Back in the golden age of fast-casual pizza, Pieology Pizzeria was one of numerous concepts vying for the title of “the Chipotle of pizza.” Now it’s facing bankruptcy as its store count has plummeted over the past several years.
Pieology, owned by The Little Brown Box Pizza, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 8. It listed between $100,000 and $500,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities.
Fast-casual pizza was once a turbo-charged segment, led by Pieology, MOD Pizza, Blaze Pizza and the granddaddy of them all, Your Pie in Atlanta. It was so red-hot, Blaze Pizza attracted celebrity investors like LeBron James and Maria Shriver. For its part, Pieology once counted NBA star Kevin Durant among its investors.
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In its Concepts 2020 report, Technomic named fast-casual the “next hot concept.”
Bounding far ahead of that curve, Carl Chang, a real estate developer, co-founded Pieology in 2011 with then-partner James Markham. A few years earlier, Markham had helped launch MOD Pizza with Ally and Scott Svenson but left that brand amid disagreements with the Svensons over the company’s direction. Before long, Markham had also sold his share of Pieology and started Project Pie, another fast-casual entry that proved to be short-lived.
Pieology kept sprouting new locations without Markham—for a while. In 2015, Pieology boasted 35 stores; it eventually grew to 200-plus units, but by post-pandemic 2022, when former Burger King executive Shawn Thompson assumed the reins as CEO, it reported having 130 locations. By 2024 it reportedly had 103 stores. At present, Pieology’s website lists about 40 stores in Hawaii, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Florida and Guam.
As PMQ sister publication QSR reported in 2024, Thompson was initially focused less on expansion than course correction when he became Pieology’s CEO. At the time, he said he planned to carefully review the brand’s playbook—from digital footprint to operations and new prototype design—before returning to “aggressive growth with the right partners.”
Thompson acknowledged that the fast-casual pizza segment has gone a little stagnant in the post-pandemic world, especially as off-premise dining has exploded and more Americans work—and eat their lunch—at home. “You haven’t seen fast-casual pizza follow the same channels of digital evolution and product evolution,” Thompson told QSR last year. “It just hasn’t changed as much as the world has, and due to some of those missteps, growth has really stagnated within this space.”
An oversaturated market likely hasn’t helped Pieology either. In the fast-casual segment alone, Pieology’s competitors include national players like Blaze and MOD and regional brands such as &pizza, each of which has had its problems in the past few years. It’s also competing with giants like Domino’s and Papa Johns as well as with convenience stores that have upped their fresh-baked pizza game and even with improved frozen pizza options at supermarkets.
Pieology certainly isn’t alone in its struggles. Fired Pie, based in Arizona, filed for Chapter 11 protection last year. That same year MOD Pizza teetered on the edge of bankruptcy before it was acquired by Elite Restaurant Group. Blaze Pizza closed down a net 31 locations in 2024 as well, and Pie Five, which once had 100-plus stores, is now down to fewer than 20.
Meanwhile, California Pizza Kitchen, although not a fast-casual brand, was quietly sold off in November 2025 for less than $300 million—another victim, it seems, of an overall trend away from dine-in.
