4 Once-Beloved American Pizza Chains That Failed Miserably
In the ever-evolving landscape of the American restaurant industry, even something as beloved as a pizza chain isn't secure. While our desire for pizza will never wane, there are also more places to get a pie than ever before. We are completely saturated with pizzerias big and small, from Domino's to your neighborhood slice joint.
It's no wonder, then, that some pizza chains, no matter how iconic they were at the height of their popularity, simply crumbled under pressure. Think of the pioneering days of Pizza Haven, a brand that brought pizza delivery to the forefront of customer demand, or the playful ShowBiz Pizza Place, which combined culinary delights and entertainment. Both have had major success for a while but ultimately lost the battle with other, more versatile competitors.
Just like the iconic steakhouse chains and burger chains that suddenly went out of business, these pizza brands have fallen a long way from their glory days.
Pizza Haven
One of the progenitors of the pizza delivery era, Pizza Haven is now but a bygone relic for pepperoni lovers in the Pacific Northwest. The chain originated in Seattle in 1958, operating as a once-revolutionary dial-a-pizza format that made it one of the first on the market for such a brand. At its height, Pizza Haven had 42 locations in the Pacific Northwest and California, but its days were numbered as it became a casualty of the 1990s' pizza delivery wars.
As mammoth companies like Pizza Hut and Domino's emerged, Pizza Haven couldn't keep up. Eventually, it went the way of Blockbuster Video and filed for bankruptcy in the late '90s before disappearing entirely.
ShowBiz Pizza Place
A pizza place with games, rides, and creepy animatronics—sound familiar? If you guessed Chuck E. Cheese, you might be surprised to learn that there was actually another oddly similar concept that predated the rodent-themed pizza playpen. The concept was called ShowBiz Pizza Place, a kid-centric eatery that served pizza with a side of shenanigans.
Initially opened in Kansas City in 1980, ShowBiz featured an animatronic stage show called Rock-afire Explosion, starring a hillbilly bear called Billy Bon, a musical gorilla, and a spirited mouse.
Unsurprisingly, there really is only room for one animatronic pizza place, so when Chuck E. Cheese became the de facto brand for ball pits and pizza, it eventually took over ShowBiz and converted all locations by 1992, leaving the brand's origins in the 1980s dust. Of course, the fact that Chuck E. Cheese has gone through bankruptcy and resorted to selling frozen pizza is not exactly the pinnacle of success either, so only time will tell how much longer America will have a pizza place with animatronic critters.
Cap'ns Galley Pizza & Pipes
This place took the concept of dinner and live music to a whole new level. As the name suggests, the chain served up delicious pies to an audience of awe-struck diners enjoying live performances on giant Wurlitzer organs. You know, the kind you'd hear being played at church. And if this sounds super dated, you're absolutely right: this music-food combo was popular some 50-60 years ago.
The Pizza & Pipes chain was actually on the precipice of a larger cultural dining movement that had spread to about 100 restaurants in the '70s and '80s. The Cap'ns Galley chain, founded by Bill Breuer in 1968, however, only managed to open nine locations in California and Washington before fizzling out in the '90s. In 2001, the final Santa Clara locations closed its doors for good.
Pizza Cucinova
While nowhere near as prolific as Pizza Haven and but a blip on the radar compared to omnipresent entities like Domino's, Pizza Cucinova was an Ohio-based mini-chain with a loyal following that seems to have vanished overnight. Without any formal announcement or acknowledgment (its website no longer works, and its last Instagram post was in 2019), all five locations were shut down, giving artisan pizza-loving Ohioans no time to grieve.
The company's lifespan was short. It first opened in 2013 and then grew to a handful of outposts—some of which never returned after the initial pandemic-induced closures. The chain was owned by Florida-based Vivaria Group, which bought Pizza Cucinova from Sbarro—a chain notorious for its own struggles—which certainly speaks volumes about its chances in a pizza-saturated market.
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