The pizza sector has faced an industrial crisis over the past two years, forcing major pizza chains to close hundreds of locations and, in some cases, file for bankruptcy.
Among the economic problems, restaurants blame fierce competition, rising labor and food costs and high leasing rates that have forced several companies to launch restructurings.
A popular San Francisco-based pizza chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the fourth time in a year, underscoring the intense financial pressure independent restaurants face.
The Fiorella wood-fired pizza chain, with four locations in San Francisco, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the fourth time to reorganize another location and continue operating.
Fiorella’s Noe Valley location at 4042 24th Street, known as Project Pizza Noe LLC, filed its Chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California on March 6, 2026, according to PacerMonitor.
Noe Valley’s filing follows three Chapter 11 filings by the parent companies of Fiorella’s Project Pizza in 2025.
Project Pizza Polk LLC, which operates the Fiorella Polk chain’s pizzeria and Italian restaurant at 2238 Polk Street, filed its Subchapter V petition on July 2, 2025, in the Northern District of California, listing between $100,000 and $500,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities in its petition.
More bankruptcies:
Affiliate Project Pizza LLC, which operates the pizza chain’s flagship location, Fiorella Clement, located at 2339 Clement Street, filed a Subchapter V petition on May 20, 2025, listing between $50,000 and $100,000 in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities in its petition.
Another affiliate, Project Pizza Sunset LLC, filed a Chapter 11 Subchapter V petition on April 1, 2025, on behalf of its Fiorella Sunset location at 1240 9th Avenue.
The restaurant chain did not disclose the reasons for filing for bankruptcy.
Fiorella partners Boris Nemchenok and Brandon Gillis opened the first location on Clement Street in 2016, followed by the Russian Hill location on Polk Street in 2019. The partners opened the Sunset location in 2021 and the Noe Valley restaurant in 2024.
Other pizza chains that filed for bankruptcy in 2025 included Bertucci’s Restaurants, which filed for Chapter 11 on April 24, 2025, and Backdraughts, which filed for Chapter 11 on July 23, 2025.