Papa Murphy’s Is Basically a Ghost Kitchen Now, and Y’all Are Still Paying for the Vibes
Look, I get it. You saw that neon "Take N' Bake" sign glowing in the strip mall next to the vape shop and the abandoned Blockbuster, and your inner 2012 soccer mom screamed, "YES! Dinner that requires my own oven and my own effort, but with extra steps!"
But here’s the cold, hard, gluten-free crust reality: Papa Murphy’s is circling the drain faster than a greasy pepperoni slide down a clogged toilet. The chain that promised you "fresh, never frozen" dough is now serving up a piping hot plate of corporate desperation, and the only thing being baked is their bottom line.
Let’s do the math, because clearly their CFO can’t. This company is getting absolutely bodied by a perfect storm of terrible decisions, changing consumer habits, and the fact that nobody, and I mean *nobody*, wants to preheat their oven to 425 degrees after working a 9-to-5 while simultaneously wrestling a toddler who thinks a cheese pull is a wrestling move.
First off, let’s address the elephant in the room: the "experience." Papa Murphy’s is the only pizza place where you pay full price for a DIY project. It’s like buying a $20 IKEA bookshelf that requires a Phillips head screwdriver, but instead of a bookshelf, you get a heart attack wrapped in cardboard. You’re paying for the privilege of doing half the work. And for what? To throw it in your oven for 20 minutes and have it come out tasting like a slightly better version of a gas station hot pocket? Meanwhile, Domino's is delivering a lava-crusted, stuffed-crust abomination to your door in 15 minutes, and it’s still hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth. You’re paying for convenience, and Papa Murphy’s is selling you a chore.
But the real dagger? They’re getting rinsed by the grocery store. Costco sells a pizza the size of a manhole cover for $9.99. It’s already baked. You just have to get it home before you eat it in the car. Walmart has those $5 "Delissio" joints that slap when you're drunk. Even the frozen aisle is mocking them. When you’re losing market share to the frozen section of a Kroger, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.
The company’s response? Cue the sad trombone. They’re shuttering locations like they’re going out of style, trying to pivot to "digital-first" and delivery partnerships. But here’s the thing—they had a massive head start on the "ghost kitchen" concept without even realizing it. A store with no dine-in is literally a ghost kitchen, and they fumbled the bag so hard that they’re now the punchline of every "corporate chain struggling to adapt" article on Medium.
Their "new" strategy is to lean into the delivery platforms. My brother in Christ, you are a take-and-bake establishment. You are literally asking people to pay a DoorDash driver to bring them a raw pizza. That’s like ordering a frozen TV dinner through Uber Eats and paying a $6 delivery fee for the privilege of microwaving it yourself. The math isn't mathing, and the margins are thinner than their gluten-free crust.
And don’t even get me started on the quality control. I went to my local Papa Murphy’s last week, and I swear the staff looked like they were being held hostage by a broken dough-sheeter. The "artisan" crusts are now the same bland, cracker-like discs you get at a bowling alley. The toppings? Let’s just say if you order the "Supreme," you’re getting three slices of green pepper and a single, lonely black olive that’s clearly been there since the Bush administration.
The franchisees are bleeding out. They’re stuck with these massive retail footprints in dead malls, paying corporate royalties for the privilege of selling raw dough to people who are now realizing they could just, you know, buy a ball of dough from the bakery section and do the same thing for three bucks. The parent company, MTY Food Group, bought them in 2018, thinking they were getting a steal. Now they’re realizing they bought a lemon with a side of ranch dip. They’re trying to sell off assets, but nobody wants to buy a brand whose entire customer base is nostalgic millennials who remember when "Take N' Bake" was a novel idea in 1995.
Let’s be real about the customer base, too. It’s either the aforementioned nostalgic millennials, or it’s the boomers who still think "shrinkflation" is a made-up word. But the Gen Z crowd? They want their pizza delivered by a robot, or they want a wood-fired Neapolitan joint that charges $18 for a margherita and calls it "artisanal." Papa Murphy’s falls into the uncanny valley of pizza: too expensive for the working class, too crappy for the foodies, and too inconvenient for everyone else.
The final nail in the coffin? Their loyalty program. They launched "Papa Rewards" or whatever, and I’m pretty sure it just emails you coupons for a free cookie dough, which you then have to bake yourself. The audacity is staggering. "Congratulations, you spent $200 on raw pizza dough, here’s another raw dessert you have to cook." It’s like a bad breakup where the ex gives you a gift card to Home Depot because they don't actually know you.
So, what’s the endgame here? Chapter 11. Bankruptcy. The inevitable "strategic restructuring" that ends with 90% of the stores shuttering and the remaining ones becoming a weird nostalgia brand that survives on TikTok videos of people reviewing their "sad, raw pizza." I give it two years, tops, before they’re being sold for parts to a private equity firm that strips the brand and sells the real estate.
In the meantime, if you have a Papa Murphy’s
Final Thoughts
There’s a bittersweet irony in watching Papa Murphy’s struggle: the brand that pioneered the brilliant "take-and-bake" niche—eliminating overhead costs that crush its rivals—now finds itself a victim of its own rigid model, unable to pivot when consumer habits shifted toward delivery apps and hot, ready-to-eat convenience. The real lesson here isn’t about pizza, but about the peril of mistaking a clever operational workaround for a durable moat; in today’s food service economy, you can’t win on a format alone if you don’t also own the last 100 feet to the customer’s door. Ultimately, Papa Murphy’s isn’t dying because people stopped loving pizza, but because the industry stopped waiting for a customer to take it home and bake it themselves.