A good idea that can’t be owned exclusively can doom a business to an endless battle with copycats.
That’s what happened during the self-serve frozen yogurt boom of the mid-to-late-2000s. One of these help-yourself, add-your-own-toppings, pay-by-weight places would come into a community and have lines out the door.
The problem is that there is nothing proprietary about self-serve frozen yogurt. TCBY, or other market leaders, can’t stop knockoffs from offering the same product. And, to make matters worse, lots of lower-end franchises offered this concept without doing any sort of market study.
That led to to many players entering each market and turning something special into something that had too much supply.
It’s a system that’s unfair to anyone first to market, but it’s common in business. Uber would be a huge hit with endless pricing power if Lyft never existed. The same can be said of Uber Eats and its various delivery rivals.
The same success leads to copycats and oversaturation thing has happened in the custom pizza space and Pie Five has been a major victim.
Self-serve frozen yogurt timeline
- Early 2000s: Traditional frozen yogurt chains like TCBY existed, but self-serve was limited.
- Mid-2000s: Pinkberry (founded 2005 in Los Angeles) sparked the trend, emphasizing “tart” flavors and toppings bars.
- 2008–2012: Explosion of self-serve chains across the U.S., often in malls, urban centers, and college towns. Social media helped fuel the trend with “Instagrammable” toppings.
- Post-2012: Growth slowed due to market saturation, rising rents, and competition from healthier dessert alternatives (froyo vs. frozen desserts like Halo Top, smoothies, etc.).
- Closures: By the late 2010s, many self-serve froyo shops had closed, with chains like Pinkberry consolidating locations and smaller independents disappearing due to declining demand.
Shannon O'Hara/Getty Images
Pie Five has struggled
Pie Five was not the company that innovated the make-your-own-personal pizza on a national level. The idea had existed locally for decades, but it became more of a national idea closer to the early 2010’s when Blaze and MOD Pizza had attracted some buzz.
The company has some bold goals according to its website.
At Pie Five, we’re here to change how you think about pizza.
That’s a pretty big boast and the company explains its logic further down the page.
“Sure, it’s still round, it’s still sliced, and it’s still delicious, but ours is all about quality. We make our dough fresh every morning, chop garden-fresh veggies by hand, and mix up our own marinara sauce with fresh-picked tomatoes. You can try one of our signature creations or build your own! It’s crazy, but we want you to try all our amazing ingredients so you can discover your new favorite pizza,” the company shared.
The problem, and it’s a big one, is that there’s nothing unique about Pie Five. Blaze and MOD, for example, both offer a similar product and boast about the quality of their ingredients.
Pie Five once had an early mover advantage, but it has lost that in what has become a space crowded with similar make-your-own-pizza franchises.
Pie Five was not first
2008 – MOD Pizza founded in Seattle, WA by Scott and Ally Svenson.
- Concept: “Fast casual, build-your-own pizzas with no set sizes.”
- First store opens in 2008; early expansion focuses on West Coast.
2009 – Blaze Pizza founded in Irvine, CA by Elise and Rick Wetzel.
- Concept: “Artisan-style personal pizzas baked in 180-second ovens.”
- Franchise model accelerates rapid growth.
2011 – Pie Five Pizza Co. founded in Fort Worth, TX.
- Concept: “Fast-casual, personal-sized pizzas in ~5 minutes.”
- Initially focused on Texas; later expands nationwide.
Pie Five has struggled
At its height, Pie Five Pizza had over 100 locations nationwide and appeared to be growing quickly. The chain began to struggle in the mid-2010s, when competition in the space became fierce and Blaze and MOD became the better-known brands.
It has steadily shrunk its footprint and now operates only 17 Pie Five locations.
Pie Five is owned by Rave Restaurant Group, which also owns a more successful pizza chain. It offered this description in a recent SEC 10-K filing.
“The company has offered consumers affordable, high-quality pizza since 1958, when the first Pizza Inn restaurant opened in Dallas, Texas. We awarded our first franchise in 1963 and opened our first buffet restaurant in 1969. We began franchising the Pizza Inn brand internationally in the late 1970s…In June 2011, we opened the first Pie Five restaurant in Ft. Worth, Texas,” it shared.
And, while Pie Five has shrunk, the company has not given up on it.
“We will opportunistically evaluate developing franchised Pie Five Units domestically. The rate at which we will be able to continue to expand the Pie Five concept through franchise development is determined in part by our success at selecting qualified franchisees, by our ability to identify satisfactory sites in appropriate markets, and by our ability to continue training and monitoring our franchisees,” it shared in the 10-K.
Industry expert and restaurant broker Robin Gagnon is not very forgiving of the brand.
“This shouldn’t have happened. Pie Five went from 84 restaurants at the end of fiscal 2017 to just 17 today — an 80% loss of footprint in less than a decade,” she posted on LinkedIn. “…The story is familiar: declining same-store sales, shuttered high-volume units, and fewer franchise operators willing (or able) to hold on.”
Pie Five Pizza Timeline
- June 2, 2011: Pie Five Pizza opened its first location in Fort Worth, Texas, introducing a fast-casual concept focused on customizable personal pizzas made in five minutes.
- 2012: Pie Five was recognized as one of Nation’s Restaurant News’ “Hot New Concepts.”
- 2015: Parent company Pizza Inn Holdings was rebranded as Rave Restaurant Group, reflecting its portfolio expansion beyond the traditional Pizza Inn buffet model.
- March 2017: Pie Five closed several Midwestern stores, including locations in the Twin Cities metro area, to focus on other markets.
- 2022: Pie Five introduced its biggest menu transformation, eliminating large pizzas and adding individual-sized options to enhance the dine-in experience.
- December 2024: Pie Five operated 19 locations across eight states: Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia.
- October 2025: The chain reduced its footprint to 17 locations, down from around 100 in 2017, due to declining sales and customer traffic.
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