When did you last go to a Pizza Hut? It’s one of those curious groups of fast food establishments – ‘restaurant’ seems rather too grandiose a term – that fell through the reputational cracks several years, perhaps even decades, ago, and has yet to expire. It was too expensive and fancy for those who wanted a Dominos or Papa Johns, not middle-class enough for the Pizza Express habitués and, of course, its pizzas – large, American-inspired creations that were served without particular flair or engagement – could not even begin to compete with the new vogue for Neapolitan thick-crusted delights that were ushered in by the arrival of Franco Manca in Brixton nearly two decades ago now.
Pizza Hut was never very good, and the time for indulging false affection for it is at an end
It’s not, therefore, a massive surprise to discover that the Pizza Hut group in this country is in existential trouble. As usual, there is a conglomerate that has owned the eateries, in this case the unappetisingly named DC London Pie, and they have faced financial ruin ever since they acquired this unlucrative franchise. Pizza Hut, which had descended into insolvency, has therefore been offloaded sharpish in the direction of the equally fancifully monikered ‘Yum! Brands’. They have announced, with a certain degree of brass neck, that they are ‘pleased to secure the continuation of 64 sites to safeguard our guest experience and protect the associated jobs.’ What is being less trumpeted is that 68 restaurants and 11 delivery sites are being closed in the process, resulting in over 1,200 redundancies.
Admittedly, a greater number of jobs have been saved – ‘Yum! Brands’ report that ‘approximately 2,259 team members will transfer to the new Yum! equity business under UK TUPE legislation, including above-restaurant leaders and support teams’ – but it is still another blow for the British mass-market dining experience. Yet in this case, it could have been predicted ages ago. When I was a youth and therefore the target market for Pizza Hut, I used to enjoy going out for suitably stomach-stuffing lunches in the local branch, where you could eat as many slices of pizza as you wanted. And, if you were so inclined, patronise the salad bar, although if memory serves this was less tempting an offer. The food may not have have much nutritional value, or even borne much resemblance to the kind of deep-dish pizzas that were served in America, but it was filling, reasonably tasty and allowed the impecunious to eat to their heart’s content for a reasonably small sum of money.
Unfortunately, the decline of Pizza Hut has meant that it may still be cheap, but it’s decidedly less cheerful. A glance at the website reveals that you can have pretty much any pizza, and any size delivered from a tenner, whether it’s the loaded pepperoni and triple cheese blend, the meat supreme (as opposed to the meat feast or ‘the meaty one’) or the Cholula Chicken Sizzler, a name that has been trademarked, perhaps on the grounds that there is another rival hot sauce brand that is equally desperate to lend their name to a failing fast-food business. None of this exactly implies faith in the quality of the pizzas that will be served. It is instead likely that Dominos long since gobbled up the competition, and will continue to do so until the ‘Hut is but a folk memory.
On a level of Proustian nostalgia – time, perhaps, for a madeleine-flavoured pizza, as a final, desperate throw of the dice? – I always feel a vague pang at yet another childhood memory vanishing from our high streets, but then reality intrudes once again. Pizza Hut was never very good, and now the time for indulging false affection for it is at an end. If the 64 sites, and their 2000 jobs, continue to exist well into next year, then Yum! have achieved a miracle not seen since Christ performed similar culinary wonders with loaves and fishes. But, on present estimation, it is looking doubtful, and it is hard to feel too sad about the final stuffed crust being served up.
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