After bankruptcy, another popular pizza chain closes restaurants | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Launching a successful pizza chain might be the hardest feat in the restaurant business.

That’s because the space is already crowded, and most people already have a favorite pizza chain. In addition to that, the pizza business has been flooded with players like Domino’s, Papa John’s, and Marco’s Pizza, which have made it super easy for people to get decent (at least many people believe that) pies at cheap prices.

New players in the pizza arena pretty much can’t compete on price or convenience. That’s a position owned by Domino’s, which has invested heavily in making sure it can get people a low-priced pizza wherever they might be.

Papa John’s and Marco’s haven’t quite equalled what Domino’s offers, but they have set a high bar for new players.

Succeeding in the pizza space requires offering something different or delivering a pizza that’s notably better than what’s out there. Blaze Pizza, for example, grew quickly by offering a made-to-order pizza model that has not been widely available before.

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The problem is that the made-to-order space is not something Blaze could own. Competitors simply copied the model, and that makes it harder for the original to succeed.

Another would-be pizza player has been struggling since a 2022 Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it continues to close stores.

Despite the efforts of The Noid, Domino’s has beena dominant pizza place for decades.

Image source&colon; Domino’s/Shutterstock/TheStreet

Bertucci’s pioneered the brick oven

When I was in high school in the late ’80s and early ’90s, my friends and I would fairly regularly make the pilgrimage from Swampscott, Ma to Somerville, a Boston suburb, to visit the original Bertucci’s location. It was a unique place that offered bocce courts and pizza that was worth the drive.

The chain used a brick oven, which, while common at the time, was very novel back then.

“A brick oven pizza cooks much differently than your typical commercial oven. There are two types of heat created within a brick oven, and both are essential to creating the signature flavors found throughout Bertucci’s menu,” the company shared on its website.

The brick oven isn’t just a gimmick. It’s an Italian tradition and it allows for pizzas to cook properly.

Restaurant bankruptcies:

“Pizza cooked in a brick oven is placed directly onto the hot bricks, called the brick oven floor. The floor contains ‘bottom heat,’ which crisps and cooks the crust. The ‘top heat’ of the oven is created by the flames providing even heat distribution which cooks the pizza toppings and crust to a perfect golden brown finish at the same time,” it added.

That was a major differentiator for the chain, which grew steadily through the 90s, 00s, and part of the 2010s before hitting a brick wall and filing for bankruptcy in 2018, which was followed by a second filing in 2022.

Bertucci’s has been dying a slow death

Since Berucci’s second bankrupty in 2022, the chain has been slowly shrinking. Results have also steadily gotten worse.

The pizza chain reported over $120 million in annual sales im 2019, but sales fell to $97.9 million in 2021 and operating losses were $14 million with a net loss of $7.2 million, according to the filing. In 2018, the company had 56 locations, but that number has steadily dropped.

Bertucci’s has quietly been closing restaurants, with recent shutdowns in Chestnut Hill, Holliston, Westborough, Somerville, Braintree, Woburn, and Reading, Massachusetts. That leaves the company with only 20 locations — about a third of the size the company was at is peak.

The chain has not commented on its closures, but when it closed in Swampscott (my hometown) in 2024, it did post a sign on the door.

“Our apologies that your favorite location, Bertucci’s Swampscott, is closed. Thank you for the years of loyalty to Bertucci’s,” the sign read.

The chain is, however, hopeful on its website that new growth could come.

“Bertucci’s plans to continue to grow our concept. We are always looking for great new locations to share our brick oven authentic Italian food,” the company shared in its FAQ.