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Papa Murphy’s is headed for more closures
Parent company MTY Food Group told investors during the company’s Q2 earnings call that it expects to shutter 68 underperforming corporately owned restaurants over the next nine months. Of those, between 45 and 50 stores will be Papa Murphy’s locations. Most of the shutdowns will occur in the third quarter, with the first scheduled to begin this week.
The 68 closures represent about 1 percent of MTY’s systemwide restaurant base. The move comes after MTY attempted to revive a collection of stores it took back from Papa Murphy’s franchisees about two years ago. “After nearly two years of efforts and some successful turnarounds in those markets, we came to the conclusion that these markets are probably not appropriate for Papa Murphy’s at this time, and we chose to close a lot of these stores in these locations,” MTY CEO Eric Lefebvre told analysts. The take-and-bake chain is one of several pizza concepts struggling to gain traction in the U.S.