Young people have no idea …

Their pan pizzas reheat OK. But you're right, there has never been anything on God's green Earth better than piping hot Pizza Hut at the table in the restaurant. Might burn self. don't care, burning roof of mouth, don't care, skin is entirely off the roof of my mouth, totally worth it.

 

Maybe it was just me and my gluttonous buddies giving them no choice, but the cheese and pepperoni pizzas got replaced every few minutes at our joint.

 

My 2002 CRV had one, but it finally crapped out and had to replace it. Loved it because I still have a ton of great 60s-70s-80s music on cassette tapes.

 

For any former Iowans/Midwesterners out there, the Happy Joe's Pizza and Ice Cream buffet on Sunday night helped get me through my college years in Iowa City (despite some regret the next morning).

When they brought a fresh Taco Pizza out, there was a stampede to the buffet table.

 

Alright, you all have convinced me. I will seek out a dine-in Pizza Hut this weekend and report back. But not a store front in a shopping center. I want an old-school standalone Hut with the stacked red roof. I might have to drive a bit for that one.

 

If you come and get me we will Planes, Trains and Automobiles this shit.

 

The '90s? Hah. We were kings in the '70s, kids ...

 

There were Happy Joe's in Minot and Bismarck that were great. Bismarck also had A&B Pizza, which cut the slices in squares and had great taco pizza in the early 1980s.

And deep-dish Pizza Hut was pretty fine.

Graig Nettles was involved with the Old Towne Pizza chain on the West Coast that was also pretty fine. Not sure if there are any remaining but the one in Microville was a go-to destination.

 

I live in Bumblefuck, Indiana. So we have both a Pizza Hut straight out of 1988 with a buffet AND a Pizza King that produces the shittiest, most expensive pizza cut into squares imaginable.

 

Our Pizza Hut closed during the COVID shutdown, and I don't know why.
It's been there at least for as long as I remember, and up until the shutdown, I always remember it being busy. For some place as long established as it was, I can't possibly see a few months' lull forcing it to shut. I know business would have carried on as usual when things reopened.
The same thing happened to our Long John Silvers, but I think that had more to do with their product nose diving over the last couple of decades.
Pizza Hut, Long John's, Western Sizzlin', and Bonanza were my town's sit-down options unless you wanted the local "good old country cookin" ... which is a different story*

*Why the heck would I want to go out to eat the same thing I eat at home the other six days of the week?

 

Which leads to another thing young people have no idea about: you can get pretty much anything you want to eat with relative ease these days, and that's why civic groups can't make money on suppers anymore as fundraisers.
For example, I just said what small town America's options were, but you knew what group had what kind of meal and when.
This church had a big breakfast on a certain Saturday.
That Ruritan did a BBQ supper twice a year on the weekend of the time changes.
One Masonic lodge did a fish fry once a year
Another one did an oyster supper.
Some other group had an annual spaghetti supper.

All those things were not on the daily menu, so people turned out, and the organizations made money.
The last few meals we've tried to do netted a couple of hundred bucks because nothing you can do is special. I've basically said, "8-10 people work 6-8 hours for a couple hundred? No thanks. I'll give you the money not to kill an entire Saturday."

 

We had a Pizza Hut that didn't have the best reputation in town. But we had a pair of Pizza Inns that did something fairly similar to what Pizza Hut did in nearby towns.

Funny enough, the Pizza Hut didn't have a buffet but the Pizza Inns did. And it was pretty good. At least until you've had something closer to real Italian food.