even if customers say Pizza Inn beats CiCi's by a long shot. At the height of its popularity, Eatza Pizza had close to 100 restaurants across several states, but the happy times didn't last long.

Originally opened in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1997, Eatza Pizza drew customers in with the promises of a pizza buffet featuring at least 18 different options at any given time, along with an extensive selection of desserts. Even if a different restaurant claims the title of the best all-you-can-eat buffet in Arizona, Eatza Pizza is still largely remembered as "when pizza was actually pizza and tasted good," according to a commenter on Facebook. "All you can eat pizza and they had the best dessert pizza ever..." reminisced another fan on Reddit, adding that they "wish it was still around."

By the mid-2000s, things went downhill fast for Eatza Pizza. It had already changed hands once in 2003, but by 2007, the buffet restaurant found itself in hot water with a lawsuit from two creditors, though the exact reasoning was never disclosed. Following several closures later that same year, the chain was purchased by International Franchise Associates. The company had plans to open hundreds of new locations across the country; however, by 2008, Eatza Pizza filed for bankruptcy and became one of those beloved pizza chains that completely vanished.