Pizza Hut to Close 500 Locations

One of the biggest pizza chains in America is continuing a trend they've been on for a while. Pizza Hut is closing more of their dine-in restaurants. They plan to shut the doors on 500 of them in the next two years, bringing the total number of Pizza Hut locations in the U.S. down to about 7,000. It's a move that continues their focus on delivery and carry-out business. It's been working. According to Today, in their most recent update on earnings, Pizza Hut said sales were up two percent. That's good, but not great as far as big business is concerned.

For me, this news is concerning for the small towns of Iowa that, like my hometown of Sigourney, were lucky enough to have a Pizza Hut. When I was in high school, my friends and I ate so many sausage and pepperoni pan pizzas from Pizza Hut, there's no way I could possibly keep count. After every sporting event, we went to "the Hut" to relive the game, good or bad. Unfortunately, it closed years ago.

According to Pizza Hut, there are 104 locations in Iowa. Many of those are dine-in restaurants in small towns where I expect many people do what my friends and I did years ago. I just hope that if any of the Iowa restaurants end up on the closing list, those people have another place to go to rehash their win, or loss.