Pizza Hut has been around forever, in fact, during the second Thanksgiving, the pilgrims and Indians actually just clinked plastic red cups at a dine-in Pizza Hut. But that will be no more, because you will no longer be able to experience the Italian fine dining luxury that only Pizza Hut can bring. They are closing their dine-in stores. Luckily, Pizza Hut will continue to have delivery and carry out services, but if you want to eat there, you have to settle for eating it in your car in the parking lot.
According to People
Pizza Hut is making some changes and will be closing hundreds of dine-in locations across the U.S.
According to Food Business Network the pizza franchise has decided to focus on delivery and carryout services, meaning it will cut back on “underperforming dine-in restaurants.”
“This will ultimately strengthen the Pizza Hut business in the U.S. and set it up for a faster long-term growth,” President of Yum! Brands David W. Gibbs said in an earnings call, the outlet reported.
This makes me extra sad because Pizza Hut is basically the reason I can read. In the 80s, they had a reading program called Book It that gave you a free pizza if you read a certain number of books. It was the only thing that could motivate my dumb ass to read. So with Secretary of Education Besty DeVos (I swear she’s really behind this) shutting down Pizza Hut’s dine-in stores, illiteracy rates are going to skyrocket!
That said, it sounds like the goal is to close some dine-in restaurants, reorganize and come back stronger.
There are currently 7,496 Pizza Hut locations across the country, according to Yum! Brands website. Of those, 6,100 are traditional dine-in restaurants and 1,350 are express locations.
The total, however, is expected to drop to as low as 7,000 in the next two years Gibbs said.
“During this transition, we expect a temporary deceleration in the pace of new unit development for the Pizza Hut division… As a result, our U.S. store count could drop to as low as 7,000 locations over the next 24 months, primarily driven by closures of underperforming dine-in restaurants before rebounding to current levels and above in the future,” he explained.
Pizza Hut didn’t teach me math or business, so I have no idea if this is a good idea, but hopefully they will be able to stay afloat with some restructuring. Pizza Hut has given us cheeseburger-crusted pizza and Kit-Kats wrapped in pizza dough, so you know they’re full of good ideas. And if they could outlast the renaming/rebranding of themselves into The Hut to be more “hip and text friendly“, then they might be able to withstand this bump in the road.
Pic: Wikimedia Commons