• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Nostalgia restaurants

That's what I'm talking about!
pizza the hut GIF by Sub Pop Records
 
I dont want to rain on anyones parade but is it the same taste tho ?

I suppose the original suppliers all closed, so did they manage to recreate the taste or are they just banking on people's nostalgia to do the legwork ?
 
nah, the BEST nostalgia restaurant is the Drive-In Cafe at Epcot.......FANTASTIC vibe, until the reel starts to loop :P

x98R0mfWxllWsz2C.jpg
dZ3cU7XY9PdKLO9C.jpg


I long for one of their milkshakes every day....

IpWqELbT87p5VQH3.jpg
I actually thought that was the worst of the Disney restaurants I ate at. It really blew that they only showed a montage that looped and not just old movies. The food was pretty weak as well.

It has a very cool vibe though when you walk in and take your seats.
 
I actually thought that was the worst of the Disney restaurants I ate at. It really blew that they only showed a montage that looped and not just old movies. The food was pretty weak as well.

It has a very cool vibe though when you walk in and take your seats.
where is that ignore button......:P

but yeah, Disney restaurant food is definitely graded on a curve.....
 
As soon as I saw the thread, this is the first thing that came to mind.

Fuck, I miss Little Chef 😔
I used to hit that 4 piece full english every friday morning at 8am before the drive down to RAF Rudloe Manor for the weekend security shift. It was a banger.
 
I realize this doesn't matter to anyone, but I had a conversation so specifically about this just three weeks ago when the topic of Pizza Hut struggling came up.

My take was that Pizza Hut should lean into what differentiates them, and that's their buildings themselves. These poor Zoomers don't have anywhere to go that has character. McDonald's, Starbucks, etc. adopted this corporate Brutalist brown/grey design in, what, the late aughts? Enough time has passed that there may be a hunger for nostalgia that those kids never experienced but know from cultural osmosis.

So, all that is to say, I'm curious how this pans out for them.
 
Last edited:
I realize this doesn't matter to anyone, but I had a conversation so specifically about this just three weeks ago when the topic of Pizza Hut struggling came up.

My take was that Pizza Hut should lean into what differentiates them, and that's their buildings themselves. These poor Zoomers don't have anywhere to go that has character. McDonald's, Starbucks, etc. adopted this corporate Brutalist brown/grey design in, what, the late aughts? Enough time has passed that there may be a hunger for nostalgia that those kids never experienced but know from cultural osmosis.

So, all that is to say, I'm curious how this pans out for them.
Pizza Hutt was shit pizza though, only acceptable in a place condemned to Little Ceasers, CiCi's and maybe Dominos. It was a place to sit down and eat, as LC and Dominoes are carry out only or delivery. But as soon as ANY kind of mom n pop pizza joint with booths showed up, PH was toast. It was a "family night out" for poor folks with few other options.
 
Pizza Hutt was shit pizza though, only acceptable in a place condemned to Little Ceasers, CiCi's and maybe Dominos. It was a place to sit down and eat, as LC and Dominoes are carry out only or delivery. But as soon as ANY kind of mom n pop pizza joint with booths showed up, PH was toast. It was a "family night out" for poor folks with few other options.
Our fam never ordered PH. Maybe once tops. We chose other chains or less expensive one-off shops simply because it was cheaper and my parents back then didnt want to pay more for high end mom and pop delivery.

The key thing about PH is how small the pizzas are. Out of every pizza places I've ever eaten it's got to be the smallest pizzas. LC pizzas are tiny too. But at least they are cheaper. A lot of the big chains dont even do giant party size rectangular pizzas we'd order.
 
Last edited:
Our fam never ordered PH. Maybe once tops. We chose other chains simply because it was cheaper and my parents back then didnt want to pay more for mom and pop delivery.

The key thing about PH is how small the pizzas are. Out of every pizza places I've ever eaten it's got to be the smallest pizzas. LC pizzas are tiny too. But at least they are cheaper.
Really, our favourite night out when I was younger was going to Presque Isle and have a stuffed crust pizza with mountain dew. That was peak living.
 
Our fam never ordered PH. Maybe once tops. We chose other chains or less expensive one-off shops simply because it was cheaper and my parents back then didnt want to pay more for high end mom and pop delivery.

The key thing about PH is how small the pizzas are. Out of every pizza places I've ever eaten it's got to be the smallest pizzas. LC pizzas are tiny too. But at least they are cheaper. A lot of the big chains dont even do giant party size rectangular pizzas we'd order.
Pizza Hutt traditionally was deep dish, so they had those smaller pans. I think Old Chicago Pizza murdered them in that respect though, as well as any kind of good health sense as those PH pizzas were about 50% grease :P

They were a "big night out" for my family, in the rotation with places like Western Sizzler or Red Lobster. Otherwise it was Little Ceasers, Dominoes if you had more money.
 
Funny thing about pizzas, I think only one time the delivery came wrong. I even remember it due to 2 reasons:

1. It had tons of diced green peppers on it. We all looked at it and thought it was gross

2. I guess the driver had to make sure we werent lying. So when we opened the door, the guy literally stormed into our house with shoes on, saw our kitchen which you can directly see from the front door, beelined to the pizza box on our dinner table to check out it was wrong. He didnt even say a word. He gave us the replacement pizza and walked out.

Typical scummy asshole. On the plus side it wasnt snowing or raining that day, so at least he didnt track water into the house. lol

This was probably mid-90s. My parent's house at the time was probably worth at least $500k which was a lot back then (probably worth $2M+ in the burbs now) living in a nearby court with other big houses (pizza place was literally a 3 in drive away).

And this guy thinks were gonna rip him off a $15 party pizza.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom