{"id":367003,"date":"2026-07-09T16:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/367003\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:31:08","slug":"california-pizza-kitchen-closes-critical-texas-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/367003\/","title":{"rendered":"California Pizza Kitchen closes critical Texas location"},"content":{"rendered":"

For folks of a certain age, California Pizza Kitchen<\/a> offered a sanitized, corporate introduction to margherita pizza. But it seems Houstonians won’t get the opportunity to indulge in CPK or its pies any more, as rumors of its local demise seem to be true.<\/p>\n

A representative from Memorial City Mall<\/a> confirmed to Chron that its California Pizza Kitchen has closed, meaning the chain’s last remaining Houston location is no more. A redditor’s inquiry<\/a> led folks to report CPK may have closed, and according to Facebook<\/a>, it seems to have happened about a week ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Further, California Pizza Kitchen’s website no longer lists Houston in its restaurant directory<\/a>. It doesn’t list any Texas locations, either. The only one that is open is a location inside Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.\u00a0CPK has yet to respond to Chron’s requests for clarification.<\/p>\n

Attorneys Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield opened the first California Pizza Kitchen in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 1985. In an interview with Eater<\/a>, Rosenfield said the restaurant’s first customer was actress Shirley MacLaine, whose agent’s office was just upstairs. The restaurant took off from there, opening more than two-dozen restaurants across the U.S.<\/p>\n

CPK arrived in Houston in 1993 at 1705 Post Oak Blvd.. A second location opened in 2003 at Memorial City Mall. The third opened around 2007 at 1997 W. Gray St. in River Oaks. A fourth opened in 2015 at 1900 Hughes Landing Blvd. in The Woodlands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each one of those California Pizza Kitchens has since closed. The Post Oak Boulevard location is now il Bracco<\/a>. The River Oaks location became a Perry’s Steakhouse<\/a> in 2019, and that closed<\/a> in January 2026.<\/p>\n

If you’ve never been, California Pizza Kitchen is a casual, sit-in restaurant that serves Italian-American cuisine. CPK’s history<\/a> between 1992 and today has been marked by explosive growth and explosive failure. In 2020, the chain filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was later purchased by two investment groups for $300 million. Compare that to 2011 when it was valued at $470 million. Its most famous menu item is the original BBQ chicken pizza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For folks of a certain age, California Pizza Kitchen offered a sanitized, corporate introduction to margherita pizza. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1703,1704,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-367003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronfood","tag-chronstaff","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}