Old guy here. I remember when Pizza Hut was great food. And so was Red Lobster. Don’t remember the last good Pizza Hut I had and it’s been since 2002 or so for Red Lobster.
Wherever I am, I stay the hell away from chain restaurants. They slowly chip away at quality until you wake up 10 or 30 years later and say, “Why am I still eating this bland crap?!”
I can tell you it’s probably when they transitioned to frozen dough for the pan pizza vs. mixing it fresh each day. I will say that the frozen wasn’t terrible, still better than other chains, but it was not the same as fresh.
i never realized how pillowy soft the fresh version was until i got the frozen one. the town i grew up in had dozens of other small towns around it with 3 pizza huts combined, so sometimes i would go back and forth between the frozen and fresh versions whenever they ran out of the frozen and stopped going completely when they all switched to frozen full time because it didn’t taste any better than the frozen pizza from the grocery store.
I can still just barely remember the days when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant where you could sit down to eat and while you waited for your pizza, you could play some arcade games. Society has lost its way.
I remember the last good Pizza Hut I had. It was a personal pan pizza I got from the Pizza Hut kiosk at my college’s student center, sometime in the '00s.
That Pizza Hut Express kiosk at college hit different! Maybe it was the small bit of childhood sticking around as the world is slowly sucking you into adulthood, but I have fond memories of that pizza and playing Puzzle Fighter in the little arcade next to the cafeteria.
Even more makes you wonder how much it costed 40 years ago to construct this building in their brand and style (must have been worth it at the time) just to abandon it later after failing to compete because they fucked their customers on quality.
Same with red lobster. When I was a kid they used to actually have lobster. Last time I was there like 16 years ago, they didn’t even have lobster. Like, it’s in the fucking name.
Over here in Europe, McD had some advertisements 2~3 years ago that now the buns are fluffier, the burgers juicier and saucier, the meat hotter. I did some digging and the calories stayed the same, meaning they basically put more air in the buns and more water in the patties to save on money, and to mask it all they put more sauce into it, which is the cheapest thing. I can’t go there anymore, it’s lost quality and you bite into a burger once and it looks like you’ve made out with the Hamburgler.
Oh and: McD over here used to be some real gourmet stuff. It’s extremely regulated.
I once was in the Netherlands on holiday and the McDonalds there had some sort of Italian burger, a soft panini style bun with with grilled chicken, mozzarella, tomato and basil pesto - that was amazing.
Oh yeah you’re right I almost forgot, in the Netherlands they have some premium burgers that are actually kind of good just way too expensive for what they are. In the Middle East I found McDonalds also much better.
In Germany imo it still sucks especially compared to other burger places that do fresh food.
Old guy here. I remember when Pizza Hut was great food. And so was Red Lobster. Don’t remember the last good Pizza Hut I had and it’s been since 2002 or so for Red Lobster.
Wherever I am, I stay the hell away from chain restaurants. They slowly chip away at quality until you wake up 10 or 30 years later and say, “Why am I still eating this bland crap?!”
I can tell you it’s probably when they transitioned to frozen dough for the pan pizza vs. mixing it fresh each day. I will say that the frozen wasn’t terrible, still better than other chains, but it was not the same as fresh.
i never realized how pillowy soft the fresh version was until i got the frozen one. the town i grew up in had dozens of other small towns around it with 3 pizza huts combined, so sometimes i would go back and forth between the frozen and fresh versions whenever they ran out of the frozen and stopped going completely when they all switched to frozen full time because it didn’t taste any better than the frozen pizza from the grocery store.
They changed to frozen? Admittedly I haven’t had any in years, but I remember those huge fucking mixers back when I worked there.
You taking 10 to 30 years to ask yourself that is exactly what private equity is betting on.
Gott ‘em
‘emerica
:(
I can still just barely remember the days when Pizza Hut was an actual restaurant where you could sit down to eat and while you waited for your pizza, you could play some arcade games. Society has lost its way.
i miss the buffets the most from pizza hut
They used to be the world’s biggest purchaser of kale for their buffet displays, because it doesn’t wilt for a very long time.
I remember the last good Pizza Hut I had. It was a personal pan pizza I got from the Pizza Hut kiosk at my college’s student center, sometime in the '00s.
That Pizza Hut Express kiosk at college hit different! Maybe it was the small bit of childhood sticking around as the world is slowly sucking you into adulthood, but I have fond memories of that pizza and playing Puzzle Fighter in the little arcade next to the cafeteria.
Even more makes you wonder how much it costed 40 years ago to construct this building in their brand and style (must have been worth it at the time) just to abandon it later after failing to compete because they fucked their customers on quality.
Same with red lobster. When I was a kid they used to actually have lobster. Last time I was there like 16 years ago, they didn’t even have lobster. Like, it’s in the fucking name.
Over here in Europe, McD had some advertisements 2~3 years ago that now the buns are fluffier, the burgers juicier and saucier, the meat hotter. I did some digging and the calories stayed the same, meaning they basically put more air in the buns and more water in the patties to save on money, and to mask it all they put more sauce into it, which is the cheapest thing. I can’t go there anymore, it’s lost quality and you bite into a burger once and it looks like you’ve made out with the Hamburgler.
Oh and: McD over here used to be some real gourmet stuff. It’s extremely regulated.
I also thought it tasted as shitty as always even after the update, but when was McDonald’s ever gourmet? It was always terrible.
I once was in the Netherlands on holiday and the McDonalds there had some sort of Italian burger, a soft panini style bun with with grilled chicken, mozzarella, tomato and basil pesto - that was amazing.
Oh yeah you’re right I almost forgot, in the Netherlands they have some premium burgers that are actually kind of good just way too expensive for what they are. In the Middle East I found McDonalds also much better.
In Germany imo it still sucks especially compared to other burger places that do fresh food.
Oh Middle East! When I was in Dubai I had a spicy chicken burger - they used a whole deboned chicken thigh in there!
My wife visited Saudi Arabia a few months ago and one thing she told that she liked was that Pizza Hut still tastes good there.