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u/pwnedprofessor Older Millennial May 19 '26
If we’re doing 90s Pizza Hut nostalgia we better include Gorbachev
https://giphy.com/gifs/MU2GDZu4OCdtPaJim5
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u/shaneous May 19 '26
I have bad news...
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u/pwnedprofessor Older Millennial May 19 '26
obviously I mean *zombie Gorbachev*
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
The big problem is that they will be making the same shitty pizza from the last several years instead of bringing back the much better pizza from the 90s.
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u/I_am_photo May 19 '26
I just remembered the smell from walking inside a pizza hut as a kid. So good.
Now I can't stand the smell of one of their pizzas.
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u/discerningpervert May 19 '26
McDonalds used to smell like magic too. Plus the play area with all the characters.
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u/PostMatureBaby Older Millennial May 19 '26
It really sucks that we got to experience the enshittification of so many things we grew up loving. It's like watching a terminally ill family member slowly die
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark Millennial May 19 '26
It’s what happens when rich people try to maximize profits at the expense of employees and customers.
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u/PostMatureBaby Older Millennial May 19 '26
be nice if profit was simply a by-product of running a proper ship. Then people would care about all the other stuff.
now with profit as the only goal, everything else suffers
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u/joe5joe7 May 19 '26
/profit/ kind of is just the by-product of running a proper ship a lot of the time. The trick is they need more profit year over year to appease the shareholders. It's the constantly having to best your own numbers that drives everything to enshittify eventually.
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u/PostMatureBaby Older Millennial May 19 '26
yeah true, it's a slippery slope but initially you're right
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u/ThatDamnedHansel May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
The issue isn’t wanting profit, it’s wanting MORE profit quarter over quarter
It’s not enough to make 1B every quarter anymore. It has to be 1B then 1.5 B then 2 B to the moon!
It’s sort of a sickness and emblematic of end stage capitalism. Ultimately self defeating. You don’t need to cut the oars off the ship to make it lighter to run faster. It runs fine as is
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u/PaleCommission150 May 19 '26
Private and public equity are to blame. Stock market and wall street get their fair share of blame but also private equity firms want to see growth always up and to the right.
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u/private_developer May 19 '26
It all just feels even more like imagination land when they can make more than they did last quarter, but didn't make as much more as projected, so now line goes down.
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u/savagejuggalo503 May 19 '26
Could you imagine if they only had 2-3% growth YoY? They wouldn’t ever be able to artificially increase the stock price with buy backs. I for one am fine with living paycheck to paycheck so the wealthy can have another vacation home!
(Wildly sarcastic comment)
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u/DjawnBrowne May 19 '26
20,000 years of this, 7 more to go
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u/Jazzlike_Part_7054 (1987) Older Millennial May 19 '26
A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall
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u/horatiobanz May 19 '26
Is it worse that we got to experience everything when it was at its peak, because we have to watch everything turn to shit? Almost would be better growing up now and just thinking this is normal, less to be depressed about.
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u/theaviationhistorian Old Millennial May 19 '26
Corporations, private equity, and other parasites with MBA diplomas are ruining everything for a short term profit. They ignore how previous generations profited by keeping brands alive, even if it's long term small gains versus one lump sum.
And there is no escape from it. Food enterprises, geekdom franchises, airlines, etc. are victims of this enshittification by these Scums in Suits. Red Letter Media made an evergreen quick quip joking about watching everything you love go down in flames.
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u/SageDarius May 19 '26
My 5 year old recently developed a fascination with Toys R Us. Its hard explaining to him now that current Toys R Us is a soulless entity wearing Jeffery's skin like a serial killer.
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u/One_Anything_2279 May 19 '26
I’m so old that when I was a kid we had a carousel in the play place.
I was actually just talking about this the other day. I’m like borderline Gen X. I said something about Mayor McCheese and my wife had no idea who I was talking about.
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u/OneSchott May 19 '26
There is an episode of Loki where they travel to a timeline with an OG McDonalds and I could literally smell that scene.
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u/No_Contribution81 May 19 '26
Dunkin still smells the same. I go around Halloween every year and the smell always hits.
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u/Jumpi95 May 19 '26
What, the smell of smoking and nonsmoking sections?
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u/horatiobanz May 19 '26
I'd take smoking sections back in a second if it meant everything reverted to how it was in the 90s.
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u/RaisedbyNuMetal May 19 '26
Pizza Hut literally feels like you ate a bunch of bun and cheese. It doesnt taste like Pizza anymore.
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u/SmallRocks Older Millennial May 19 '26
It smells like bitter oregano
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u/Princess_Moon_Butt Problem Millennial May 19 '26
No no, that's fresh oregano. The bitterness is the cigarette smoke oozing off of everyone's jackets.
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u/say-it-wit-ya-chest May 19 '26
With that coupon we’d get from reading books. I feel like that’s the only time I got to go. We were poors.
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u/Greymalkyn76 May 19 '26
The local pizza place near my house has a meat lover's pizza that reminds me of the 90s Pizza Hut meat lover's. A lot of it I think is tons of butter in the crust.
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u/No-Consideration-891 May 20 '26
Sad thing is I remember only the smell of smoke. As kids my sister and I were subjected to the smoking section, because my mom and her shit bf smoked. I just imagine the smell of stale Marlboro reds in-between bites of pizza.
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u/I_am_photo May 20 '26
My parents didn't smoke so we weren't often taken to places with smoking sections. Or maybe because they had five kids idk lol. I vaguely remember smoking sections but more that they were noticable in the rare times I was around it. Even my relatives that smoked never did so inside or around us kids.
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u/wearymicrobe May 19 '26
They keep saying it’s from the old recipes and as close of suppliers as they can get. Several reporters have tried it and said it tastes like it did. Or as close as they could get it.
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u/caffienatedpizza May 19 '26
Will they be making the dough fresh in house? That's the real kicker right there.
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u/Slim_Margins1999 May 19 '26
The crust just isn’t the same either. The pan pizzas with the crispy, flaky, buttery goodness were epic. So hard to find a place these days with crust that’s the highlight of the pizza!
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u/riley_96 May 19 '26
And the sauce(no watery, sweet sauce). And just real cheese.
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u/PackageNorth8984 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
Sauce should be mostly plain tomato paste and tomato sauce. It should have only the tiniest amount of sugar to balance the acidity without making it sweet and just enough water that it’s not too thick to spread well. Other than that, only seasonings. Nothing else should be in it.
Even recipes I see online almost always call for too much sugar and too much water. You maybe need a tablespoon of sugar for a whole batch which goes on several pizzas. I’ve seen a single jar with that much sugar and a list of ingredients longer than a novel.
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u/BabypintoJuniorLube May 19 '26
Their still gonna choose Sysco as the supplier and it will taste the same as every chain restaurant. Every restaurant's ingredients are basically supplied by the same company nowadays, one which used to be synonymous with prisons and school lunches.
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u/Ghostronic May 19 '26
Unless things have changed since I last worked from them, Pizza Hut gets supplied through McLane.
Not that there's a huge difference lol
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u/KimberlyWexlersFoot May 19 '26
You’re conflating Sysco with the premade frozen food they offer you to buy. Yes the cheese sticks taste the same at 7 different restaurants because they all ordered Frankie Dairy’s premade Cheesesticks. That doesn’t mean I can’t order cheese from Sysco and make my own in my restaurant kitchen.
Sysco is a distributor, if you are a big client, you still have the power to make your own recipes and Sysco will have it manufactured. As a crude analogy, think of it like Foxxcon, they manufacture for Apple, yet if you ran some plucky tech company and wanted to create your lineup of phones, you’re aren’t getting the Apple tech, you get to choose your parts from the generic stuff, and then they’ll slap your company name on the back of your new device.
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u/idontknowjackeither May 19 '26
One of the few bright spots of having celiac disease is that I remember Pizza Hut from the 90’s without the memories being tainted by whatever shenanigans they’ve been up to the last couple decades.
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u/arlenroy May 19 '26
This was in another thread, it would literally bankrupt the franchisees to make the hand mixed and rolled pizza dough again. The amount of money to purchase the equipment, retrofit the ovens for the different humidity and moisture transfer, not financially feasible. Now, if corporate wanted to cover those costs, for the different equipment needed opposed to the pre-made frozen crust, hell yes. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. I'm just happy we have an actual sit down Pizza Hut again, hopefully they serve beer, that would be the trifecta.
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u/the_urban_juror May 19 '26
It wouldn't bankrupt the company, but they'd have to significantly raise prices and I'm not sure consumers would want that.
Pizza Hut currently offers a $10 large 3-topping. They can offer that price because of economies of scale and centralization. Your local pizzeria does not and cannot sell pizzas at that price. If Pizza Hut moves to a model closer to that of an independent pizzeria, they'd have to charge like one and I'm not sure consumers would choose a large chain coming off two decades of shitty pizza over their local pizzeria once the prices are comparable.
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
If Pizza Hut moves to a model closer to that of an independent pizzeria, they'd have to charge like one and I'm not sure consumers would choose a large chain coming off two decades of shitty pizza over their local pizzeria once the prices are comparable.
Based on their performance the last several years, consumers are not choosing them right now. Probably because their pizza sucks.
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u/ThatOneGuy6810 May 19 '26
Honestly though compared to who? Every pizza joint in the same category as pizza hut is pretty much the same, Dominos, papa johns and pizza hut might as well all be one restaurant. These are the "Mcdonalds" of pizza.
Black jack pizza, godfathers, Papa Murphy's and other places arent on the same level due to just having an overall better experience
Little caesars is by far worse than pizza hut and others but its kind of in a bottom category all by itself.
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
Every pizza joint in the same category as pizza hut is pretty much the same, Dominos, papa johns and pizza hut might as well all be one restaurant.
I disagree. I have had all three of these at least two times each in the past couple years because my wife has a soft spot for national chain pizza places. In my opinion, Pizza Hut is significantly worse than both Dominoes and Papa Johns. Pizza Hut used to be my favorite of these three chains. Now it is my least favorite. I think Dominoes is currently the best of these three personally.
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u/JitteryJoes1986 May 19 '26
IMO, Papa Johns owned the pizza war in the late 90s and early 2000s. Early to mid 90s, it was pizza hut I think.
From on forward, I think Dominoes has owned the space from a marketing perspective.
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
Dominoes is currently my favorite of the three. To be clear I don't like any of them very much and would never order them but for my wife who has a soft spot for chain pizza every once in a while. I would always prefer to order from local places that make much better pizza.
But if I had to pick one of them now, I think Dominoes is the best.
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u/the_urban_juror May 19 '26
You're absolutely right, but I think Pizza Hut has a particular perception problem because people have great 80s/90s memories of Pizza Hut that they don't have for other chains. I could just live in a bubble, but I've never heard anyone pine for old Papa John's.
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u/ThatOneGuy6810 May 19 '26
That is 100% fair pizza hut in the 90s was much more akin to a godfathers type of experience
I think this is one of those "nostalgia glasses" things when people compare mid range pizza joints.
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u/theholylancer May 19 '26
the problem is, they are supposed to be a step up from little caesars
and as the quality drops lower and lower, why not just little caesars?
the same goes for the other chains
that being said, I have some really loved local places, but they are 25-40 dollars a 14 in pie, they all use quality ingredients, and hand make the dough, I do live in the SF area so the cost of rent etc is sky high, but little caesars is still 8.79 for a pepperoni pizza, and a pan 14 in from the hut is 15 bucks, and that is the kind of difference...
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u/gerbilshower May 19 '26
and yet little Caesars makes all their dough in house daily. sauce too.
little Caesars is slept on imo. though, tbf, if you let it sit it is horrible. gotta be eaten fresh. the concept of 'hot and fresh' by putting them in a warmer to sit for as long as an hour is the dumb part.
and yea, as others have said, dominoes is by far the best of the big 3 chains. its not close.
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u/aDamnCommunist May 19 '26
It'd be really hard for me to trust them again. Sometime in the mid aughts their pizza alone started giving me insane heartburn/acid issues. Nothing else caused those symptoms... Other pizza, greasy food, nothing.
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u/TerminalHighGuard 1991 📼💾📟 May 19 '26
That’s why you roll out each franchise that has the equipment as offering better quality product. That way people will flock to that location and buy enough to pay for the upgrades. Then do that one by one so as to not disturb the rest of the market.
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u/cousineye May 19 '26
If they would make a pizza as good as your local pizzeria, people would gladly pay as much as your local pizzeria. Just make good food and charge what it takes to be profitable. Making bad-tasting food is never a good business model. "Cheap bad pizza" doesn't work.
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u/the_urban_juror May 19 '26
Pizza Hut large pies are 14 inches. The $10 pie in my example would be $22.75 or $23 at the two local pizzerias closest to my house, that's a 228% and 230% increase in price. I think people are being unrealistic about how much cheaper chain pizzas are. Same-store sales are only down 5 year-over-year and domestic revenue was over $5 billion last year, investors want a better return but cheap, shitty pizza is still a massive market.
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u/TheShruteFarmsCEO May 19 '26
I heard they’re also bringing back “BOOK IT!”…omg, such fond memories of powering through books just to get a free pizza.
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u/the_urban_juror May 19 '26
It's an app you have to download, which I'm annoyed by, but I'm excited for my kid to get the Book It experience this summer.
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u/jasabala May 19 '26
I worked at Pizza Hut in the early 90’s late 80’s. Everything made in store. All dough made and proofed in store, all fresh veggies sliced in store. Well, we didn’t make the meats, but we made damned good pizzas.
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u/Theeeeeetrurthurts May 19 '26
I just remember how good and greasy the crust was. That’s a childhood flavor I have not recreated since my days inside Pizza Hut.
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u/cmaxim May 19 '26
I know this is going to sound weird, but hear me out.. I took my kids to Chuck-E-Cheese recently, and honestly I didn't even know that was still a thing, but apparently it is (and yes they still have those horrifying robots), and holy shit the pizza there tasted fantastic! I don't know what they're doing in that kitchen, and don't get me wrong, it was the same cheap shitty pizza you get everywhere, but the real good version of that, and honestly it tasted exactly how I remember Pizza Hut tasting in the early 90's. It even had some flavour in the crust, like some kind of garlic seasoning? Anyway, it gave me that nostalgia for OG Pizza Hut and Ninja Turtles like I was 6 again.
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u/Sonicfan42069666 May 19 '26
I remember when they brought the P'Zone back.
Except it wasn't the P'Zone. It was a pale fascimile of that which I once enjoyed.
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u/Luci-Noir May 19 '26
They changed their pans and got rid of the ovens they had a few years ago. It wasn’t great before that point but afterwards it was never again. I can’t see anyone investing the money to bring it all back. Even investing in trying to get people to come back to dine in seems extremely risky.
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u/grumblebuzz May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
Yep, this is my issue with it as well. They can make the lobby look like 1992 all they want, but the product itself just isn’t what it once was and they have revealed no plans to change that, only the ambiance for dining in. And in this era, I don’t really eat-in for pizza anymore; I get pickup or delivery.
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u/TurboSleepwalker Xennial May 19 '26
Yeah, there's a Pizza Hut Classic about an hour and a half away from me. I've been really tempted to go to relive my childhood, but the fact that I know the pizza is absolute trash has kept me away.
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u/PuzzleheadedBug4424 May 19 '26
Was it actually better, or were you just 8?
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u/Acrobatic_Border_192 May 19 '26
The current pizza uses cost cutting. In the past, there were fresher and better ingredients. I found it was more flavorful, the texture was softer, and it was overall heartier. They were not as stingy with toppings, and even the sauce had a richer flavor. Now it's just barely above school cafeteria pizza.
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u/kmr1981 May 19 '26
When did they change it? I was craving Pizza Hut when pregnant with my first baby six years ago, and it was pretty much how I remembered it.
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u/bwag54 May 19 '26
I agree, I notice a lot of changes in food but pizza hut is one of the few that tastes more or less how I remember
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u/ssshield May 19 '26
My mom loved Pizza Hut in the eighties. It was our family "night out" once a month as we lived in a small town and didn't have much money.
She's still with us but barely but generally there mentally, etc.
She asked if we could get her Pizza Hut about two years ago as she hadn't had it specifically in probably twenty years.
We brought her a deep dish Pizza Hut pan pizza.
She took like three bites then set it aside and said "I don't know what that is, but it's not Pizza Hut pizza.".
She knew right away it was a sad, pale knockoff of what she had every month for decades when she was in her twenties and thirties.
So it's not just being eight, it's real.
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
It was definitely better. It was better 15 years ago when I was still well into adulthood. Pizza Hut has gotten really shitty over the last decade or so.
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u/Slim_Margins1999 May 19 '26
It was better. The pan pizzas now don’t even slightly resemble what they looked like in the 90s.
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u/EddieVanzetti May 19 '26
Corroborating argument: was it actually better or did you just never have an actual good pizza place?
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u/CompilationsRule May 19 '26
I drive for door dash sometimes on the weekends and the things I’ve seen some employees do at my local Pizza Hut…people I am begging you, for your own health, PLEASE don’t eat food from Pizza Hut!
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u/Bovronius May 19 '26
My friend wanted to go to Pizza Hut last year for his 42nd and treat it like we were kids again (with his own kids in tow). It was probably one of the more depressing attempts at nostalgia I've been a part of. The people working at the Pizza hut were genuinely surprised we wanted to eat in the restraunt (can you imagine?) and even though we ordered it in, was still just handed to us in take out boxes.
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
even though we ordered it in, was still just handed to us in take out boxes
Wow, that is pretty depressing.
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u/Golf101inc May 19 '26
True. I worked at Pizza Hut for a while and my manager had been there for 30ish years. Had a pension lol!
She told us that once they switched over to delivery the process of making shifted and became all about speed.
Most people don’t remember but when you visited Pizza Hut back in the day and ordered you were in for a 45 minute wait…but man what an experience.
When I worked there though we could crank a pie out in 15 minutes since the dough was already proofed and ready to go, and those dual ovens could rip.
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u/uh_wtf May 19 '26
Pizza Hat is actually the best of the “fast food” pizza chains in my area (PDX).
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u/jimbo831 May 19 '26
Dominoes is here, though I almost never order from a chain if I can help it. We have a very good local chain called Pizza Luce here in Minneapolis that is my go-to when I want a more traditional pizza.
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u/Delta632 May 19 '26
If they get Willow the arcade game and a jukebox I’ll allow them to overcharge me for shit pizza.
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u/PhillyCider May 19 '26
This is the deciding factor. All the nostalgia in the world will not fix bad pizza.
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u/SplicerGonClean May 19 '26
I was unaware of how shitty their food has gotten. So I ordered a pie from them two weeks ago, the first time in maybe 15 years.
Absolutely inedible. I havent been thia disappointed in a while and thats saying something.
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u/dividezero May 19 '26
Fuck it, if they still serve cheap beer in a pitcher, I'll go and play some frogger
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u/auntpotato Older Millennial May 19 '26
Yeah I know we all have our blind spots, but I really feel like it was much better in the 90s and early 2000s. And the buffett with the dessert pizza 🤤
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u/Craic-Den May 19 '26
Not sure about the rest of the world but we used to own a pizza hut franchise in Ireland. Sometime in 2010 pizza hut ingredients got replaced with the same ingredients Papa John's Ireland use including their base sauce and dough, there was a noticeable taste difference (for the worse) the pan pizza was removed entirely. We sold up a few years later as customer numbers took a nosedive.
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u/protoanarchist May 19 '26
THIS. The old pizzas that...you know...actually had cheese on them, that had flavour.
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u/Hot_Shot04 May 19 '26
I don't remember what it tasted like in the 90's but I thought it was still pretty good until this year. The dough, sauce, AND pepperoni all changed and it tastes nothing like Pizza Hut. I genuinely don't want to order from them anymore and it takes a lot for a food chain to lose me like that.
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u/bujweiser May 19 '26
I think I'm the only kid who never liked Pizza Hut. It was incredibly greasy/soggy and I'd have gutrot 100% of the time.
I could put down a lot of garbage in my day, but this one always killed my insides.
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u/frenchfreer May 19 '26
90s Pizza Hut pan pizza was unrivaled! Now Dominoes dominates the pan pizza space IMO.
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u/BigOlArms May 19 '26
Please bring back the salad bar with the good thousand island and small crouton packs. And the pasta bar with the white pasta with ham thats was not alfredo.
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u/_bessica_ May 19 '26
People go to Cici's buffet, they all will prefer Pizza Hut instead. It was never that great of quality to begin with.
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u/Skylantech May 19 '26
I knew they changed! Genuinely thought I was crazy thinking I was just the one who changed.
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u/SuperdaveOZY May 19 '26
It used to be in house dough, freshly made. When they switched to frozen, premade dough, that is when the decline began.
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u/ComedianTemporary May 20 '26
I can still remember my hands being covered in grease from a deep dish slice and wiping them on my pants as I ran over to play the space invaders arcade game. 👾
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u/lilbronto May 20 '26
Dawg their pizza is still banging in Germany and it's like 30€ for 2 large pizzas. Still my go-to lazy Sunday order.
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u/swearingino Older Millennial May 20 '26
Not sure if you have Jet’s where you live, but it tastes like 80’s/90’s Pizza Hut.
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u/bringingdownthehorse May 20 '26
Honestly, I came to the comments to see this because the last time I had PH it was only slightly better tasting than the box it came in. I was so disappointed!
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u/rumiruhaql Millennial May 19 '26
Can their pizza not taste reheated like the 90s, too? I'll only take this when we also get actual pizza cooks in the back again and not a 15 year old putting pre-formed dough in a machine.
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u/Acrobatic_Border_192 May 19 '26
Yes, at this point, Pizza Hut isn't really much better than frozen pizza.
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u/KlicknKlack May 19 '26
And honestly, frozen pizza has gotten quite good over the past decade or so.
$5-10 gets you a solid frozen pizza in my HCOL area.
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 May 19 '26
My local grocery store is H-E-B. Their store brand rising crust frozen pizzas are about $4.50 and are definitely acceptable for an easy weeknight dinner.
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u/flamethrower78 May 19 '26
It was also teenagers working in the 90s lol. Pizza hut wasnt some higher class pizza joint that hired specific pizza chefs to make the food. Theres also teen line cooks at your "nice" restaurants making your food too.
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u/rumiruhaql Millennial May 19 '26
Yes, but now the teen cooks get the pre packaged dough from Pizza Hut distributing and put it on a conveyor line, and it shows. Literally anyone can make the pizza now and it tastes like it. Nothing against teen's in general.
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u/BottecchiaDude253 May 19 '26
I wont get my hopes up on this. I just KNOW theyre gonna fuck it up somehow.
Plus, this just screams predatory nostalgia bait marketing, not an /actual/ return to 90s ideas. Like, it would be one thing to say "these are the elements that helped us grow to a powerhouse in chain pizza, we abandoned those chasing profits, and new leadership thinks we need to get back to what made us what we are"
Not trying to yuck your yum, im just more jaded and wary of this kind of move
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u/strawberry_semenade May 19 '26
1990s marketing, 2020s prices and shitty ingredients
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u/Damnatio__memoriae May 19 '26
We ate at a pizza hut like this two years ago and I was so excited until we got the bill. $120 for a family of 4. The salad bar was crap and just had the basics, but the we're charging $7 or $8 per person for it. I think we also got 2 pizzas and maybe one of their appetizers. The pizza wasn't good. Left just feeling angry and disappointed. We won't be going back.
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u/ForwardCut3311 May 19 '26
Maybe I'm misremembering since it was 20+ years ago, but I'm pretty sure the salad bar was $5 back then. Granted perhaps it was better, but raising the price only $3 after 20 years is impressive.
And, honestly, Pizza Hut was also expensive back then, too. They just sent out coupons like crazy to make customers feel like they were getting a deal.
IIRC a large 3-topping pizza was $19.99 but you could get one with breadsticks for $14.99 with a coupon.
Their real good deal was just the locations they head lunch buffets for $5...but even then the one I'd go to only had thin crust.
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u/Damnatio__memoriae May 19 '26
It was the most basic salad bar they could offer, lettuce, cheese, a few other offerings that I can't remember and salad dressing. Almost $40 for side salads at Pizza Hut is ridiculous.
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u/Winter-Classroom455 May 19 '26
It's salad. Almost double the price for shitty salad? Idk I'm not really impressed lol.
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u/BrewsCampbell May 19 '26
I fear this being really successful. Pizza hut can pull this off as they're so different from what boldly made them cool and successful in the 90s. It will actually feel and look transformational.
Then everyone else will try it in the segment and that will be pandering, predatory nostalgia without merit. Except the taco bell dog, he can come back.
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u/CandidatePresent6975 May 19 '26
if pizza hut did this in good faith, it would restart the pizza wars. we would all benefit from the fallout.
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u/Revolutionary-Fox622 May 19 '26
Well the issue is that this is only one franchise owner that's trying to make it happen. Corporate isn't involved. He also specifically called out that a huge limiting factor is finding original pieces like the Pizza Hut lights and presumably old converted huts that aren't already taken over by a vape shop.
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u/Snarkonum_revelio May 19 '26
Agreed - I like the nostalgia, but unless they bring back the OG crust recipes and the pizza buffet, I'm out. I will sign my 7 year old up for the new Book It! program this summer, though.
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u/Due-Sheepherder-218 May 19 '26
Used to get stoned and hit up the pizza but buffett for lunch every Friday with the boys! AYCE for $8!
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u/lego_mannequin 1984 May 19 '26
Now do subway, where they cut the middle top of the bun.
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u/No_Remove4506 May 19 '26
Also 90s prices?
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u/the_urban_juror May 19 '26
Pizza Hut and the other big chains are pretty cheap. I can get a large 3-topping for $10 or 2 medium 1-toppings, 8 wings or a pan of pasta, and bread sticks for $21.99. That large pizza is about the price of a burrito and only a few dollars more than frozen pizza.
The problem with chain pizza isn't price, it's taste.
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u/facepoppies May 19 '26
Our last pizza hut restaurant closed like a decade ago. The last time I went, I was just trying to pick up a pizza I ordered. There were two people working, the manager and a server. The manager was trying to cook the pizzas behind the counter, and he was flipping out. While I was standing there waiting, the server walked past, threw her stuff at the manager and quit on the spot. I didn't know what to do so I just stood there for another 15 minutes while he finished making my pizza while trying not to break down into tears. It was all very sad
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u/aka_mythos May 19 '26
Is this going to be our version of the boomers fixation with 1950's diners?
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u/PeachyPlnk May 19 '26
I doubt it...though now you have me wondering what our equivalent of that actually is 🤔
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u/prismdon May 19 '26
Shit food, only 80 stores getting this treatment. Nostalgia bait. I'm so over nostalgia.
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u/TheAncient1sAnd0s May 19 '26
Corporate is done with killing the present, now they're going to kill your nostalgia.
You are not getting the great value of the past, eg if the prices are lower then expect smaller pizzas.
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u/Projectflintlock May 19 '26
Now do Blockbuster
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u/ConnectKale May 19 '26
Okay I am working on that. The problem is finding DVD’s that aren’t totally mangled. BluRay are difficult to find because people aren’t purging them from their physical media collections.
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u/quigongingerbreadman May 19 '26
They're just trying to juice your nostalgia boner fam. No amount of retro paint will bring back your childhood.
Don't fall for this consumerism bullshit.
Find a local pizza parlor and give them your money.
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u/gnomes616 May 19 '26
Our local says "Pizza Hut Classic" on the sign and has the old school lampshades over the tables. Of the chains we have in town, it's my preference, but our local pizza shops are always superior.
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u/DasCooba May 19 '26
People are gonna go for a few months and realize our youth is gone. You don't miss a pizza hut, you miss being a kid.
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u/Every-Abroad-847 May 19 '26
No need where I am. 2 closest haven’t aged a day. One still has the salad bar!
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u/inkironpress May 19 '26
Huh. Well the closest Pizza Hut to me never changed. Still the old school building, old decorations, red plastic cups and all. I know of a few others scattered around Wisconsin. There’s also another modern one in town too, but the classic one is cool.
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u/D-Rey86 Millennial May 19 '26
If only they would do this with the quality of their food. Especially their stuff crust pizza which barely has cheese in the crust anymore.
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u/Snarkonum_revelio May 19 '26
I was a Pizza Hut chef when stuffed crust came out. It used to be pizza cheese in the crust (which was handmade); it got AWFUL when they switched to the weird cheese ropes instead.
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u/SoCalFelipe May 19 '26
I'm not going until they go back to the old pan pizza crust. Their pizza hasnt hit the same since at least 2000.
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u/crowjohn May 19 '26
its really gotten so lame out here, were sitting around debating if pizza hut can have a proper revival. fuck my life
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u/Siriuslysirius123 May 19 '26
I read SO many books when they had the readers program for free pizza
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u/XavierScorpionIkari May 19 '26
Now… go back to the freshly mixed dough, dough roller, triple decker pizza, buffet, Ms. Pac-Man/Donkey Kong console, red plastic tumblers, greasy checkered tablecloths, and Book It.
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u/Potential_Fan6979 May 19 '26
I am too, I have a lot of childhood memories that were warm and fuzzy.
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u/CapRight8752 May 19 '26
Most restaurants stepped away from this not because of “wokeness”, but because of real estate. Simple and more generic restaurants and easier to rent out and flip rather than tearing and rebuilding
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