Pizza Hut Downsizing Hits Buckhead

Pizza Hut Downsizing Hits Buckhead

Plano, Texas-based Pizza Hut will soon close their Sidney Marcus @ Piedmont Road full service "Hut" in favor of a smaller, inline location not far away.  The dated restaurant was remodeled a few years ago and saw the addition of WingStreet but was simply too large an operation to keep open in its current location.  Continuing the company's plans to reduce its number of dated and at this point, unnecessarily large "Hut" locations of the late 60s and early 70s, the pizza chain is closing many of these locations nationwide.  This was done earlier with locations in Tucker and Decatur.  In each case, large full service restaurants were closed and smaller, takeout locations were opened not far away.  The Tucker location was demolished in favor of a new Chipotle Mexican Grill while at Suburban Plaza, the hut remains intact, but is now home to Cozy Burger Town.

Pizza Hut's Buckhead location will be razed for what I'm told will be a Chase Bank.  The new Pizza Hut will open in Peachtree Plaza on Peachtree Road.  The space, in the same shopping center as the White House, will be renovated from retail to restaurant and should open late in the first quarter of next year.

Back in the day, Pizza Hut did well with sit down patrons and its buffet in some locations.  Today, however, the bulk of the pizza chain's business comes from take out and delivery orders.  Realizing this, the company is shifting from its large scale, full service restaurants to much smaller locations, often in shopping centers, preferably in endcaps, with easy access and clear visibility.

Pizza Hut is, of course, one third of the fast food trifecta known as Yum! Brands, the largest fast food restaurant operator by number of units, with nearly 40,000 locations.  Other Yum! concepts include KFC and Taco Bell.

Author : def

Share this

Related Posts