Mountain Mike's Pizza opens first Tennessee location, expanding near Pizza Hut markets

Mountain Mike’s Pizza opened its first Tennessee restaurant in Nolensville on June 24, giving the California chain a foothold in the Nashville area and its 12th state. The store sits at 7344 Nolensville Road in a roughly 2,400- to 2,500-square-foot space tied to a Publix-anchored shopping center at Nolensville Road and Rocky Fork Road.

The opening is part of a broader development push that stretches beyond one storefront. Mountain Mike’s says it was founded in 1978 in Palo Alto, California, and its franchise arm says the brand now has more than 300 restaurants across the U.S. Jordan Nari, the Nashville-area franchisee, said Nolensville was the right place to introduce the chain’s family-focused experience to Tennessee. The development plan calls for more locations in Murfreesboro, Franklin and Brentwood, with a wider Tennessee push that could also reach Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis and Clarksville.

Inside Pizza Hut, the move matters less as a single ribbon-cutting than as another sign that regional brands are still chasing the same family-dinner, carryout and delivery traffic that drives local stores. A chain like Mountain Mike’s enters a market with a different menu pitch and a local identity that can appeal to customers comparing prices across apps and deciding where to spend the night’s pizza budget. It also adds another operator recruiting cooks, shift leaders and delivery help in the same labor pool.

Pizza Hut’s own scale makes the contrast sharper. Founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by Dan and Frank Carney, the brand says it is now the world’s second-largest pizza concept, with more than 19,000 restaurants in 108 countries and territories and $12.794 billion in total system sales. Yet Yum! Brands said in early 2026 that Pizza Hut would close about 250 underperforming U.S. locations, and year-end results showed U.S. same-store sales down 5% for fiscal 2025 and 3% in the fourth quarter.

That is the backdrop for any regional chain pushing into Tennessee. Industry analysis cited in recent reporting projected 75,736 U.S. pizzerias in 2025 and pizza restaurant revenue of about $49.5 billion, down 0.3%. In a market that crowded and that flat, a new competitor in the Nashville orbit can raise the cost of winning local traffic one order, one shift and one neighborhood at a time.