Pizza flop: The story behind Domino’s disastrous attempt at entering the Italian fast food market

Chipotle Mexican Grill recently announced that it was going to open a restaurant in of all places, Mexico. The California-based restaurant chain is surely hoping to have more success than Taco Bell which retreated from the market in 2008 after its second attempt.

Carlos Monsiváis, a prominent Mexican cultural critic, famously said of Taco Bell’s first attempt that it was “like bringing ice to the Arctic.” The same perhaps could be said of Domino’s Pizza trying to make inroads into Italy. Like Mexicans, Italians take great pride in their culinary heritage.

The fast food pizza chain in partnership with ePizza SpA, the franchise operator in Italy, had ambitious plans to open hundreds of restaurants in the country. In the end, ePizza filed for bankruptcy and stopped all operations in 2022, less than seven years after the first Domino’s location opened in the country.

Domino’s failed Italian job

The first Italian Domino’s location opened in Milan on 5 October 2015. There were high hopes for the endeavor and an ambitious plan for expansion, with 880 locations proposed across Italy by 2030. However, at its peak in 2020, there were only 29 outlets, 23 run by ePizza and six others through sub-franchising agreements.

While the fast food pizza chain did gain some traction into the Italian market, home of pizza and the slow food movement, the covid-19 pandemic dealt Domino’s a death blow according to bankruptcy filings.

The expectations for success before the launch were based on the fact that there wasn’t a large-scale pizza delivery service in the country at the time. One would’ve thought that everyone locked up in their homes unable to visit restaurants due to the virus should’ve been a boon for Domino’s.

Unfortunately, starved of foot traffic, local restaurants took advantage of delivery services like Deliveroo, Glovo, and Just Eat giving Domino’s “unprecedented competition,” ePizza explained in its bankruptcy filing. Then when people were allowed out again, they wanted the sit-down, dine-in experience again dealing yet another blow to the pizza chain.

Domino’s stopped all operations in Italy on 20 July 2022 and there has been no announcement of plans to give it another go.

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