Distinctive

 

Over on the Howard County Eats Facebook page, one poster* laments the closing of the Pizza Hut on Route 108. 

That reminds me. Have you ever felt as though Toby’s Dinner Theatre looks a bit like Pizza Hut?

Of course, I couldn’t find a single photo that showed what I think is a striking resemblance. Honestly, if you are coming down the road from Little Patuxent Parkway and Toby’s appears in your view, there’s something definitely Pizza Hut-esque about it.

Reaching outside the Bubble - - here’s True Grit’s Dining Hall at UMBC.

Do I sense a commonality here? Is “Pizza Hut” a part of an architectural style that was popular when these three buildings were designed? Or am I really seeing something that is not there?

Let’s see. I am guessing that True Grit’s went up in the 1970’s. Toby’s opened in 1979. The Pizza Hut design predates them all. According to Wikipedia:

The iconic Pizza Hut building style was designed in 1963 by Chicago architect George Lindstrom and was implemented in 1969.

And yet other articles I’ve read credit architect Richard D. Burke. Hmm. 

If you think I’ve gone off the rails here with some kind of Pizza Hut mania, apparently I am not alone. In a piece called “The Architectural Legacy of Pizza Hut Restaurants” (Hyperallergic) Claire Voon writes about the distinctive restaurant design and how it lives on in a variety of different incarnations throughout the world. 

The former flatbread eateries now exist as Chinese restaurants, liquor stores, pawn shops, gospel churches, and funeral homes, but certain lasting or repurposed architectural elements remain that hint to days when patrons gathered around sticky tables to double-fist doughy slices and hunks of cheesy bread.

Now that we’ve gotten this far, you’ll probably want to check out the website Used to Be a Pizza Hut. Or perhaps you can get ahold of the book Pizza Hunt by Ho Hai Han and Clair Cahill. Freelance photographer Ho Hai Tran traveled the world for two years, seeking out former Pizza Huts. He managed to photograph almost one hundred. Now that’s a coffee table book I’d love to leaf through.

Well…scratch that. The orginal release sold out and the Howard County Library doesn’t own a copy. I guess it is a rather niche topic.

Questions for the day: do you see that Pizza Hut resemblance I’m so convinced of, or no? And: do you have any notable Columbia Pizza Hut memories?

Send them my way.

Village Green/Town² Comments

*The top image was shared by the poster, all other images came from a Google search. I do not own any of these photos. - - jam