- Analiese Jackson
I don’t know how much people that aren’t me tend to remember these things, but during the mid 90s, it was really popular to have your birthday party at the Dine-In Pizza Hut Restaurants. You’d turn up, sit politely at the table for all of five minutes, then race the other, equally hungry, party-goers to the buffet table, where you’d proceed to fill your plate with much more pizza than you could ever possibly comprehend eating in one go. You’d gouge yourself on artery clogging goodness, take a brief break by refilling your soda cup and then defy all measures of childhood food to stomach ratios by eating several helpings of creamy desserts. It was not all that uncommon to hear of children throwing up on the way home after an hour or two of pizza mayhem or, occasionally, while you were still at the buffet (maybe they were just making room for more, I don’t know). While I’m proud to say I never was “that kid”, these memories were really good times in my childhood. Good times indeed.
These days, eating pizza is all about the ordering online and the squabble as to who’s going to pick it up or whether you’re going to have to pay an extra couple of dollars to get it delivered if no one can be bothered venturing outside . Sadly, it’s not often that people actively go out to eat pizza, let alone have ‘pizza parties’ anymore. Recently though, I’d been thinking a little too much about the consumption of pizza in New Zealand and the all-too poignant question: where the hell had all the ‘proper’ Pizza Huts gone?
A quick search of the internet allowed me to delve into some pizza-esque history. Once upon a time, Pizza Hut were part of a fast food empire here in New Zealand. We didn’t have fancy things like Dominos or Subway and were rather contented choosing between Maccas, K-fry, Cobb n Co. or the ‘Hut. However, an influx of other, newer shiner brands like Burger King, Burger Fuel, Hells Pizza and the now defunct Pizza Haven saw Pizza Hut really take a whopping in their sales figures. Pizza, it seemed, was suffering a massive decrease in popularity
After the turn of the new Millennium, Dine in Pizza Huts were all but wiped out. In 2007, we were considered blessed with a whopping 15 dine in stores across the nation. However, after Restaurant Brands (the people that own the ‘Hut and other franchises such as KFC and Starbucks) made a $3.6 million dollar loss primarily on Pizza Hut operations, over half of the remaining Pizza Hut stores were systematically shut down and only a few stores escaped the fate of their less fortunate cousins. According to a quick Google search, there are now only six dine-in Pizza Huts left in the country. Apparently, an article written for stuff.co.nz in August this years claims that Pizza Hut, with its 93 (mostly take-away) stores across New Zealand, made just $64 million last year, down from $89m in 2006. That’s a 27 per cent slump in sales, a swift kick in the balls to management, and the conclusion of your ‘fast’ food history lesson.
Anyway, as I’d mentioned above, I’d recently been lamenting the loss of one of one of my favourite childhood party venues. It all started after I’d remembered a particularly traumatic experience which involved the Pizza Hut dessert bar’s ice-cream machine (the short version of which is that I wasn’t tall enough to flip the ice-cream machine to ‘off’ and stood there helplessly as I was covered in soft serve) and had regaled the tale to a bunch of friends in what was probably a drunken tirade of nostalgia. Then, as if the angels had sung out from the heavens, I heard an utterance that was like no other. It was amazing. Incredible. Words formed purely out of gold. What was this heavenly phrase, you may ask? It was this: “There’s a Dine In Pizza Hut left in New Lynn”. It felt like a beacon had finally been shone towards the West. Like there was still a glimmer of hope for the deprived children of New Zealand. Like nothing I’d felt for a very long time.
That’s how I found myself, on a relatively warm Saturday evening, heading out west with The Boyfriend in a car that we borrowed (the colour of which was not terribly unlike the old snifter lollies). After a few navigational fails, we finally spotted the famous, albeit faded red roof of the mythical dine in Pizza Hut and pulled into the parking lot.
“It looks a lot more…shit than I remembered” I muttered quietly, as we swung open the doors to a pizza heaven unlike any we had encountered for at least the better part of a decade.
After following the traditional Pizza Hut tradition of pretending to peruse the menu as if you’re not there solely for an evening of buffet gluttony, we loaded our plates high and sat down to ponder the demise of Pizza Hut…huts.
“Wouldn’t it be terrible if you came to the Pizza Hut buffet to eat all by yourself” pondered The Boyfriend, failing to notice that the man directly behind him was gnawing on one of the many slices of pizzas he had laden on his plate alone, face contorted in concentration.
“Ssssssssssssh!” I hissed, perhaps a little noisily as the lone man finally registered that we may have been discussing him and stared at me for a little longer than I was comfortable with before glancing back at his plate to continue eating his emotions.
Looking around the restaurant though, it was interesting to see the types of people that still frequent the last of the dine – in pizza huts. I vividly remember as a child that, when we went to Pizza Hut, there were barely any empty chairs and the place was packed with young families wanting to maximise their value for dollar by piling their plates high with pizza, chips and garlic bread. This time though, the place was practically deserted. Looking around the place from my booth, aside from the lonely man and his plate of cheesy comfort, I spotted a morbidly obese family dressed in Hawaiian shirts going back for their fifth, sixth and seventh servings before perusing the dessert bar; a grandmother with her young grandson (I overheard her telling him rather emphatically that this was his mothers favourite place as a child whilst he looked around the place, rather puzzled by how this could be considered an awesome place to be) and five burly men who literally wolfed down two pizzas ahead with the efficiency of a high-powered vacuum cleaner. This wasn’t how I remembered it. Somewhere, deep inside, as I munched on my piece of slightly dry Meatlovers pizza, I felt a little part of my childhood die.
Nothing was quite the same. There weren’t any children enjoying the crappy green jelly and hot fudge sauce so much that it was plastered all over their faces. There were certainly no parties happening. The pizza wasn’t as delicious as it once was and there was no drinks machine with which to fill my cup in order to make ice cream spiders. It just didn’t feel…right. This wasn’t the Holy Grail of Pizza I’d envisaged. It was just a rusty cup with the Pizza Hut logo emblazoned on it; a relic from a time long ago.
Perhaps some things are better left in the past. Georgie Pie, for example, is another food place I remember fondly; what, with it’s square pastry bricks and smooth meat that looked suspiciously like gravy but wasn’t quite thin enough to pass off as the brown stuff, but I bet if they start revving that chain, I’d be equally as disappointed. But the fact that there are a few Pizza Huts left had left me with a glimmer of hope, one that is firmly now extinguished.
Dine in Pizza Huts: May you Rest In Peace.