For much of this year, business at Prima Pizza Kitchen in Somerville, N.J., was booming.
On most Fridays, as many as 325 pizzas would fly out its doors, with customers frequently adding drinks and side orders. But in recent weeks, orders began to change, the owner, Jerry Carollo, said.
“Before, a customer would get two pies, wings, garlic knots and soda, all of the extras,” Mr. Carollo said. “Now, they’re just doing the pizzas.”
To varying degrees, those sentiments are being echoed across the country by large pizza chains and small independent restaurants. Pizza, with its gooey cheese, sometimes topped with crisp, glistening rounds of pepperoni or bright strips of green peppers, has long played a quintessential role in American households. It is a comfort food for uncomfortable times that traditionally could feed an entire family relatively inexpensively.
But now, as the national average price of a large cheese pizza has crept up to nearly $17, according to Slice, an online ordering platform for pizzerias, sales are slowing. Competition from other restaurants on popular delivery apps and shifting eating habits are partly responsible, but it is also an indicator that some consumers are struggling.
This summer, Bria Celest, 30, was surprised when she and her boyfriend ordered an extra-large pizza with pepperoni from Pizza Hut and the bill was nearly $30.
“I was like, ‘Wow, pizza prices have gotten insane,’” said Ms. Celest, a photographer in Los Angeles. “When I was growing up, we used to order from a local pizza place that gave us two extra-large pizzas, a two-liter soda and a side for $25.99. I would faint if I saw a deal like that these days.”
For now, pizza chains, which make up two-thirds of the nearly $50-billion-a-year industry, have seen basically flat sales since 2023, according to Technomic, a research and consulting firm for the food industry.
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Industry insiders are gearing up for weight-loss drugs to shake up the consumer economy as they seep into every sector — including apparel, restaurants, grocery, gyms and travel. They are causing a “psychological shift” for the people taking them, said Ali Furman, a partner in PwC’s U.S. consumer markets division. As their bodies change, she said, so are their decisions on how to spend their time and money.
In just over a year, the percentage of U.S. adults taking drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound more than doubled to 12.4 percent, according to Gallup. The survey also reported that the obesity rate fell from almost 40 percent in 2022 to 37 percent in 2025. Some companies are already responding by acquiring health food brands, renovating hotel gyms and changing lunch menus. But that’s only scratching the surface, said Diana Melencio, a partner at XRC Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm.
“It’s revolutionary,” she said. “GLP-1s will play a huge role in society.”
Take a ride with us to see how these drugs are reshaping the consumer economy and what companies are doing to adapt.
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