Columbus will soon be home to of one of the biggest New York-style pizza chains. Sbarro said yesterday it will move its headquarters to Columbus from New York by early October as it emerges from bankruptcy protection.

Columbus will soon be home to of one of the biggest New York-style pizza chains.

Sbarro said yesterday it will move its headquarters to Columbus from New York by early October as it emerges from bankruptcy protection. The company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in March, its second trip through bankruptcy court in less than three years.

The company has been under new leadership since 2013, including David Karam, a former Wendy�s executive who took over as CEO in March 2013. Karam also is an owner of Cedar Enterprises in Columbus, the third-largest franchisee of Wendy�s restaurants.

The most-recent bankruptcy filing came shortly after Sbarro closed 155 of its U.S. locations. Although Sbarro�s still has more than 800 locations worldwide, the chain�s dependency on mall and airport stores has been a difficult model to sustain.

�Going through bankruptcy allowed them to get rid of some less-profitable stores,� said Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of food-service strategies for WD Partners, a restaurant consulting firm in Columbus. �A lot of them were mall stores, and if the mall isn�t working, there isn�t anything you can do about it.�

The company launched its first Pizza Cucinova restaurants last year in Columbus as a way to move beyond the mall and airport locations and move into �an emerging segment of the pizza category � artisan, fast-casual pizza,� Karam said.

He has said he hopes Pizza Cucinova, and a related brand, Sbarro Brooklyn Fresh, bring new life to the pizza maker.

Pizza Cucinova �can be a real growth opportunity for them,� Lombardi said. �I think you�re going to see a lot of these type concepts emerge from them. That�s a growth vehicle.�

Locally, there are four Sbarro locations and two Pizza Cucinova sites.

Sbarro is consolidating in Columbus �to reduce costs and general and administrative expenses as part of our overall business strategy and also to be closer to our new Cucinova artisanal brand of pizza,� said spokesman Jonathan Dedmon.

Sbarro�s base of operations will move to the Columbus headquarters of Cedar Enterprises, 1328 Dublin Rd., from Melville, N.Y., Dedmon said. About 25 jobs will come to Columbus, plus about 15 management employees will move to Ohio from New York, but the move will not affect the rest of Sbarro�s 2,700 employees.

Last year, Sbarro was ranked as the nation�s seventh-largest pizza chain based on sales, according to Pizza Today. Columbus-based Donatos was 20th on the list.

�It might be 40 jobs right now, but it might be 60 or 80 in a few years,� Lombardi said.

tferan@dispatch.com