Pizza Needs a Turnaround. America Needs a Slice.

Pizza has entered its “It’s not you, it’s me” era, which is ridiculous because it is absolutely us.

We, the people, have apparently been ordering fewer pies and treating mozzarella like a quarterly indulgence instead of a constitutional right. This is how civilizations wobble. First, the Roman Empire, then MoviePass, now the Tuesday night large cheese.

The diagnosis is real enough to make a pizzaiolo stare sadly into the basil. In 2025, quick-service pizza sales dipped 0.3% year over year after a gain of only 0.6% in 2024 and a rise of 2.8% in 2023, Restaurant Business reported May 13, citing the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report.

“This downturn contrasts with the broader restaurant sector’s projected growth to $1.55 trillion in 2026, albeit with only 1.3% real gains after inflation,” MYTSV.COM said in a March press release.

Among restaurant chains in the United States, pizza fell to sixth place, according to the release. In the 1990s, it ranked second. Meanwhile, profits decreased across the industry to 4.1%, below the restaurant sector’s 4.7% average.

“Factors include rising labor costs (up 20% recently), urban rent hikes, and supply chain disruptions inflating ingredient prices like cheese and flour,” the release said.

Meanwhile, the price of pizza has risen like a fluffy dough. Consumers are shelling out nearly $17 on average for a large cheese pizza, up 22% over the past five years, Today reported.

The analysis gets even more marinara-on-the-apron blunt. U.S. pizza restaurant revenue has been contracting while chicken chains steal share-of-stomach, according to a January report from feasibility study consultancy MMCG Invest.

But despair is for salad. Pizza has come back from worse, including pineapple discourse, cauliflower crust and the entire “stuffed crust as product strategy” epoch.

So, where should the U.S. begin its rescue mission? Start in Rochester, New York, which Clever Real Estate crowned America’s top pizza city for 2025, ahead of Philadelphia and Boston. Detroit and Buffalo tied for fourth, while New Haven, New York and Chicago remain mandatory stops on the national slice circuit. Rochester’s edge came from passion, density and quality, while Buffalo logged a perfect Pizza Passion Score and New Haven had the most pizza restaurants per capita among the cities studied.

This is comforting. The pizza map is not merely New York versus Chicago, the food equivalent of Yankees-Red Sox with more oregano. It is Rochester, Philly tomato pies, Buffalo cup-and-char, New Haven apizza, Detroit squares, Chicago tavern cut, and whatever Los Angeles is doing with sourdough, farmers market leeks and confidence.

As for the best places to buy it, 50 Top Pizza named Una Pizza Napoletana in New York the best pizzeria in the U.S. for 2026, with Pizzeria Sei in Los Angeles and Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco tied for second, Razza in Jersey City third, and L’industrie in New York named the country’s best slice shop.

This gives us a tidy Weekender itinerary: Worship at Una, study technique at Sei, learn range at Tony’s, contemplate fermentation at Razza, then return to the street for a slice at L’industrie because democracy works best when folded in half and eaten over a paper plate.

But pizza’s next act cannot live only in the $27-negroni district. It needs both ends of the market: the truffle-scented expense-account pie and the “I have $10 and a meeting in 14 minutes” pie. On the high end, Philadelphia’s Marina’s Pizza put a $55 caviar slice on the menu, with golden osetra, a mother-of-pearl spoon customers can keep, and a gold plate they very much cannot, the Inquirer reported May 20.

On the value end, Pizza Hut is selling its 16-inch Big New Yorker for $10 at participating restaurants, which is not so much a pizza as a shareholder letter written in cheese. Walmart, meanwhile, has the freezer-door version of abundance: Totino’s, Red Baron, DiGiorno, Freschetta, Bagel Bites, and enough frozen pizza options to make your oven feel like a ghost kitchen.

The eCommerce angle is where pizza gets interesting. Pizza was delivery-native before delivery had venture capital. Domino’s joining Uber Eats and Postmates in 2023 was not just a channel move; it was the old delivery champion admitting that the consumer’s food search now starts in an app, not on a refrigerator magnet.

Pizza Today reported in December that 84% of surveyed pizzeria operators generate sales from online ordering, and that frozen and ready-to-make pizzas are becoming a 2026 revenue stream to watch. Goldbelly ships regional icons nationwide, turning pizza into a shippable memory with dry ice.

Amazon offers fast grocery delivery across more than 5,000 U.S. cities and towns, while Walmart can put frozen pizza into pickup and delivery in minutes. So no, Amazon and Walmart do not control pizza. Not yet. They control the freezer aisle, the cart, the logistics muscle and the “I forgot dinner” panic button. The local pizzeria still controls heat, smell, ritual and the sacred moment when the box opens, and everyone briefly forgives one another.

Pizza’s salvation, then, is not a discount code. It is a campaign for occasions. Make pizza feel like Friday again. Make it weird, local, social, hot, regional, collectible and occasionally covered in caviar for reasons no one needs to defend. The category does not need to become chicken. It needs to remember that it is pizza: circular optimism, cut into triangles.

The post Pizza Needs a Turnaround. America Needs a Slice. appeared first on PYMNTS.com.