Tim Sparks Has Bought 80 Pizza Huts And Is Bringing Back The Retro Vibe We All Fell In Love With
NY Post -2026 has proven to be the year of nostalgia. Even beloved restaurant chain Pizza Hut is going back in time, reverting to its retro glory — red checkered tablecloths and all. Tim Sparks, president of Daland Corporation, a Kansas-based company that operates almost 100 Pizza Hut locations across the country, is helping keep Pizza Hut alive by rewinding the clock and redecorating over 80 annoyingly modern, stark-looking locations to make them look like they did decades ago.
Unsurprisingly, customers are losing their minds over this massive change.
“I am so excited and when they are restored I will be eating there as a new tradition every Friday,” one wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This was our Thursday night meal out before kids. Salad bar and pac-man. Waitress knew our order too. It would be nice to return to that atmosphere in our retirement too where you can have an audible conversation while in a restaurant,” another wrote in a Facebook comment.
As many old-school chains have attempted, the pizza franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, tried to keep up with the times by modernizing many of its restaurants. And if you walked into one, you probably had to do a double-take to make sure you were in the right place because let’s face it, they were an eyesore.
The good times are back baby! This must be nostalgia month because it feels like everything I am writing recently is a flashback to the past, a core old memory, or just a statement of how times have changed over the years. Well that continues here with the news that Tim Sparks is bringing Pizza Hut of the 90's (and 80"s) back that we all grew up with.
Staten Island hasn't had a Pizza Hut in a LONG time, and it's heartbreaking. I am a huge fan of Pizza Hut, and when I worked deep in South Jersey for a few years we would bust our ass over to Pizza Hut for the $6.99 or $8.99 lunch buffet. It was fucking awesome, not only because we ate like we had 3 assholes for a bill lower than a Hamilton, but because that Pizza Hut was still in it's old form. The lights, the cups, the wood, the smells everything. It brings you back to a simpler time and you instantly remember those days as a kid.
Now I'm a big fan of Pizza Hut, but no one is a bigger fan than my friend Primo, who made his Mom order it 3-4x a week growing up after school and one day was told "he was out of their new delivery zone" and he burst out crying and screaming so they had to start going to the physical location to eat. I've been on bachelor parties where he delayed going day drinking so we could get a stuffed crust pie. Two 27 year olds in bathing suits sitting in a booth enjoying a pie - dudes rock. I'm also told on ski trips he would make people stop to get it. Kid LOVES Pizza Hut, and rightfully so- the look of that place sticks with you- so Tim Sparks is a genius for bringing it back to the old school because now guys like Primo and Me who crave that nostalgia will be bringing our roommates out for a pie on a Friday night. Smart man.