Pizza Hut Sales SURGE As Customers FLOCK To Restaurants After Owner BRINGS BACK CLASSIC 90's Style!

Indexed: 2026-05-18

[00:00:01]Do you really think this is the right thing for us to be doing, Ivana? What will people think? Let them talk.

[00:00:07]Donald.

[00:00:08]Ivana.

[00:00:09]>> [music] >> It's wrong, isn't it? But it feels so right. Then it's a deal? Yes, we eat our pizza the wrong way. Crust first.

[00:00:17]Introducing [music] stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. With a ring of cheese baked into a totally new thinner crust, you'll want to eat it the wrong way, crust first.

[00:00:25]>> have the last slice? Actually, you're only entitled to half. Large [music] just $9.99.

[00:00:31]Listen, when the Pizza Hut dining room used to look like this, that pizza used to hit. You could not mess with Pizza Hut. Everybody else was second place.

[00:00:42]Back then, nobody out-pizza'd the Hut.

[00:00:45]Everybody out-pizzas the Hut now. I don't know what happened. Okay? The soda in them red cups, it was so crispy. The root beer was extra rooty. I mean, the crust was so crispy. The cheese was extra melted. The pepperonis had extra pepper and double roni.

[00:01:04]You had this and the Scholastic Book Fair was a great day. If you ever went to the Book Fair and then you get to go to Pizza Hut that day, IT WAS PERFECT.

[00:01:12]NOW, IT IT JUST DON'T HIT. IT'D BE soggy and all that, BUT FORGET ALL THAT.

[00:01:17]This was MVP level pizza for probably '90 to '97.

[00:01:23]'96, '97.

[00:01:25]They didn't make it to THE 2000S, BUT BOY, IT USED TO HIT WHEN IT LOOKED LIKE THIS. SHOULDN'T HAVE EVER CHANGED THE DINING ROOM. Back in the day, Pizza Hut buffet felt like winning the lottery.

[00:01:35]Back in the day, Pizza Hut wasn't just food. It was an event. You could smell that buttery crust before you even opened the door. The red cups, the dim lights, the sticky arcade machines, the waitress bringing over a fresh pizza like she was delivering a gift from the heavens herself. See, when I was growing up, going out to eat used to mean something cuz we didn't get to go out to eat very much. The majority of our meals were enjoyed at home. But, the Pizza Hut buffet felt rich, felt luxurious. It felt like your parents just got paid.

[00:02:13]Real talk. And Pizza Hut wasn't the only all you can eat buffet out there. KFC had an all you can eat buffet.

[00:02:19]Wendy's used to have a salad bar back in the day and Roy Rogers had a fixings bar. We were living big. Now, everything costs $47, comes with depression, and an app to download. Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. So, we got to talk about a feel-good story that each and every last one of us who were alive during the '80s and the '90s, who have these memories, uh, can appreciate. Now, if you were born during the 2000s, you don't know anything about this. Okay?

[00:02:47]This story we're going to talk about featuring Pizza Hut, okay, which has gone downhill. Now, I'm not a big pizza guy, okay, to be honest with you. But, one of my fondest memories growing up was eating Pizza Hut for dinner with my family. Like, actually going out to eat, not getting takeout, but going out to eat, uh, at Pizza Hut. I remember a Pizza Hut, uh, restaurant in Ahoskie, North Carolina. I'm not sure if many of you guys are familiar with Ahoskie, but there was a Pizza Hut in Ahoskie that I used to love to eat at. I remember pulling up with my family, sitting down, having a large pizza. Um, I'm a big meat guy.

[00:03:23]>> [laughter] >> Pause.

[00:03:25]But, I'm just saying, I love having a lot of meat on my pizza, right? I love drowning my pizza in the Parmesan cheese as well, too. You got the salad bar, uh, you have the low lights, right? The red cups, right? The the the tables with like the the picnic mats, right? It you know, it was just a different time, right? It was just a different time. And, um, you know, I I have vivid memories of what Pizza Hut used to be like. Again, nowadays, I'm not a big pizza guy. Um I don't think that the pizza uh today from Pizza Hut is the same that it was back then. Back then, I remember it being amazing, like absolutely amazing. But nowadays, I don't really bother with pizza that much. Like I'm just not the type of dude that's going to order pizza, um you know, when I go out to eat or if I'm sitting at home and I'm watching a football game or a UFC fight or sport event or whatever. Like I'm not going to be the pizza guy, right? Um I like wings. Um I don't particularly remember eating uh Pizza Hut wings back then, right? I I >> [laughter] >> remember the pizza.

[00:04:29]But yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not a big pizza guy, but I love pizza back then, specifically from Pizza Hut.

[00:04:35]That would be like the only pizza that I would eat, okay? But again, nowadays, I don't think that the pizza is as good as it was back then. Part of the reason why I don't really eat it, okay? Uh regardless, there are a lot of people who are now flocking to Pizza Hut uh because they're restoring uh their restaurant back to their former glory days. And I want to talk about this because again, each and every last one of us who actually were alive back then and had the experience of the classic Pizza Hut uh understands how much this is missed, okay? How uh it is very hard to get this experience uh again. So without further ado, let's get into it.

[00:05:14]In the hills of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, a familiar red roof catches the eye. Inside, the vinyl booths, Tiffany-style lamps, and yes, the salad bar you may remember from decades ago. I mean, it's amazing the comments we have about they have the red cups. You know, yes, we do. Tim Sparks got his start working at a Pizza Hut that looked like this. He's now president of Dayland Corporation, which owns this franchise and more than 80 others around the country. They've redecorated many restaurants to rewind the clock.

[00:05:46]>> It looks exactly like the one that I remember from when I was a kid. Yeah, that's that's what we were after. Some Pizza Hut classics are now top performing locations. Customers show up for a piece of their childhood.

[00:05:58]>> It just brings back memories. To share with their own kids. When you finally find something that tastes how you genuinely remember it tasting, like you can't let it go. Well, I hope so. I hope so. I hope it tastes the way that it used to taste because if it do, I'm going to have to find one of these Pizza Hut classic locations and pull up.

[00:06:16]Right? I'm going to have to because I remember back in the day again the pizza being amazing, particularly the sausage pizza, right? A large sausage and pepperoni pizza.

[00:06:26]Amazing, okay? No ranch dressing needed, right?

[00:06:30]I just sprinkle that Parmesan on it and then, you know, go to town. So, if they're bringing back the old pizza and they're bringing back the old feel, right? The old style feel, the classic feel, then yeah, I definitely got to pull up to Pizza Hut, right? One of these classic Pizza Huts and and try it out. People come from two and three hours away and I'm not making that up. More restaurants are serving up nostalgia. Franchises like Burger King and KFC returned to old school logos and packaging in recent years. At Pizza Hut, they even brought back Pac-Man.

[00:07:06]But for Sparks, this is much more than a game. It's a mission to rebuild places where families can connect. If we can get them in here as a family, they do tend to put their phones down and actually have conversations and speak with each other.

[00:07:20]I'm not going to tell you I don't know how to fix the world, but I do think that family is a good place to start. He hopes to renovate more of his restaurants as long as he can find enough of those lamps. They're hard to get? Yeah, they're they're almost impossible to get. A familiar taste. Well, cheers. Here you go. Bringing people together. Just like I remember it.

[00:07:40]>> [laughter] >> Again, Bradley Blackburn, News, Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania.

[00:07:46]Wow. Wow, I hope this trend continues because modern doesn't necessarily mean better, right? A lot of people think that modern means better, but I I really don't think that it does. I think, you know, for the most part, um most of these fast-food restaurants uh have gone downhill, right? Red Lobster's gone downhill. It's not what it used to be. I remember growing up eating at Red Lobster, and that was like a special occasion, right? I remember, you know, people be like, "Hey, eating at Red Lobster is fancy, right?" That That is, you know, what you what you eat when you got money, right? Nowadays Nowadays eating at Red Lobster is not uh a very special occasion, okay? Red Lobster >> [snorts] >> uh is not what it used to be.

[00:08:30]Um there are a lot of restaurants that are not what they used to be.

[00:08:33]Uh again, including Pizza Hut. But again, if they can bring this back, uh they can make this work, then I'm hoping that this continues a trend of bringing back uh the classics, right? The stuff that worked, right? That made people fall in love with these restaurants in first place. So, let's read here. Pizza Hut corporate spent 7 years killing the exact thing this guy is bringing back, and his stores are now some of the busiest in the entire chain. Tim Sparks, president of Dallen Corporation, is converting 80 Pizza Hut locations to the original 1980s format, red cups, salad bars, stained glass lamps, Pac-Man machines, vinyl booths. His first job was a Pizza Hut dishwasher. Yeah, I love stories like this. I absolutely love stories like this.

[00:09:17]Um when I got my first job working uh at a grocery store, right? As a cashier, I learned basically the whole store, right? How to do everything, okay? I was in the meat department, I was in the produce department, I was in the deli department, right? So, I was cooking fried chicken, I was cutting the Boar's Head meat, I was take care of the fruits and vegetables.

[00:09:40]I was also take care of everything in the meat department, cleaning the bathrooms. I was a jack of all trades, right? I was doing everything, right? And because I was doing everything, I wanted to run the store, right? I wanted to own my own grocery store. I wanted to manage the grocery store. So, when I got my first job as a teenager, uh it inspired me to uh be an entrepreneur in the sense that I wanted to own it, right? That was the first time that I was like, "Oh, wait. I know how to do everything. I can probably run this store."

[00:10:12]So, the whole point of me telling this story is that, you know, this is the classic kind of American dream, right?

[00:10:18]Entrepreneur story, right? You start off working some low-level position, and then you work your way up, and then, you know, you are managing the store, or you own the store, or whatever, right? So, I had the same type of dream growing up uh when I got my first job.

[00:10:32]Um you know, working in low-level positions, and just trying to work my way up, and and do more, right? So, again, I love stories like this. The classics are massively outperforming standard Pizza Huts. Customers drive 2 to 3 hours to eat there. A single Facebook post about one classic location in Pennsylvania got 7,500 shares, and broke onto TikTok overnight. Meanwhile, corporate is doing the exact opposite.

[00:10:55]250 store closures planned for the first half of 2026. Quote unquote, "Red Roof dine-in franchises no longer offered to new operators."

[00:11:05]Yum! Brands is considering selling the entire chain. No obvious buyer.

[00:11:11]The decline numbers are brutal. Pizza Hut held 25% of US Pizza market share in 1995. Today, under 14% in uh 2019, half of traditional stores were still dine-in, but 90% of revenue came from off-premise orders.

[00:11:28]Corporate saw the mismatch, and decided to eliminate the dine-in format entirely, convert everything to delivery boxes, compete with uh Domino's on logistics. The problem with that strategy, Domino's is a technology company that happens to sell pizza.

[00:11:42]Their competitive advantage is in order tracking, delivery optimization, and franchise efficiency. When Pizza Hut stripped out the booths, the salad bar, the lamps, and the experience, they became a worse Domino's. A typical Pizza Hut location now generates 20% less revenue than the average across the other four major pizza chains.

[00:12:02]Their biggest franchisee went bankrupt in 2020 and closed 300 stores. Total sales haven't grown since 2004, uh 22 years of stagnation.

[00:12:12]And a former dishwasher is adding salad bars and packed in machines, and people are driving across state lines. The Friday night with your family in a vinyl booth under a stained glass lamp while the kids play arcade games and load it up plates at the salad bar. That was always what Pizza Hut was selling.

[00:12:29]Corporate optimized it off the balance sheet. One franchisee uh who grew up inside the original version understood what the spreadsheet couldn't measure.

[00:12:38]Yeah, I mean hey, I kind of agree with that in the sense that it was about the experience, right? The product was good, too, but the experience was a part of the product, right? Uh the pizza being good was one part of it, but the experience of going to Pizza Hut and sitting down and having a nice meal uh with your family, uh the classic feel, the ambiance, uh yeah, that in and of itself was such a powerful experience that even somebody like myself, who was born in the '90s, I remember it vividly, right? Despite being so young, and yes, I yearn for it. Yeah, I I I want that experience again, right? I want to experience that once again, right? Uh and if Pizza Hut can bring that back, then who knows? Maybe, you know, I'll pull up and maybe a lot of other people who loved that experience growing up will pull up the Pizza Hut and to um show that this works, right?

[00:13:31]That going back to what worked before, what made these restaurants great in the first place, going back to that can I actually work in 2026? It can work in today's modern society. But we're going to see. I am hoping the best for this entrepreneur. I love stories like this and I am hoping that more Pizza Huts adopt this. I hope that more restaurants turn back the clock and become what they once were, right? Because today's restaurants are lifeless, right? They really lack the character and the culture that they used to have. But we're going to see. Let me know what you guys think. Make sure you like, comment, and subscribe. Most importantly, share a black conservative perspective. Peace.