Smoking Monkey Pizza earned praise in 2025. Quality Business Awards gave it a score above 95 percent. Locals voted it best pizza in Renton, Washington. Yet the 14-year-old wood-fired chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 12, 2026. Its parent company, TB Enterprises LLC, listed assets up to $50,000 and liabilities between $100,000 and $500,000.
The filing, reported by Yahoo Finance, reveals a familiar pattern. Rising labor expenses, food costs, and stubborn lease payments have strained operators across the sector. Smoking Monkey closed its Spokane site two months earlier. Its Renton and Seattle spots stay open for now. The company aims to reorganize debt and renegotiate leases. But its story underscores broader pressure.
Big names feel it too. Papa John’s plans to shutter 300 underperforming stores, 200 of them by the close of 2026, and trim 7 percent of corporate staff. Pizza Hut intends to close 250 locations in the first half of the year under its Hut Forward strategy. A Domino’s franchisee filed Chapter 11 in March 2025. Hundreds of pizzerias have shut down in the past year. Competition stays fierce. Costs keep climbing.
Operators search for answers. Some cut locations. Others turn to technology. Recent moves show two paths. One relies on artificial intelligence to sharpen decisions and free staff for customer work. The other deploys physical robots to handle repetitive kitchen tasks with precision.
Andy’s Pizza in the Washington, D.C., area chose the first route. The fast-growing chain runs 14 locations and sells more than 30,000 pies weekly with about 350 employees. Founder Andy Brown built a custom platform called Andy’s OS. The system, crafted by a nontechnical operator with deep knowledge of his business, directs mozzarella orders, predicts when to fire pizzas, and manages dough proofing.
It forecasts slice sales to keep product hot and fresh. It alerts kitchens before trays run low. For staffing it creates hyper-customized schedules that account for delivery days and peak traffic. Inventory happens through voice. Employees speak counts into their phones. The AI transcribes and organizes data instantly. Brown told Axios on May 12, 2026, “That’s where I see AI going. Now I, a nontechnical person with expert-level knowledge of my own business, can build software around the needs of my business.”
The approach avoids kiosks or QR codes. Customers still talk to humans on the phone and at the counter. Brown wants to preserve the neighborhood feel. “How does AI make your unique strengths bigger and louder?” he asked. By handling micro-decisions and forecasting, the system lets workers focus on hospitality and quality. The chain even shuts off online ordering on busy nights to protect service. It scales without slashing headcount. That stands in contrast to many corporate chains that chase efficiency through staff reduction.
Yet AI alone cannot solve every gap. Labor shortages still dominate operator worries heading into 2026. A TD Bank survey of 253 franchise leaders found 54 percent named a shrinking labor pool their top concern for attracting and keeping talent. AI could help in scheduling, training, and efficiency, the respondents said. But many independents and mid-sized players need more immediate relief.
Enter the robots. Donatos Pizza, founded in 1963 in Columbus, Ohio, opened what it calls the world’s first fully autonomous pizza restaurant in mid-2025 at John Glenn Columbus International Airport. Two robotic arms work inside an enclosed kiosk. They form dough balls, apply exact amounts of sauce, cheese, and freshly sliced pepperoni, load the pie into the oven, retrieve it, cut it, and serve through an automat-style window. The entire process takes under six minutes with no human intervention during production.
Kevin King, president and CEO of Donatos, told Inc. in an April 2, 2026, article, “All in under six minutes without a human involved.” He sees such technology as a permanent part of the work culture. The airport site makes sense. Foot traffic varies. Staffing a full restaurant around the clock proves expensive. Humans remain nearby for cleaning, restocking, and troubleshooting through a partnership with HMSHost.
King has floated testing drone delivery later. The robotic kiosk targets locations like airports, office parks, and toll plazas where traditional staffing does not pay. Donatos partnered with Agápe Automation and Appetronix for the project. Similar concepts have appeared elsewhere. Pizza Hut tested a fully robotic outlet in Israel years ago. Startups such as XRobotics sell countertop machines that sauce, cheese, and top pies with machine learning. One such system produces 25,000 pizzas monthly.
But. Adoption brings questions. Early restaurant robots sometimes falter in real-world conditions. Delivery bots from various companies have been flipped, stuck in snow, or vandalized on college campuses and city streets. Customers wonder whether automated experiences can match the warmth of human service. A New York Times analysis from 2024 noted that while the technology works, dining often centers on feelings and personal connection.
Still, the economics push forward. Labor makes up as much as 30 percent of operating costs for many pizzerias. Wages rose 29 percent between 2020 and 2023 amid scarcity. Staffing levels sit 3.6 percent below pre-pandemic figures with hundreds of thousands of positions open. Automation promises consistency, lower waste, and the ability to run in places where hiring proves difficult.
Chains blend approaches. Jet’s Pizza surpassed 10 million AI-powered orders, generating more than $250 million in sales through tools from HungerRush. Little Caesars rolled out conversational AI for meal planning and personalization on ChatGPT. Papa John’s launched Lou AI, an assistant designed to handle complex group orders by anticipating preferences and guiding decisions in real time. The system runs on Google Cloud.
These tools focus on the front end and back-office forecasting. They complement rather than replace kitchen staff in most cases. Yet the fully robotic sites from Donatos signal a bolder shift. Operators can now serve made-to-order pizza in high-traffic spots with minimal payroll. Consistency improves because every pie receives identical portions measured by weight or sensors.
Smoking Monkey’s bankruptcy highlights the risk of inaction. The chain built an award-winning product but could not overcome structural costs. Its largest unsecured creditors included the Washington Department of Revenue, food supplier Sysco, Chase Card Services, and others. Many similar operators face the same squeeze.
Success may belong to those who mix technology with brand identity. Andy’s Pizza grows by amplifying hospitality through AI rather than trimming staff. Donatos experiments with robots in controlled environments where speed and reliability matter most. Neither path guarantees survival. Both reflect an industry adapting to permanent changes in labor markets and consumer expectations.
More experiments will follow. Some will fail. Others may redefine what a pizza restaurant looks like. Whether AI assistants, countertop robots, or full kiosks, the tools have moved from concept to deployment. The operators who integrate them thoughtfully, without losing what makes their food and service distinctive, stand the best chance of thriving amid ongoing pressure.
Pizza Chains Bet on Robots and AI as Labor Costs and Bankruptcies Mount first appeared on Web and IT News.