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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowLou Malnati’s Pizzeria will close its four Indianapolis-area stores less than five years after entering the market.
The Northbrook, Illinois-based chain’s full-service restaurant at 6320 Ferguson St. in Broad Ripple and carry-out and delivery-only locations at 8806 E. U.S. 36 in Avon, 11435 Spring Mill Road in Carmel and 791 S S.R. 135 in Greenwood will close on March 3.
Lou Malnati’s will keep restaurants open in Crown Point and Schererville.
Mindy Kaplan, a spokeswoman for the company, called the Indianapolis-area closings “a strategic business decision.”
She said three of the stores—those in Avon, Greenwood and Indianapolis—were not performing well. The Carmel location’s performance had been strong, she said.
“But there’s not an opportunity there to upgrade the real estate or make improvements to make it more profitable,” Kaplan said. “And we like to have more than one pizzeria in a market.”
She said the restaurants bring in all their ingredients from Chicago, which makes it in efficient to deliver to only one location, particularly one that is carry-out and delivery-only. “We’re not willing to make the cuts in quality to make it more cost effective,” Kaplan said.
The Carmel store opened in October 2020 and was Lou Malnati’s first location in central Indiana. The Broad Ripple restaurant opened about a year later. The Greenwood store opened in June 2022, and the Avon store opened in April 2023.
Lou Malnati’s previously closed a carry-out and delivery store that had been at 2902 W 86th St. in Indianapolis.
The chain operates about 70 locations in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Arizona. It’s owner, Marc Malnati, the son of the company’s namesake founder, graduated from Indiana University in 1977.
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Indianapolis sucks. They wouldn’t know good pizza from a slice of Spam with Velveeta.
yeah that’s it. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that they had a terrible business model.
Indianapolis’ definition of good pizza is whatever is cheapest or offering a 2 for 1 deal.
I wonder if their strategy on store placement was too spread out. Lots on Illinois transplants live in Hamilton county and Zionsville. Maybe those 4 shops should have been concentrated north of Indy.
Agree. When Giordano’s pulled back, they retreated to Downtown and Castleton.
I’m thinking the market just won’t support many Chicago-style pizza joints. We have plenty of decent flatbread pizza in non-pizza restaurants, plus small chains (Greek’s, Monical’s, Arni’s) and maybe folks just don’t want a 1-pound slice of pizza.
Flatbread pizza isn’t pizza; it’s an abomination created by fast casual restaurants to expand their menu.
You could say the same about deep dish “pizza”.
This place was trifling. Good riddance.
BR place was in a terrible location. Quality was pretty good, but pricing was too high.
Loved the pizza but the service was awful so we stopped going. Yes, BR location was odd. Nice building tho.
They’re also closing two of their Phoenix area locations. So it appears the people in Arizona aren’t as infatuated with Chicago style pizza either.
Indy is infatuated with whatever is cheap; taste or quality be damned. A Malnati’s here was too good to be true. Will have to drive to Chicago now for a good pizza.
Save a trip: You can order it shipped to you frozen.