Pizza Hut is reaching for a familiar look, and for some diners, it is straight out of the 1980s and 1990s.
Dozens of locations are bringing back old-school dining room décor, including red cups, salad bars, checkerboard tables and Tiffany-style stained-glass lamps, Inc.com reported.
The retro remodels are called “Pizza Hut Classic.” They have returned to 38 of the 93 Pizza Hut franchises run by the Kansas-based Daland Corporation.
The remodels also include promotional materials for the “Book It!” program, which the chain established in 1984 and still runs to reward children for reading with pizza.
“[The Pizza Hut] brand is kind of iconic to the country,” Daland president Tim Sparks told Fox News on “America Reports.”
Brothers Dan and Frank Carney founded Pizza Hut in Kansas in 1958 after borrowing $600 from their mother.
“They named it Pizza Hut, because their sign only had room for eight letters,” the chain’s website says.
Today, there are more than 16,000 Pizza Huts in more than 100 countries. Until recently, only a handful kept the classic look.
Sparks said many families, including his own, enjoyed eating at Pizza Hut when the restaurants had the traditional styling. He said he hopes the throwback makeovers will bring customers back into dining rooms.
“It’s a good time to start having dinner together,” Sparks said.
He said the response to the nostalgic renovations has been very positive. Content from bloggers who visited a Pizza Hut Classic and posted videos and photos has gone viral, according to Sparks.
“Everybody gets super excited,” Sparks said. “There’s a lot of feel-good to it for sure.”
A YouTube video about the spread of Pizza Hut Classics also drew enthusiastic comments.
“This is actually making me smile. I have been wanting Pizza Hut to return to its former glory for years,” one user wrote. “The pizza, salad bar, cups, pasta, lamps, jukebox, everything. A lot of memories.”
“It’s amazing that designing your restaurant to be warm and inviting actually encourages people to come eat at your restaurant as opposed to the gray corporate slop designed for high turnover,” another wrote.
“Everyone’s trying to live our childhoods because we were all happier back then,” someone else commented.
“If Pizza Hut goes ahead and does this, I will be a regular visitor,” another comment read.
Sparks said he hopes people who remember Pizza Hut from childhood will bring their own children in to see the classic restaurants.
“If it was good for us, it’s good for them, right?” he said.
He also said pizza is at its best when it is served fresh from the oven, straight to your table.
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