While Pizza Hut is not considered top tier, it does have a specific texture and taste that has drawn me in since I was a kid, and nobody matches it.
For this visit, my wife and I arrived and was seated with only 1 other person in the seating area, on the opposite side of the room. After receiving our drinks, we ordered bread sticks as an appetizer while trying to determine what else we wanted. Almost immediately we noticed a middle aged woman, raising her voice, seemingly firmly reprimanding a child hidden by the booth. She continued to grow louder, even cursing where being on the other side of the dining area still heard her very clearly. It grew to yelling that did not stop, so I got up to talk to the manager. She dropped the F-bomb many times, again seemingly in an argument, but clearly per content, tone and language was not a child, and could have been someone on the phone. She yelled about "not going to the F bomb hotel again", "her, nor her family getting a size 6 dress because they were excused from the size", "you are not going to bone me", and much more endless agitated speaking with xxx content. Again, it grew to yelling, almost as though it would turn violent at any point. So as I explain what is going on to the manager who can clearly hear her tirade as we are talking, tells me, "yes, she is an interesting customer". So I asked if she had been here before and he stated, "yes, she is a regular customer". I asked if she always like this, and he stated "yes". At that point my wife joined us as she said she did not want to sit any longer for fear this woman would turn to her and even become physical. So he finally asked if we wanted him to talk to her. Since I believed if anything it would make it worse for us, we told him at this point we are just looking to leave, but already received our drinks so did not want to walk out. He stated he would not charge for them and let us go. Once in my car I realized I left my glasses in the booth, so I came back in to grab them. As I did, I noticed the manager I just spoke with walking to the woman with a new drink in hand, put it down and did not say a word. This astonished me as he chose to let a customer leave who wanted to have a nice quiet dine out experience; and was not going to speak with what clearly was an unstable woman that likely impacted other customers as well since she was an " interesting regular customer". In that regard, the choice was made to keep a woman that as hard as you try cannot be ignored and cost this franchise customers, including me.
It saddens me that executive leadership continues to make choices that is likely the reason for such a massive failure for the franchise closing many across the USA, for example 2 of 3 in the CDA area. Their policies changed after COVID, where they are no longer offer full service, for example where you could order an appetizer before the pizza comes out, but instead will only allow you to order all food at once, and even when you as for the appetizer first, tell you they are not allowed to do that. Just like any restaurant, I want to eat the appetizer first, then receive a fresh/hot main dish once you've had time to eat the appetizer. For a while, they would also serve the pizza in a box, rather than a dish, silverware, etc. Given PH has been successful for so long, you tend to wonder if COVID hit them so hard they could not recover. At the same time, the mentality of closing, or highly restricting dining rooms hit hard because many chains offer delivery, where dining was a big part of PH operations. It was not that COVID changed peoples mentality to eating out, but PH never attempted to reinstate operations likely because ROI was not considered, they failed to limit the number of locations in markets where there were multiple franchises to absorb the hit, and they just looked at the current P&L vs. looking forward to re-establish a successful model where more than a few seats are filled. Even in the 2010s you would see 3/4 or more seats filled during peak, and maybe 1/3 non peak. But now, you often have it to yourself and policy change along with other leadership decisions I believe are a huge part of that.
At this point I was hoping their prior business model would return, but it is pretty clear it is gone, as is trying to retain or draw customers back. Interesting because when I told the manager we did order breadsticks, so I was unsure if they already through them in, the waitress indicated she was waiting until we placed the pizza order, so still no change. This final example of an " interesting returning customer" allowed to act in a manner that 99% of other customers would walk out on truly does afford a positive attempt at reclaiming what was a family environment, I do believe it was my last straw. Giving them time to right the ship even after so long still shows leadership has a failing mentality and I do believe it was my last attempt. Sad. read more