Former pizza huts
It is wild how much of the American landscape is just haunted by the ghosts of pepperoni past. You drive around any decent-sized town, and you see them: those very specific, weird trapezoid roofs. They try to turn them into banks or payday loan spots, but everybody knows what went down in there back in ’98. It was a red-cup soda paradise, and now it’s selling paint. It feels disrespectful. Like putting a suit on a dog. You aren’t fooling me, man. I know a personal pan pizza dojo when I see one.
These businesses operating out of former pizza huts have a depressing energy to them. You walk in expecting a salad bar that’s mostly just bacon bits and ranch, and instead, you’re buying term life insurance. It’s a bait and switch. The architecture is writing checks the new tenant can’t cash. You can paint it beige, you can take down the sign, but that roofline is practically screaming for someone to bring back the stuffed crust. It’s just sad to see a legend retire and get a desk job.
Scrolling through these is a weird trip down memory lane that ends in a strip mall parking lot. It’s funny to see how hard these new businesses try to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the fact that their entire building looks like a cartoon drawing of a pizza place. It’s a testament to how distinct that branding really was. You don’t see this happening with old Subways or whatever. Those places just blend back into the ether.
There’s something almost noble about how stubborn the architecture is. No matter how many layers of beige paint or new signage they slap on the exterior, the soul of the Hut remains. It’s like the building itself is refusing to move on, still waiting for someone to hook up the soda fountain and turn on the arcade machines. It makes you appreciate the pure audacity of 80s corporate design.
If you enjoy laughing at architectural failures and corporate identity crises, you should dive deeper into the world of retail archeology memes. Check out galleries featuring dead malls, abandoned fast food joints, and r/NotFoolingAnyone content. It’s a grimly hilarious reminder that nothing gold can stay, especially if it has a very specific roof shape.
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Michael Hartley, or just "Mike," is an editor and seasoned meme historian whose articles have traced the evolution of meme humor from early Impact-font classics to today’s TikTok sensations. With nearly a decade spent as senior editor at ViralHype and as a regular contributor to Cheezburger, Mike has dissected the rise of meme legends such as Bad Luck Brian, Success Kid, and Doge. When he's not hunting down meme gold for Thunder Dungeon, Mike teaches workshops on meme marketing and the psychology behind shareable content.
