My love affair with Pizza Hut

As a kid I was deprived of many things. That made the little things that much more special. I have been told that the town council where I grew up had a "no chain restaurants" ordinance in place. During my high school years we had a Pizza Ranch and Blimpies. That was the extent of chains allowed in town. So travelling 15 miles south to the county seat was a special event. It meant a possibility of stopping for Pizza Hut.


Most nights I had family dinner at the dinner table. It was always at 6:00 and it was an expansive revolving menu. I think my folks liked Pizza Hut for the fact that it was a sit down place, serviced kids and made us happy. I would love nothing more right now than to have a Donkey Kong or Ms Pac Man table arcade game in my home. You know what I'm talking about. Not the regular ones, the flat ones.



In 1989 Pizza Hut got into the toy game with Back to the Future sunglasses.

I was 11 years old so not only was it cool to be getting a new Back To The Future movie, but to be able to have a piece of the action...amazing. Sadly, the first pair I got were the pink ones. Those were immediately handed down to my sister. No, I wanted the yellow circle ones. They were like Dwayne Wayne's glasses from A Different World. I tried to buy those too from Spencer Gifts but could never pull the trigger. Thank heaven. I finally did get those sunglasses from Pizza Hut. I maybe wore them twice. But still, I got them.

In college, we'd trek to the Pizza Hut for lunch buffet. I was finally in a bigger town (or an actual city). We'd go to the local Hut about once a week or so. We'd wait like ravenous vultures as every new pizza arrived on the buffet table. The best part was with a soda the total cost was $6.66. Ha.

For a short time I was in the delivery zone for Lincoln Park's Pizza Hut on Broadway. One day I noticed a lot of black smoke coming from the Dominick's general direction. Yeah, the grocery burned down and did just enough damage to the neighboring Pizza Hut that it was condemned as well. They still haven't built a new one, as promised, many years ago.

Then my roommate did the smartest thing imaginable. He bought a house. He took my other roommate and I with him. And we landed right on the cusp of a new Pizza Hut delivery zone. I recently ordered from the hut and from ordering to delivery it took 20 minutes. Amazing.

Sadly, I will be leaving the zone in a few months. Which means I will look forward to the day when I enter a new zone (possibly p'zone?) and get some hot fresh pizza from my favorite pizza chain. You can have your Gino's East, I'll take my Hut.

Pizza Hut / Taco Bell song