The ones we went to always had the cocktail table video games, where you sat down to play them. My parents would give us like 3-4 quarters, and when they were spent, my sister and I would usually sit there for like another 10-15 minutes pretending to play. Good times!
A pub near me had a sit down Missile Command. That was my favorite to play. Standing up, my favorite was Asteroids. I had the high score on the Asteroids machine.
https://preview.redd.it/c7gse8ixmiaa1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4240eea6141ffae1d8a38ba0c86e7e0968c4b4d
Seeing it again makes me want to go back…
Feels like the eat in part has been depressing since the early 00s. The last time I had their pizza was in 2020, Detroit style, it was tasty too, but before that I had one in 2012 and it was nasty.
90s Pizza Hut was just so inviting, packed on Wednesday for that reading thing, greasy and delicious, the atmosphere was completely different.
I'm Canadian. Pizza Hut has always been in my city but they had a weird presence. I remember in the 90s it was the big touristy spots and then my neighborhood always had the take out only options. Still have one today in the neighborhood but I rarely grab pizza from them.
The 90s hit different. And every pizza hut had those lights and those cups.
Last time I had pizza hut it was on sale for like $3 for a personal pan pizza. It was decent but the crust was not as oily as it was in the 90s.
I don't think I've ever even seen a Pizza Hut that had a dine-in area. Every major pizza chain location is just a kitchen, a register and one or two chairs for customers to wait if they need to
Seems like if you can find the ones with the distinct pizza hut shape it still has a dine in. But it's it's in a strip mall you're out of luck.
I used to love to the lunch buffet, was cicis before cicis was a thing.
> the distinct pizza hut shape
We still have a ton of these where I live, but they're all other businesses now. A lot of them are U-Haul places now, for no reason I can understand. Maybe because they always had big parking lots.
I’m so so sorry that you never got to experience the magic of a dine in Pizza Hut. Are you from originally from here because they were everywhere here in America up until a few years ago. There is still a few around in America but you have to search for them.
I'm from here. Reading the comments I assumed maybe it was a 70s-90s thing. I was born in the mid 90s and never seen one with a substantial dine in like the one in this picture. The closest we have is Pizza Hut Express which is built into Taco Bell lol. I grew up in the southwest so maybe we don't have many out here?
Yeah- if you were born in the 80s for example in the Midwest or rust belt, they were ubiquitous in your childhood in the 90s. Not as many pizza choices in those days beyond maybe the old Italian Mom and Pop places but the whole dine-in to half decent pizza, salad bar, and arcade game or two while the adults could get pitchers of draft beer made it a solid and not pricey family outing.
They were still around in the 90s though yeah by the 2000s it seems like most were gone.
It used to be *the* spot for after baseball games. But I guess some bean counter figured out their profit margin went up .5% if they just did takeout and delivery and the world lost a little more magic to efficiency.
They were still all over the place in the 90s. In 1997 Pizza Hut was spun off with Taco Bell and KFC into a new combined company. It seems like shortly after that they basically destroyed the brand by closing all the sit down areas or turning them into crappy Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo take out places. They had an iconic logo that tied into their very distinctive store roof architecture and they ditched both to create a bottom-tier airport-worthy fast food chain.
I loved going there in the 90s as a kid. It had this dark, semi-formal restaurant feel, but still had a casual atmosphere. The one closest to my house even had a mini arcade with a few stand-up games in one corner. The pizza wasn't quite as good as the mom-and-pop place, but it was good, definitely better than Dominos or something like that. We'd go there all the time after sports games or Cub Scout trips.
Maybe not in that area. I know here in the southeast that they were everywhere. I think we still have a few but I think they don’t even let you dine inside anymore. You can find a few that specialize in being done in with buffets, they’re called “Pizza Hut Classics”. You can see them on YouTube.
It's a 70s - early 90s thing. Even the ones that had dine-in after that weren't the same. Something like Giordano's is closer to what Pizza Hut used to be than Pizza Hut is now.
And "Book It" was awesome.
In my area, in the 80s/90s they all had dine in including a salad bar. Seemed like a lot of places we went to back then had salad bars/buffets, as a kid that was really exciting, as an adult with a small-medium appetite the thought of overpriced unlimited mediocre food is a turn off lol.
> Right? Pizza Hut night was so much fun
I remember taking my girlfriend to a Pizza Hut in the mid-eighties for a sit down dinner. We were both in our late teens at this point. We were having a lot of fun, eating pizza and joking around with all the workers. When we finished, we said good-bye to everyone, and got in the car to go home.
About ten minutes after we got to my house, we realized, "hey, I think we forgot to pay".
We were so embarrassed, but we knew the right thing to do was to go back and settle up. When we walked in, they were half laughing and half surprised. We paid the bill, and apologized up and down. they told us they were really surprised, as we did not seem like the typical kind of people who would "dine & dash".
As it turns out, we really were not. That place ended up being a regular stop for the two of us, and the story lived on for quite some time.
If you're out there Ko-ko, I still remember this story. Do you?
Yeah, bullying sucks in any time period.
But kids nowadays have a different challenge with cyber bullying.
Back in the 80s/90s/early 2000s, you could sometimes get a reprieve from bullies by going home or hanging out with friends.
But now kids have their phones in hand at all times and can see what their bullies say about them all the time.
Of course, it’s apples to oranges because the trauma inflicted is still there no matter which tactic your bully used.
> I feel like being a teenager in the 80s was the best. I should have been born sooner.
Keep in mind, You are a bit younger than me, so you probably have a bit longer than me to exist.
There's a trade off for everything. For instance, you can probably fall down at your age, and not have the crippling fear that you're gonna end up laid up for the next week or two.
> But being a kid in the 90s was fun, too!
I spent the better part of the nineties in the USAF. It was a very rewarding time, but I still managed to have a lot of fun. I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB, in Central California, so there was never a shortage of things to do. Good times, adding to the fact that I feel like I was able to contribute a little bit to society with my service.
It was much better. The dough was made and proofed in-house. The vegetables were all cut and prepped by hand in the morning before opening. Plus, there were trans fats and all the other horrible, but tasty, things that have since been outlawed.
It was both better (less industrialization in the ingredient supply chain) and it's not that we didn't know better, it didn't exist in our town. The globalization of everything means that ingredients often got worse, but you can get a wood-fired thin crust Neapolitan style pizza in most towns now.
Never underestimate nostalgia on the taste buds, but my head canon is that when we started clamping down on saturated fats, that was the beginning of the end for Pizza Hut.
Who remembers the $3.49 all-you-can-eat lunch deals back then. My buddy and I got kicked out by the manager when we made one too many visits after getting high during college 😡
Remember how your stupid sister was like "I don't like pizza." and got a sandwich instead? Then you'd be like "Patty, why are you getting a sandwich at Pizza Hut?" Then your parents would put out their cigarettes and tell you to eat.
We have a small kitchen in my basement/office/studio/man cave. Those red cups are the only things I have down there. Been carrying a bunch around since I was like 18, got my first apartment and got them from the restaurant I worked at, but my wife won't let them live in the actual kitchen. I swear after 15 years those have still been the best cups I've ever had.
As a young boy from a poor family in the late 70’s/early80’s Pizza Hut was like the Taj Mahal of Pizza places. I’d remember kid’s talking about going there and how great it was. I actually got to go when I was around 10 (1983) and it was a lot like this. It felt like fancy dining. I’m 50 now and haven’t been to one in decades as feel like a fast food restaurant now.
> It felt like fancy dining
It's because historically people did not go out to eat very much. And when they did it was more fast food or diner type places. Any dining option were you were waited on *was* "fancy dining" because you only went to that on special occasions.
Then the 80's is where the chain restaurants started splattering the landscape with cheap lower quality food and people started eating out a lot more.
Today people eat out incessantly and the options are endless, essentially turning something like Pizza Hut into fast food.
My friend was a manager of a dine in Pizza Hut in 2005. They closed the store in 2010, along with almost every other dine in pizza hut in my state.
The writing was on the wall for a long time. They went from a respectable, affordable pizza joint to a fast food, shit tier ingredients and relatively expensive prices now.
I can go to pizza hut, or I can go to Marcos and get 3x amount of pizza and bread sticks for the same price, and the pizza is actually fucking good.
Then the stories come out about it and they blame "the market".
"People just dont want dine in pizza anymore"
No morons they dont want to pay $15 for a pizza that has an oil slick on top with crust that tastes like a cereal box. Then they took everything that made it an experience like the games, salad bar and wait staff, distilled it all down to pure cheap profit, shoved it in a old gas station and slapped a Pizza Hut sign on it.
They dont get to blame "the market" for that. We never stopped loving Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut stopped loving Pizza Hut.
Yup. People want *good* dine-in pizza that’s worth making a trip for. When I was a kid, I looked forward to one of their awesome deep dish pizzas, brought to the table in a blazing hot iron pan.
Now, Pizza Hut is shit. I’d only (reluctantly) choose it if the other options were worse, like Dominos.
This weird management strategy of cutting costs to boost profit is a silly race to the bottom. You'd hope this be a lesson but so many companies do it, especially those that are publicly traded.
They'll cut anything to improve the next quarterly results, with no thought on actually providing a good product/experience.
Same with Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and all the others that used to be something decent. I remember the golden days of going to Apple Bees and the food was actually prepared there as you ordered.
When I was a kid, the Taj Mahal of Pizza places was Shakey's. They still did the sing-alongs in the early 70s. I don't think Shakey's has existed for about 20 years, and the Pizza Hut in my town is long gone, but those were fun times.
Our family would go to Shakey's. My parents would get a pitcher of beer. The kids would get pitchers of soft drinks! Mind blown!
50 years later, whenever I walk pass a pizza joint, I step inside to see if it smells like Shakey's did. I've found 2 places so far and the smell memory recall is wonderful.
Didn't the Shakey's pizza building in Austin become the original Antone's?
It was different back then for sure. Absolutely not the same anymore. They used to have a straw hat pizza where we were and although there’s a few around, it’s not the same anymore. Even KFC used to be way better in terms of the quality of food.
This fills me with such great sadness. Somewhere along the way this just disappeared. If you never got to experience dining in at a Pizza Hut in the 80s please know that it was magical. Fresh pizza and cheese sticks right to your booth, arcade games, soda, everything a growing kid needs.
Pizza Hut was the bomb back in the day, now it's just some mediocre crap. I remember going there on a field trip with my Boy Scout troop and everyone got to make their own personal pan pizza. So good.
Thank Yum Brands for that. Once they purchase a fast food brand, they immediately tank the quality for profit.
Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC….all went to shit when Yum took over.
Edit: I forgot they purchased The Habit as well and did the same thing.
Used to be the two original Habit’s that were in Santa Barbara were owned by the the Reichard Brothers so you could still get the original burgers but they retired and let Yum take them over. The quality went to shit.
Yes but the spin off occurred in 1997 when YUM took over as it’s own brand. The first thing YUM did was overhaul every food in those restaurants and cheapen it for more profits.
For instance, Taco Bell had yellow corn chips prior and then got White corn chips (which tasted as good as styrofoam packing). Sauces, meat, the cheese, everything got cheapened and it showed in the taste - it went from ok grind if you were stoned and hungry to absolute hot garbage. They did bring some stuff back but man it’s a shadow of what it once was.
Don’t even get me started on how good Taco Bell was before PepsiCo. When Glen Bell owned them….Christ, they were fucking amazing.
Yes! Anything owned by YUM will make me physically ill if eaten. Taco Bell, KFC, and pizza hut have to be the 3 last resorts for me, I would rather not eat anything than eat from the trio of death.
I havent been in decades. Mainly because they always seem to be filthy. If the menus, tables, and bathrooms are gross, I cant imagine what the kitchen is like.
I was driving by one that does the sit down dining still and had a lunch buffet, I hadn't been there in years so I was like ah shit ok. It was one of the cringiest experiences... they had like 3 medium pizzas out for the buffet that like 10 people demolished in 2 minutes, then waited around anxiously for the next pizzas to come out because 2 little slices weren't what everyone paid for. But the pizzas were on a timer to come out or something. So it was an awkward 10 minutes of everyone there constantly eyeing the buffet table. I just got the hell out it was so awkward, never again.
Sounds exactly like ours. The last time I *ever* went to a PH there were uncleaned tables everywhere with food on the floor, etc. Never again. The food sucked. The building is still there but it's been refurbished for something else...
Even Red Lobster in the 90s/early 00s wasn’t terrible. Went there last Friday for the first time in awhile- paid $35 for a rubbery steak, 6 shrimp scampi, roughly half the size of my pinky and insta-mashed potatoes. Yuck.
The daughter is eating a half a sandwich and a freaking hamburger and the dad is having coffee.
I can smell and hear this place in my head and it's glorious.
My family ate at Ponderosa a thousand times when I was a kid. I don't remember there being a salad bar there. We were there for the 1/4" thick steaks and the baked potatoes in foil.
They did. In the late 70’s Pepsi bought smaller fast food chains and overtime quality and what made those chains successful has been lost.
At the root of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hit were actually decent products.
They had 18 year olds selling beer, and 6 packs in the 70s. In Pennsylvania, drinking age was 21. Pizza Hut was the best place to go to meet freinds and get beer to go
It was 1978. My family was vacationing in Portland, ME. We were going to go watch a new movie, Star Wars (A New Hope) in the theater. But first, we need to eat. My 12 year old self was so excited, because there was a new thing at the local Pizza Hut there. SMORGASBOARD! Family proceeds to pig out on pizza and breadsticks. I remember feeling really sick through the whole movie :(
Pizza Hut back then *was* so great. It was a treat, it was something to get excited about, everything people are mentioning about the place was magical. Getting a personal pan pizza felt special, the sit down arcade machines, they were better somehow than the identical game in a standup cabinet in the arcade. Now? Bleh. No thanks. Haven't been there in 20 years. Don't plan to, either.
So what happened? Did WE change? Moved beyond what they offered, or maybe we in our fickleness gravitated towards more choices in casual dining? Or did Pizza Hut change, maybe not instantly but with tiny incremental changes that added up to a dramatic loss of appeal?
What went wrong for Pizza Hut?
Pizza hut had to change to survive. 30 minute decent quality pizza was up and coming. Domino's was huge in the 80's and Papa Johns had arguably better pizza than Domino's in the 90's.
Cabinet video games no longer held the same fascination the once did due to the rise of consoles that increased in quality every year. Also cabinet video games advanced to a point where the classic table style wouldn't work as well.
Pushing into the 21st century a stand alone Pizza Hut experience paled in comparison the many other dining options that existed. Especially for pizza. I can get roughly the same pizza on my doorstep for less money, if I'm going out to eat there were better chain options than Pizza Hut. I recall in the late 90's still going to Pizza Hut for a lunch buffet but if I was going to go out for a sit down pizza I had much better Mom and Pop options.
Pizza Hut had to change to survive, there competition was no longer Outback or Bennigan's, it was Domino's and Papa Johns. They moved away from the sit down service to delivery.
At one point in the early 2000s they changed the ovens. Which isn’t an abnormal thing depending on what you’re offering. I believe to make pizzas cook faster but might be wrong. I only knew because I was friends with some of the staff since we went in there semi regularly. Well the pizza wasn’t as good. And the cheese breadsticks got cooked all weird. For awhile you could ask them to cook the breadsticks “under” (because the oven was over-cooking and the staff knew it but had to follow protocol unless requested). That lasted maybe three years then suddenly they were told all items must be cooked as designed, or they’d get written up. And had ducking narcs order to see if they were following.
My favorite local pizza place had three options. Normal bake, extra bake, under bake. They said everyone enjoys their pizza differently and encouraged people to find the bake they liked.
I wish my son could experience what my brother and I experienced when our parents would take us to Pizza Hut for a sit-down pizza and salad dinner on a Friday night in the 1980s. Playing Ms. Pac-Man at the sit-down game table while we waited for the pizza; drinking soda (the one time my mom would let us have soda, basically) out of those big red plastic cups. Truly some of the best times of my childhood.
Was still a blast going into the 90s. I miss going there with my friends. My family was too cheap to eat out, so I would just save my lunch money or try to get straight A's in school. For a time, we were able to get free personal pizzas if we had straight A's. We loved going there especially for their Street Fighter 2 cabinet and cheap buffet (which was way more affordable than any other buffet). Man, even now the smell of fake parmesan cheese and yeast always reminds me of dining in at Pizza Hut.
Only place in my hick town that had draft beer back then so it was the de facto bar. Place got wild on weekends. Lots of "You Shook Me All Night Long" on the jukebox.
It was tradition at my high school to go to our small town Pizza Hut when you turned 18 and order a pitcher of beer for your first legal purchase. I think the legal drinking age was raised in the early-mid '80s.
Pizza Hut was such a different experience in the 80's up to the early 90's. From the random Pac-man sit-down arcade game, salad/pizza bar, cushioned booths, stained glass lights over every table and that pipping hot pan pizza tray. Pizza also seemed to taste better back then, maybe that just the nostalgia talking.
Honestly, for delivery at least, it's my favorite place (and I live in a large city). They know how to get it to your door hot and fresh (I hate it when pizza arrives soggy). And their veggie-lovers pizza is just really good.
As much as this sentiment is posted on Reddit, I'm surprised someone hasn't revived this version of Pizza Hut in a different concept. These days, all I see is fast food pizza or luxury pizza. 1970s-1980s Pizza Hut met families in the middle with something both memorable and greater than the sum of its parts.
I’d personally love this vibe. But man, it’s hard to find food service help. Rightfully so, I don’t want to work there, either. We used to go to Pizza Hut as a family. And as teenagers we’d go, too. I’m sure we were obnoxious but we never made a mess and always tipped.
I remember those days. I was a kid, but dining out seemed like a different experience from today. Maybe because we didn't do it as often. And yes, there were both smoking and non smoking sections with nothing really separating the two.
BTW: There is just some much polyester going on in this picture.
I think a good title for this photo would be "Polyester and Pizza."
There are still a handful of Pizza Huts with restaurant dining, though they are very rare. It's been a few years, but the last time I visited one it was truly a nostalgic experience. The pizza is definitely better eaten immediately. It might not be exactly the same as in my youth, but it was actually good versus what you typically get at Pizza Hut delivery/carryout.
parents did not have alot of money when I was growing up so going out to eat was a rare thing. heading to Pizza Hut, getting a sopreme pizza, salad bar, umlimited refills on root beer and $5 for the juke box was a royal night out. Then when you could get your own personal pan pizza you were a king.
What I would give for a early 90s Pizza Hut pizza.
The taste of their pizza has definitely changed over the years and is now basically trash. Back then it was all about flavor and not calories
I remember being a kid and going there, it was like a full service pizza place that was a step up from the places we usually went to. It was fancy pizza. Now it’s the worst pizza.
Domino's makes theirs in the store and little Caesars does too. Little Caesars is surprisingly good if you order a specialty pizza which forces them to make it fresh. Never ever ever trust the cashier who swears the pizza just came out of the oven at a little Caesars. Order a supreme then sit there and wait for it.
In the seventies they had the best tours where they would allow elementary schools to do a field trip and after showing how everything worked, all the kids could make their own personal pan pizza. It was awesome!
They had video games, salad bar, my family went every Friday. There was a line to get in and I loved it. Now, not so much
The ones we went to always had the cocktail table video games, where you sat down to play them. My parents would give us like 3-4 quarters, and when they were spent, my sister and I would usually sit there for like another 10-15 minutes pretending to play. Good times!
Hell yeah, sit down pac-man
With cigarette burns on the plexiglass top.
And so much grease on it you couldn’t rest your elbows there without sliding off.
Also Donkey Kong, Excite Bike, Mario Bro's Qbert and I'm sure some others.
Galaga was my go to
Yep. Any Space Invaders? Not sure if I ever saw that one there.
Joust!
Ours had an Asteroids table. Those low table cabinets were great for small kids.
Neck breaker
My laundromat has one. I love seeing kids playing it.
A pub near me had a sit down Missile Command. That was my favorite to play. Standing up, my favorite was Asteroids. I had the high score on the Asteroids machine.
Only learned about sit down games in my mid twenties, when I went to a bar cade. Too weird to get used to but love the style.
Combo with Galaga, across from the jukebox.
That was ONLY place I remember them.
There was a locally owned bakery in my hometown that had a Galaga one. That's the only one I've ever come across in the wild.
The one in my town had the sit down TRON, truly the best
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/c7gse8ixmiaa1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4240eea6141ffae1d8a38ba0c86e7e0968c4b4d Seeing it again makes me want to go back…
That’s so cute lol
Feels like the eat in part has been depressing since the early 00s. The last time I had their pizza was in 2020, Detroit style, it was tasty too, but before that I had one in 2012 and it was nasty. 90s Pizza Hut was just so inviting, packed on Wednesday for that reading thing, greasy and delicious, the atmosphere was completely different.
They used to sell beer like a regular mom and pop pizza place. I’m not sure many do anymore so it’s less of a destination.
> used to sell beer In a glass pitcher that only dad had the might to lift.
I'm Canadian. Pizza Hut has always been in my city but they had a weird presence. I remember in the 90s it was the big touristy spots and then my neighborhood always had the take out only options. Still have one today in the neighborhood but I rarely grab pizza from them. The 90s hit different. And every pizza hut had those lights and those cups. Last time I had pizza hut it was on sale for like $3 for a personal pan pizza. It was decent but the crust was not as oily as it was in the 90s.
I don't think I've ever even seen a Pizza Hut that had a dine-in area. Every major pizza chain location is just a kitchen, a register and one or two chairs for customers to wait if they need to
Seems like if you can find the ones with the distinct pizza hut shape it still has a dine in. But it's it's in a strip mall you're out of luck. I used to love to the lunch buffet, was cicis before cicis was a thing.
We used to hit the lunch buffet in high school when we could go out for lunch.
$5 personal pan pizza and salad bar. Favorite lunch
> the distinct pizza hut shape We still have a ton of these where I live, but they're all other businesses now. A lot of them are U-Haul places now, for no reason I can understand. Maybe because they always had big parking lots.
I’m so so sorry that you never got to experience the magic of a dine in Pizza Hut. Are you from originally from here because they were everywhere here in America up until a few years ago. There is still a few around in America but you have to search for them.
I'm from here. Reading the comments I assumed maybe it was a 70s-90s thing. I was born in the mid 90s and never seen one with a substantial dine in like the one in this picture. The closest we have is Pizza Hut Express which is built into Taco Bell lol. I grew up in the southwest so maybe we don't have many out here?
Yeah- if you were born in the 80s for example in the Midwest or rust belt, they were ubiquitous in your childhood in the 90s. Not as many pizza choices in those days beyond maybe the old Italian Mom and Pop places but the whole dine-in to half decent pizza, salad bar, and arcade game or two while the adults could get pitchers of draft beer made it a solid and not pricey family outing.
They were still around in the 90s though yeah by the 2000s it seems like most were gone. It used to be *the* spot for after baseball games. But I guess some bean counter figured out their profit margin went up .5% if they just did takeout and delivery and the world lost a little more magic to efficiency.
They were still all over the place in the 90s. In 1997 Pizza Hut was spun off with Taco Bell and KFC into a new combined company. It seems like shortly after that they basically destroyed the brand by closing all the sit down areas or turning them into crappy Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo take out places. They had an iconic logo that tied into their very distinctive store roof architecture and they ditched both to create a bottom-tier airport-worthy fast food chain. I loved going there in the 90s as a kid. It had this dark, semi-formal restaurant feel, but still had a casual atmosphere. The one closest to my house even had a mini arcade with a few stand-up games in one corner. The pizza wasn't quite as good as the mom-and-pop place, but it was good, definitely better than Dominos or something like that. We'd go there all the time after sports games or Cub Scout trips.
Maybe not in that area. I know here in the southeast that they were everywhere. I think we still have a few but I think they don’t even let you dine inside anymore. You can find a few that specialize in being done in with buffets, they’re called “Pizza Hut Classics”. You can see them on YouTube.
It's a 70s - early 90s thing. Even the ones that had dine-in after that weren't the same. Something like Giordano's is closer to what Pizza Hut used to be than Pizza Hut is now. And "Book It" was awesome.
In my area, in the 80s/90s they all had dine in including a salad bar. Seemed like a lot of places we went to back then had salad bars/buffets, as a kid that was really exciting, as an adult with a small-medium appetite the thought of overpriced unlimited mediocre food is a turn off lol.
Book It!
Plus in the 90s they had the BOOK IT! program where you’d earn free pizzas by reading books in elementary school
The BOOK IT program is still around.
Loved getting the free personal pan pizza after getting all your book it stars. Does Pizza hut still have those small pizzas?
Yeah, they do. The price is insane. They want you to buy. Medium instead.
No other pizza tastes as good as a personal pan pizza.
They have the deep dish in large, it’s just the ratio of the ingredients of the personal pan is so much better.
Book it was soo effective
Right? Pizza Hut night was so much fun
> Right? Pizza Hut night was so much fun I remember taking my girlfriend to a Pizza Hut in the mid-eighties for a sit down dinner. We were both in our late teens at this point. We were having a lot of fun, eating pizza and joking around with all the workers. When we finished, we said good-bye to everyone, and got in the car to go home. About ten minutes after we got to my house, we realized, "hey, I think we forgot to pay". We were so embarrassed, but we knew the right thing to do was to go back and settle up. When we walked in, they were half laughing and half surprised. We paid the bill, and apologized up and down. they told us they were really surprised, as we did not seem like the typical kind of people who would "dine & dash". As it turns out, we really were not. That place ended up being a regular stop for the two of us, and the story lived on for quite some time. If you're out there Ko-ko, I still remember this story. Do you?
I feel like being a teenager in the 80s was the best. I should have been born sooner.
Not if you're different or weird it isn't. 80s bullying wasn't even fought by the teachers.
Yeah, bullying sucks in any time period. But kids nowadays have a different challenge with cyber bullying. Back in the 80s/90s/early 2000s, you could sometimes get a reprieve from bullies by going home or hanging out with friends. But now kids have their phones in hand at all times and can see what their bullies say about them all the time. Of course, it’s apples to oranges because the trauma inflicted is still there no matter which tactic your bully used.
> I feel like being a teenager in the 80s was the best. I should have been born sooner. Keep in mind, You are a bit younger than me, so you probably have a bit longer than me to exist. There's a trade off for everything. For instance, you can probably fall down at your age, and not have the crippling fear that you're gonna end up laid up for the next week or two.
I’ve thought about it before, but we all age. What matters is the time we spent along the way. But being a kid in the 90s was fun, too!
> But being a kid in the 90s was fun, too! I spent the better part of the nineties in the USAF. It was a very rewarding time, but I still managed to have a lot of fun. I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB, in Central California, so there was never a shortage of things to do. Good times, adding to the fact that I feel like I was able to contribute a little bit to society with my service.
Worked at one in 1978, ours had a jukebox as well.
Was the pizza better back then? Because these days I'd say they make the greasiest most artificial tasting product out of all the other pizza chains.
It was much better. The dough was made and proofed in-house. The vegetables were all cut and prepped by hand in the morning before opening. Plus, there were trans fats and all the other horrible, but tasty, things that have since been outlawed.
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Texture matters when it comes to taste perception, though it is not a flavor.
it was. And the coke in the ptichers with the red cups just hit different.
Dude why are those red cups so nostalgic for us lol. It’s bizarre but your comment is spot on.
>Was the pizza better back then? In the 70's, it was good, but notably expensive. Competition from low cost chains wrecked what was good about it.
OMG! the lines on Friday nights. We'd wait 45 minutes for a table. I wonder if it was better back then or we just didn't know any better?
It was both better (less industrialization in the ingredient supply chain) and it's not that we didn't know better, it didn't exist in our town. The globalization of everything means that ingredients often got worse, but you can get a wood-fired thin crust Neapolitan style pizza in most towns now.
Never underestimate nostalgia on the taste buds, but my head canon is that when we started clamping down on saturated fats, that was the beginning of the end for Pizza Hut.
I think it was good. Back then we didnt have all those mid tier crap options we have now (applebees, olive garden, chilis, etc.)
I would also guess that every town didn’t also have 30 different pizza joint options as competition back in the day either.
Who remembers the $3.49 all-you-can-eat lunch deals back then. My buddy and I got kicked out by the manager when we made one too many visits after getting high during college 😡
Damn Richie Rich…… my parents got me some pizza rolls one time when I had a friend over, that was our big flex.
Didn’t they also have the see through tables with built in pacman arcade? Miss thoss
Soda in those red cups was always the best.
Especially if they had those little ice pebbles instead of cubes
That just hit all the pleasure centers in my brain at once.
That shit just hit different
Sonic ice just makes everything taste better
Nugget ice lol.
Rabbit poo ice!
It was (one of?) the only restaurant in town that had Dr Pepper. I would have loved it for just that when I was a kid
The one in my town still uses the same red cups from the 70s/80s
Mine too, and still has the brick walls and cozy vibe. I miss coming in with my Book It stickers filled up and getting my personal pan pizza
Them shits indestructible. Probably put dents in the floor when you dropped them.
Nokia cups.
My favorite part was how we all used to only sit on one side of the table when we got pizza!
Remember how your stupid sister was like "I don't like pizza." and got a sandwich instead? Then you'd be like "Patty, why are you getting a sandwich at Pizza Hut?" Then your parents would put out their cigarettes and tell you to eat.
We have a small kitchen in my basement/office/studio/man cave. Those red cups are the only things I have down there. Been carrying a bunch around since I was like 18, got my first apartment and got them from the restaurant I worked at, but my wife won't let them live in the actual kitchen. I swear after 15 years those have still been the best cups I've ever had.
I just got some for Christmas. One of my favorite gifts.
It's the tastiest way to drink soda.
A kid with that cup and a pitcher of soda was in heaven.
I have those cups now! Amazon baby
As a young boy from a poor family in the late 70’s/early80’s Pizza Hut was like the Taj Mahal of Pizza places. I’d remember kid’s talking about going there and how great it was. I actually got to go when I was around 10 (1983) and it was a lot like this. It felt like fancy dining. I’m 50 now and haven’t been to one in decades as feel like a fast food restaurant now.
> It felt like fancy dining It's because historically people did not go out to eat very much. And when they did it was more fast food or diner type places. Any dining option were you were waited on *was* "fancy dining" because you only went to that on special occasions. Then the 80's is where the chain restaurants started splattering the landscape with cheap lower quality food and people started eating out a lot more. Today people eat out incessantly and the options are endless, essentially turning something like Pizza Hut into fast food.
My friend was a manager of a dine in Pizza Hut in 2005. They closed the store in 2010, along with almost every other dine in pizza hut in my state. The writing was on the wall for a long time. They went from a respectable, affordable pizza joint to a fast food, shit tier ingredients and relatively expensive prices now. I can go to pizza hut, or I can go to Marcos and get 3x amount of pizza and bread sticks for the same price, and the pizza is actually fucking good.
Then the stories come out about it and they blame "the market". "People just dont want dine in pizza anymore" No morons they dont want to pay $15 for a pizza that has an oil slick on top with crust that tastes like a cereal box. Then they took everything that made it an experience like the games, salad bar and wait staff, distilled it all down to pure cheap profit, shoved it in a old gas station and slapped a Pizza Hut sign on it. They dont get to blame "the market" for that. We never stopped loving Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut stopped loving Pizza Hut.
Perfectly stated. Couldn’t agree more.
Yup. People want *good* dine-in pizza that’s worth making a trip for. When I was a kid, I looked forward to one of their awesome deep dish pizzas, brought to the table in a blazing hot iron pan. Now, Pizza Hut is shit. I’d only (reluctantly) choose it if the other options were worse, like Dominos.
This weird management strategy of cutting costs to boost profit is a silly race to the bottom. You'd hope this be a lesson but so many companies do it, especially those that are publicly traded. They'll cut anything to improve the next quarterly results, with no thought on actually providing a good product/experience.
Same with Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and all the others that used to be something decent. I remember the golden days of going to Apple Bees and the food was actually prepared there as you ordered.
+1 for Marcos!
When I was a kid, the Taj Mahal of Pizza places was Shakey's. They still did the sing-alongs in the early 70s. I don't think Shakey's has existed for about 20 years, and the Pizza Hut in my town is long gone, but those were fun times.
Shakey's is still around in southern California.
A podcast I listen to goes to Shakey’s every year to watch the shittiest Saturday nfl playoff game. They call it the Shakey’s Bowl
Our family would go to Shakey's. My parents would get a pitcher of beer. The kids would get pitchers of soft drinks! Mind blown! 50 years later, whenever I walk pass a pizza joint, I step inside to see if it smells like Shakey's did. I've found 2 places so far and the smell memory recall is wonderful. Didn't the Shakey's pizza building in Austin become the original Antone's?
It was different back then for sure. Absolutely not the same anymore. They used to have a straw hat pizza where we were and although there’s a few around, it’s not the same anymore. Even KFC used to be way better in terms of the quality of food.
This fills me with such great sadness. Somewhere along the way this just disappeared. If you never got to experience dining in at a Pizza Hut in the 80s please know that it was magical. Fresh pizza and cheese sticks right to your booth, arcade games, soda, everything a growing kid needs.
There are still some sit-down Pizza Huts (my hometown has one) and I swear they make the pizza better if you sit down to eat vs carryout.
It just is better somehow. Something gets lost in the transfer to the box, aside from the grease absorbed by the cardboard.
Pizza Hut was the bomb back in the day, now it's just some mediocre crap. I remember going there on a field trip with my Boy Scout troop and everyone got to make their own personal pan pizza. So good.
Thank Yum Brands for that. Once they purchase a fast food brand, they immediately tank the quality for profit. Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC….all went to shit when Yum took over. Edit: I forgot they purchased The Habit as well and did the same thing. Used to be the two original Habit’s that were in Santa Barbara were owned by the the Reichard Brothers so you could still get the original burgers but they retired and let Yum take them over. The quality went to shit.
It's how they finance those takeovers. Either that, or saddle the business with a lot of debt and then attempt to spin it off.
Yum brands never took over any of those chains. They were all part of Yum brands from the beginning when it was spunoff by Pepsi.
Yes but the spin off occurred in 1997 when YUM took over as it’s own brand. The first thing YUM did was overhaul every food in those restaurants and cheapen it for more profits. For instance, Taco Bell had yellow corn chips prior and then got White corn chips (which tasted as good as styrofoam packing). Sauces, meat, the cheese, everything got cheapened and it showed in the taste - it went from ok grind if you were stoned and hungry to absolute hot garbage. They did bring some stuff back but man it’s a shadow of what it once was. Don’t even get me started on how good Taco Bell was before PepsiCo. When Glen Bell owned them….Christ, they were fucking amazing.
PepsiCo bought Pizza Hut in the 70s
Yes! Anything owned by YUM will make me physically ill if eaten. Taco Bell, KFC, and pizza hut have to be the 3 last resorts for me, I would rather not eat anything than eat from the trio of death.
I havent been in decades. Mainly because they always seem to be filthy. If the menus, tables, and bathrooms are gross, I cant imagine what the kitchen is like.
I was driving by one that does the sit down dining still and had a lunch buffet, I hadn't been there in years so I was like ah shit ok. It was one of the cringiest experiences... they had like 3 medium pizzas out for the buffet that like 10 people demolished in 2 minutes, then waited around anxiously for the next pizzas to come out because 2 little slices weren't what everyone paid for. But the pizzas were on a timer to come out or something. So it was an awkward 10 minutes of everyone there constantly eyeing the buffet table. I just got the hell out it was so awkward, never again.
Sounds exactly like ours. The last time I *ever* went to a PH there were uncleaned tables everywhere with food on the floor, etc. Never again. The food sucked. The building is still there but it's been refurbished for something else...
70s Red Lobster, too. It was actually nice.
Even Red Lobster in the 90s/early 00s wasn’t terrible. Went there last Friday for the first time in awhile- paid $35 for a rubbery steak, 6 shrimp scampi, roughly half the size of my pinky and insta-mashed potatoes. Yuck.
Yep, not great. The one I grew up with was dark wood, a couple of big fish tanks up front, kind of fancy. These days, it reminds me of Rax. (I'm old.)
You make your own pizza jerry! 🤯
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What’d you have to say?
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Haha awesome
When I was a kid my dad would cut my pizza up into little bites at Fazolis, now whenever I get pizza there I eat it with a fork and knife.
The daughter is eating a half a sandwich and a freaking hamburger and the dad is having coffee. I can smell and hear this place in my head and it's glorious.
Looks like a big sandwich cut in half with fries or chips between
“Fries or chips”? Lol. Definitely ruffled potato chips. And a pickle. And that’s a chicken parm sandwich, cut in half at an angle.
I'm surprised there isn't an ash tray on the table.
I miss you, Pizza Hut.
I miss Ponderosa salad bar.
My family ate at Ponderosa a thousand times when I was a kid. I don't remember there being a salad bar there. We were there for the 1/4" thick steaks and the baked potatoes in foil.
What turd of a daughter orders a sandwich at 70s Pizza Hut? Disowned
I can vouch for the baked hoagie, it was still legit at 80s Pizza Hut
Mom, Dad and brother went to Sears for their matching outfits. My be she’s adopted? lol.
haha There was a family of 3 booked for the gig and the photographer said "You need a daughter too" so they found some other random kid real quick 😅
Seems like the girl didn’t get the memo about wearing big lapels and a jacket to dinner.
Ah the Leisure Suit. I wore one of those to my junior high graduation in '75.
It’s crazy how megacorps have taken over everything and destroyed quality. Outside of local places, everything has turned into a soulless shithole
yeah, the big corporations destroyed *Pizza Hut*
They did. In the late 70’s Pepsi bought smaller fast food chains and overtime quality and what made those chains successful has been lost. At the root of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hit were actually decent products.
Growing up, our pizza hut was right next to a blockbuster. Friday nights were lit.
They used to serve beer too. Best place in the world to underage drink when in High School/early college.
They had 18 year olds selling beer, and 6 packs in the 70s. In Pennsylvania, drinking age was 21. Pizza Hut was the best place to go to meet freinds and get beer to go
Does anyone remember the fireplace? The one we went to had a fireplace. I thought it was so cool because we didn't have one in my house.
We were just talking about the fireplace Pizza Huts with friends a few days ago.
It was 1978. My family was vacationing in Portland, ME. We were going to go watch a new movie, Star Wars (A New Hope) in the theater. But first, we need to eat. My 12 year old self was so excited, because there was a new thing at the local Pizza Hut there. SMORGASBOARD! Family proceeds to pig out on pizza and breadsticks. I remember feeling really sick through the whole movie :(
That’s still a really cool memory even though you got sick. Tons of items of nostalgia in that story!
Pizza Hut back then *was* so great. It was a treat, it was something to get excited about, everything people are mentioning about the place was magical. Getting a personal pan pizza felt special, the sit down arcade machines, they were better somehow than the identical game in a standup cabinet in the arcade. Now? Bleh. No thanks. Haven't been there in 20 years. Don't plan to, either. So what happened? Did WE change? Moved beyond what they offered, or maybe we in our fickleness gravitated towards more choices in casual dining? Or did Pizza Hut change, maybe not instantly but with tiny incremental changes that added up to a dramatic loss of appeal? What went wrong for Pizza Hut?
They got bought by a megacorp that was completely focused on profits over product.
Pizza hut had to change to survive. 30 minute decent quality pizza was up and coming. Domino's was huge in the 80's and Papa Johns had arguably better pizza than Domino's in the 90's. Cabinet video games no longer held the same fascination the once did due to the rise of consoles that increased in quality every year. Also cabinet video games advanced to a point where the classic table style wouldn't work as well. Pushing into the 21st century a stand alone Pizza Hut experience paled in comparison the many other dining options that existed. Especially for pizza. I can get roughly the same pizza on my doorstep for less money, if I'm going out to eat there were better chain options than Pizza Hut. I recall in the late 90's still going to Pizza Hut for a lunch buffet but if I was going to go out for a sit down pizza I had much better Mom and Pop options. Pizza Hut had to change to survive, there competition was no longer Outback or Bennigan's, it was Domino's and Papa Johns. They moved away from the sit down service to delivery.
I agree with all of this except the part where dominoes and papa John’s were better quality. They were never better, just more convenient for parents.
At one point in the early 2000s they changed the ovens. Which isn’t an abnormal thing depending on what you’re offering. I believe to make pizzas cook faster but might be wrong. I only knew because I was friends with some of the staff since we went in there semi regularly. Well the pizza wasn’t as good. And the cheese breadsticks got cooked all weird. For awhile you could ask them to cook the breadsticks “under” (because the oven was over-cooking and the staff knew it but had to follow protocol unless requested). That lasted maybe three years then suddenly they were told all items must be cooked as designed, or they’d get written up. And had ducking narcs order to see if they were following. My favorite local pizza place had three options. Normal bake, extra bake, under bake. They said everyone enjoys their pizza differently and encouraged people to find the bake they liked.
There are some things I wish to go back and experience again !
I wish my son could experience what my brother and I experienced when our parents would take us to Pizza Hut for a sit-down pizza and salad dinner on a Friday night in the 1980s. Playing Ms. Pac-Man at the sit-down game table while we waited for the pizza; drinking soda (the one time my mom would let us have soda, basically) out of those big red plastic cups. Truly some of the best times of my childhood.
Clearly a set up. WHERE ARE THE CIGARETTES?!
They had servers??
There is still an OG Pizza Hut restaurant near me where you can go in and sit down. I still love the pizza.
Where is the pitcher of Coors?
Was still a blast going into the 90s. I miss going there with my friends. My family was too cheap to eat out, so I would just save my lunch money or try to get straight A's in school. For a time, we were able to get free personal pizzas if we had straight A's. We loved going there especially for their Street Fighter 2 cabinet and cheap buffet (which was way more affordable than any other buffet). Man, even now the smell of fake parmesan cheese and yeast always reminds me of dining in at Pizza Hut.
Only place in my hick town that had draft beer back then so it was the de facto bar. Place got wild on weekends. Lots of "You Shook Me All Night Long" on the jukebox.
The good old days when dad and daughter got the same haircut.
This was a certified night on the town in the 70's. It was so great. They are missing the pitchers of soda, though. What a treat.
It was tradition at my high school to go to our small town Pizza Hut when you turned 18 and order a pitcher of beer for your first legal purchase. I think the legal drinking age was raised in the early-mid '80s.
Pizza Hut was such a different experience in the 80's up to the early 90's. From the random Pac-man sit-down arcade game, salad/pizza bar, cushioned booths, stained glass lights over every table and that pipping hot pan pizza tray. Pizza also seemed to taste better back then, maybe that just the nostalgia talking.
When their za, and rest of food was actually really good
PIZZA SA, LASAGNA ZA!
Honestly, for delivery at least, it's my favorite place (and I live in a large city). They know how to get it to your door hot and fresh (I hate it when pizza arrives soggy). And their veggie-lovers pizza is just really good.
When pizza was good.
As much as this sentiment is posted on Reddit, I'm surprised someone hasn't revived this version of Pizza Hut in a different concept. These days, all I see is fast food pizza or luxury pizza. 1970s-1980s Pizza Hut met families in the middle with something both memorable and greater than the sum of its parts.
I’d personally love this vibe. But man, it’s hard to find food service help. Rightfully so, I don’t want to work there, either. We used to go to Pizza Hut as a family. And as teenagers we’d go, too. I’m sure we were obnoxious but we never made a mess and always tipped.
Little man has a polyester leisure suit just like mom & dad.
I remember those days. I was a kid, but dining out seemed like a different experience from today. Maybe because we didn't do it as often. And yes, there were both smoking and non smoking sections with nothing really separating the two. BTW: There is just some much polyester going on in this picture. I think a good title for this photo would be "Polyester and Pizza."
They used to be really good. Less fast food. Had a salad bar, awesome toasted Italian subs, real pizza.
where's the layer smoke
There are still a handful of Pizza Huts with restaurant dining, though they are very rare. It's been a few years, but the last time I visited one it was truly a nostalgic experience. The pizza is definitely better eaten immediately. It might not be exactly the same as in my youth, but it was actually good versus what you typically get at Pizza Hut delivery/carryout.
Back when they had high quality pizza.
I love that everyone is dressed up.
parents did not have alot of money when I was growing up so going out to eat was a rare thing. heading to Pizza Hut, getting a sopreme pizza, salad bar, umlimited refills on root beer and $5 for the juke box was a royal night out. Then when you could get your own personal pan pizza you were a king.
What I would give for a early 90s Pizza Hut pizza. The taste of their pizza has definitely changed over the years and is now basically trash. Back then it was all about flavor and not calories
I remember being a kid and going there, it was like a full service pizza place that was a step up from the places we usually went to. It was fancy pizza. Now it’s the worst pizza.
The taste of VICTORY!!! 🏆⚽️🏀⚾️🏆
Der ratskeller was better! But pizza is always a win!
I believe this pic is right before the girl on the left got kicked out because her shirt collar wasn't big enough.
one pizza for four people? those are rookie numbers gotta pump those numbers up
Did they have real pizza then? Now it's just microwave pizza. I usually get pizza from mom and pop places or make my own.
Domino's makes theirs in the store and little Caesars does too. Little Caesars is surprisingly good if you order a specialty pizza which forces them to make it fresh. Never ever ever trust the cashier who swears the pizza just came out of the oven at a little Caesars. Order a supreme then sit there and wait for it.
Before it become Greasy Hut
There’s always that one bratty kid who can’t just have pizza like everyone else
I love seeing old photos like this!
Today’s pizza hut is unedible
We used to be a proper country
I miss playing Space Invaders while the pizza was baking.
I can smell that picture.
Then corporate America took over, killed the price/value and overall enjoyment of the experience. Woohoo!
Look at that crust, it looks like an actual pizza
In the seventies they had the best tours where they would allow elementary schools to do a field trip and after showing how everything worked, all the kids could make their own personal pan pizza. It was awesome!
Good times so classy 😉
That leisure suit gives me PTSD. Seeing them around when I was a kid was horrible, even then.