"pizza hut" news and stories

Hoping for a quick end to the war in Afghanistan? Well, when you look at how long it took the military to reopen a Pizza Hut at a base near Kabul, you might have to rethink your definition of "quick."

As Slashfood reported way back in September, the current commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, decided to lift the fast-food ban on coalition bases that had been implemented by his famously no-nonsense predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. According to the Wall Street Journal, McChrystal viewed fast food as an "unnecessary luxury," and he told senior officers that he "didn't want to be the first American general to tell a grieving mother that her son died delivering frozen pizza."

You might have noticed that most "new" items at fast-food chains are just rearrangements of the ingredients found in their usual fare, and Pizza Hut is no stranger to this concept. Their latest offering is the Big Dipper -- made from their staple ingredients of crust, tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings. It's the presentation that's new: This pie is sliced to share three or four ways on Super Bowl Sunday.

The Claim: The Big Dipper is a rectangular pizza (about 24"x9"), served with one or more toppings. It is cut into 24 pieces, each about 2" x 4.5", and served with four 3-oz cups of marinara sauce, presumably so that four individuals can have his/her own.

My full review after the jump...

Post-holiday deals are everywhere in the fast-food world, and USA Today rounded up the best of them: two-for-ones, giveaways, and special deals of the day. Seems January is one of the slowest months for the chains, and they're giving deep, deep discounts to lure you back in.

After the jump, a few of the specials you may want to take advantage of this month.

With the overwhelming success of Slumdog Millionaire, Indian entertainers, from director M. Night Shyamalan to comedian Aziz Ansari, are moving beyond Bollywood and becoming more prominent in the American pop-culture scene. NBC even has a sitcom, "Outsourced," that takes place in an Indian call center--and it's been a controversial call for the network. (Some critics claim the show is rife with bad stereotypes.)

It's time to reciprocate, and take something from the American pop culture and make it Indian -- from a fast-food perspective, of course. White Castle already has associations with Harold & Kumar, so let's go get a pizza, after the jump.

Pizza Hut, along with countless other fast-food outlets, has marketed its product not just with images of oozing mozzarella and sizzling chicken wings but with a promise of value. Now Nation's Restaurant News reports that, in a move that may seem counter-intuitive given the current economic climate, the company is switching gears. Rather than focusing on price points or new offerings, Pizza Hut is spotlighting actual employees, putting the emphasis on the diner's in-house experience. Looked at from a larger perspective, the move is a rebranding.

The new tagline, "Your Favorites. Your Pizza Hut," which replaces "America's Favorite Pizza," debuted last Sunday during NFL programming, and it's a potent phrase, Ted Marzilli, senior vice president of New York-based YouGov BrandIndex, told Restaurant News. "By saying 'your favorites, your Pizza Hut,' it's a way for them to hold on to saying that they serve America's favorite pizza and that now you can get it your way. Trying to combine the mass appeal across the country with the individualization that person can have is a potentially powerful message."