Pizza News

Dallas restaurateurs gentrify Maple Avenue with trendy pizza place

Pizza is in the works for Maple Avenue in Dallas.

Photo courtesy of State & Allen

Maple Avenue, we have some pizza news for you: Social Pie will open at the former Southland Feed Store building at 5855 Maple Ave., from a team that includes the folks who own State & Allen Lounge and Nodding Donkey.

Southland, which for 60 years sold pet supplies, farm, and garden equipment, closed in 2014. State & Allen partners Jonathan Calabrese and Tony Winkler came upon the location during their search for a catering kitchen.

"Our catering business has been blowing up with companies who want to bring lunch in or open a commissary," Calabrese says. "We'd been looking over in the Medical District and felt lucky to find such a big building. Tony and I always wanted to open our version of a pizza place. At State & Allen, pizza is one of our mainstays."

Pies at State & Allen include pepperoni, margarita, four cheese, and wild mushroom. One of the most popular pizzas is the BBQ chicken with barbecue sauce, red onion, and bacon bits.

"Our pizza is hand-tossed. It's not the thinnest crust, but it's not a heavy Chicago-style pizza by any means, and we're using the best ingredients we can get," he says.

"But one thing we're trying to do differently is to be the first 3-star green restaurant in Dallas. We're going to be recycling and using as many biodegradable materials as we can, and we're not using any gas. We'll use smaller all-electric ovens which we've been using at our catering events, and people have found it comparable to what we get when we use a brick oven."

Construction is underway, with the addition of slider patio doors and other amenities. The venture will have a charitable component, with a percentage of sales going to organizations that change every few months. They're aiming to open by mid-September if all goes to plan.

The pizzeria is only the first piece in what they see as a grander concept, which will house not only their catering operation and corporate offices, but also other culinary adventures as well.

"Down the road, our plan is do a barbecue stand on the side of the building," Calabrese says. "We've been cooking barbecue at Nodding Donkey, and we finally bought a big machine for it, so we'd like to have walk-up counter service by next year. We're also hoping to do a beer garden with State & Allen-style food.

"The neighborhood is growing, and we'd like to grow with it," he says.

pizza openings

PIZZA PROBLEMS

Plano-based Pizza Hut to close 250 restaurants as U.S. sales plummet

Pizza Hut/Facebook

Pizza Hut will close 250 restaurants by mid-2026.

By the middle of the year, the country will have fewer Pizza Huts. Yum! Brands, the parent company of the almost 70-year-old chain, announced it plans to close an estimated 250 restaurants — about 4 percent of Pizza Hut's massive global footprint.

The closures were revealed during Yum's fourth quarter earnings call on February 4. While Yum! Brands is based in Louisville, Kentucky, Pizza Hut is headquartered in Plano.

Yum! representatives said that U.S. Pizza Hut store sales slid 3 percent as value initiatives, like the $5 Crafted Flatzz personal pizza, have failed to take hold with customers, who are increasingly spending their pizza budget at rival Domino’s.

In November 2025, Yum! Brands announced that it would launch a “formal review of strategic options,” a program called “Hut Forward,” which officials said could result in a global reduction in the number of Pizza Hut outlets or an eventual sale of the concept.

“The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands,” said Chris Turner, CEO of Yum! Brands, in a previous press release.

It’s unclear how any such sale would affect the franchise’s Plano headquarters. The corporation is currently in the process of moving KFC, which has been experiencing its own financial struggles, from Kentucky to its Plano home base.

In recent years, the overall pizza landscape has been rocky for national chains. Concepts like Papa John’s, Blaze Pizza, and Mod Pizza have closed units as dining shifts increasingly to favor more “interesting” concepts like Nashville-style hot chicken. In early January, the Wall Street Journal reported that pizzerias are no longer the second most popular chain format in the U.S., plummeting below Mexican restaurants and coffee shops to sixth place.

Although Pizza Hut has not disclosed exactly which locations would be shuttering, it did say it expects to wrap up the closure round by the middle of 2026.

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