Square Pie Guys is closing its Palo Alto pizzeria at 369 California Ave., with the last Detroit-style pies coming out of the oven Friday, Oct. 30. The shutdown is the first location closure in the Bay Area chain’s history and comes barely a year after the restaurant opened on the Peninsula.
Chain's First Closure Comes Just Over a Year After Opening
The Palo Alto shop opened in September 2025, after a Campbell location debuted the prior month, according to East Bay Times. Square Pie Guys announced the closure on Instagram; the San Francisco Chronicle reported it is the chain’s first-ever location shutdown. Before Square Pie Guys took over the space directly, a Local Kitchens outlet there sold the brand’s pizzas through a licensing agreement, the Chronicle reported.
Founder and owner Marc Schechter told the Chronicle that the Palo Alto location did not find consistent business across the day and week. Lunch performed well, he said, but dinner and weekend traffic slowed considerably. The restaurant had roughly 50 to 60 seats.
California Avenue's Car-Free Status Cited as a Factor
Looking back, Schechter attributed some of the restaurant's struggles to California Avenue's closure to car traffic, per the Chronicle. The street has been off-limits to vehicles for years as part of a pandemic-era push to let restaurants expand outdoor dining into the roadway — a stretch that, as of mid-2023, had already stood for three years, according to Palo Alto Online. Schechter said he ultimately questioned whether keeping the location open was worthwhile after efforts to boost sales there failed to turn things around, the Chronicle reports.
California Avenue’s Status and Other Local Closures
The street’s future remains under discussion. Palo Alto Online reported in June 2026 that proposed bike lanes and street markings for the car-free stretch were still in limbo as the city considered its bicycle and pedestrian master plan. The publication also reported that California Avenue’s retail vacancy rate was 5.4% in the first quarter of 2026, slightly up from 5.3% a year earlier; that neighborhood figure does not establish why Square Pie Guys closed. As a separate Palo Alto example, SFGATE reported that Tacolicious at 632 Emerson St. closed Oct. 31, 2025, after nearly 13 years. It was a different location and had a much longer run than Square Pie Guys’ California Avenue shop.
Despite the setback, Schechter told the Chronicle he still plans to keep growing Square Pie Guys and is open to returning to the Palo Alto area. He said opportunities remain on the Peninsula and that he hopes the chain will come back to that part of the Bay Area within the next couple of years. He also teased an upcoming location outside the South Bay, without specifying where, according to the same report.
From a SoMa Pop-Up to Six Bay Area Shops
Square Pie Guys began as a pop-up launched by Schechter and Danny Stoller before opening its first permanent restaurant in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood in 2019, a debut that helped spark the Bay Area's broader Detroit-style pizza craze. The pizzas are known for their thick, rectangular shape and a signature cheddar-cheese edge that bakes into a crisp border, a hallmark East Bay Times says sets the style apart from other pizza traditions.
The chain added an Oakland shop in 2021 and a flagship at Ghirardelli Square in 2022, according to Eater SF. It kept expanding from there, opening in Campbell and Palo Alto in 2025 and debuting a Walnut Creek location that December, growing to six Bay Area locations by this September — all of them company-owned, with dough made fresh on site at each restaurant rather than in a central commissary, per Restaurant Business.
Expansion Plans Continue Even as One Door Closes
Even with the Palo Alto closure, Square Pie Guys isn't slowing down. The company has a seventh location slated to open in Mill Valley in early 2027, East Bay Times reports, part of founder Schechter's stated goal of opening one new restaurant per year — a target he discussed in a recent interview with PMQ Pizza. Schechter has said he leans on data from delivery platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats to help evaluate where a new shop might perform before committing to a market.
Off-premise orders make up a major share of the chain's business, though exact figures vary by account: Restaurant Business reported the figure at no less than 50% and sometimes as high as 70%, while Schechter told PMQ Pizza that about 75% of sales are now off-premise. He has also pointed to shifting third-party delivery costs, which he says have changed every year since 2021, as an ongoing challenge for the business. Looking ahead to 2027, Schechter told Restaurant Business the company would weigh all options, including franchising or bringing on a strategic investor, rather than committing to one path just yet. Schechter and Gabi Moskowitz also released a Square Pie Guys cookbook on Oct. 27, a milestone that arrived just a day before news of the Palo Alto closure broke.
