Fine Dining - The Pizza Hut You Grew Up With Is Dead

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Michael & Garrett drive an hour away to review a Pizza Hut that still has a dine-in option The boys break their own rules because they were lied to by Yelp Why is Pizza Hut a magnet for cars crashing into them?? The boys discuss Pizza Hut’s marketing plan from the ‘90s to laser their logo onto the surface of the moon Garrett gives a eulogy Michael & Garrett fight over whether or not this dessert item is eligible to be rated   Get our 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send us your Pizza Hut stories at [e-mail].   Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let us know where we should go next by leaving us a review on iTunes. We read every one!   Next time on Fine Dining: Olive Garden! If you have ever worked for Olive Garden and have a story to share, or if you’d like us to hear your child’s review of the Olive Garden kids menu, send it to [e-mail].

Welcome to Fine Dining the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host Garrett's work I'm your other host Michael Ornelas, and we are looking for the perfect 5.0 out of 10 Yeah, so we're trying to find what is the most average place so that we give you a benchmark of comparison like I don't know Honestly, I'm kind of a lazy guy myself. I would rather say you know what this restaurant is better than Applebee's right So if you know that a place is better than Applebee's it's good if it's worse than Applebee's It's bad if Applebee's is our perfect 5.0 out of 10 It may not be but we're gonna find that for you because we're basing this on atmosphere service and food the entire package So breaking it down into those three categories will have that conversation for you

Let you know how we feel about it and you can make your own mind up on if that carries validity But that's what our that's what we're setting out to do find you that perfect 5.00 Experience out of 10. Let's get into it. Where'd you pick this week Garrett this week? I took you to Pizza Hut You took me to Pizza Hut. We went to a Dine-in Pizza Hut It was one of only three remaining Dine-in Pizza Huts in the greater Los Angeles area And we didn't find out about the other two until we were already there and we drove to the furthest one It was like an hour with traffic But it's fine. Yeah, we do it for the podcast exactly

We will do these drives Garrett will be fussy about it But I hate being in the car for so long. My back kills me. I don't mind it, but you don't mind my back I don't mind your back. Your back pain doesn't bother me It does not bother me in the least but my constant complaining does that bother you? Yes, and it is Constant so why'd you pick Pizza Hut? I picked Pizza Hut because I have such a sense of nostalgia here growing up My mom always took me to the Pizza Hut lunch buffet after every single doctor appointment You've been a strong boy. Yeah, you're so brave You get Pizza Hut

That's probably why you were going to the doctor so much because of all the Pizza Hut you were eating Because we went to the buffet and I kid you not first thing I did I went up I took about at least half of the contents of the breadsticks for the entire buffet loaded in my plate Which to be fair, they're sliced in half So the the portion of breadsticks is still yeah, so I really only took an order 19 of them is only nine and a half. Yeah, yeah, it's not ten. That's less than ten That's less than ten breadsticks, and that's the serving size if you look on the box It says don't exceed ten or it will kill you

Yeah, I did a middle school birthday at a Pizza Hut lunch buffet if I remember correctly It had those Those red cups. Oh, yeah There's like crystal colored red cups that they had ooh in like the did you the crystal colored red cups match the color of the Boots yeah, and I I think the one that I remember going to had I Don't know what it's called. It's not stained glass, but it was like those like cubed Like it looked like blocks of ice, but they were obscuring your I don't know what that style is called But man that it's hard that nostalgia right there. Do you know what I'm talking about? I always

When I think of those cubes, I think of like I'm a kid watching movies late at night There's a shower scene and all I see is an outline through those cubes, and I'm like what does that woman's body look like? What is that age me? It's like oh my god I want to see some naked women and and adult me is like what kind of material is that glass Yeah, our tables ready we'll jump into it see on the other side To impress your table is ready Complementary butter and bread these walls of growth signs knit-knack cowboy hat good luck cat after graph guitar some graph from your city Behold the touch key of mediocrity

Just fine dining fine dining two ledgers on the sign are shining Neon flickering irregular timing identify the perfect I Impressions my first impression was pretty damning. I actually I have a two-part first impression The first one was before we even go to the place I'm skeptical of there even being a dine-in pizza hut So I want to call them to make sure that they have Dine-in, but also wait service because that is part of our criteria right we're rating on service

So it's not like an entitled thing of we need to be served But for the third of our rating criteria Yeah, so for a place to be eligible for us to review them they have to have service So I'm like okay. I'm gonna call this pizza hut. It's admittedly 17 minutes to close But I call them at 11 43 p.m. On a Tuesday night and I hear them pick up But they don't say hi and they hang up

Immediately and I'm like oh they must have you know, I must have gotten disconnected. I call again immediately hung up It's on now So we get like I get into a battle with whoever is on the other line of this pizza hut. I called 19 times In 12 minutes And it got to the point where like I would hear the pickup and I'd be like I'm not trying to order a pizza I just want to ask you but and then it would hang up So I'm I'm literally trying to like word vomit my question to them just so they know I'm like I just need you to answer a freaking question

I don't like I'm not trying to make you work in the kitchen. I'm not trying to make you make a pizza Just answer my question. I just want to know do I have to drive to anaheim to get a weight experience? Okay, yeah, you told me about that the next day I was furious you were because like look if you Have a business and you are an employee of a business. It's like I think it's perfectly okay to say hey We close soon our kitchen is closed. We can't take a pizza now. Maybe their corporate policy is Any orders before midnight you have to do and that would suck if you're an employee I get that but if they told if they had answered and they told me

Hey, our kitchen's closed. We can't make a pizza this this soon before we are done for the night I would understand that but it infuriates me and I I hope this isn't entitlement. I don't think it is but I have Had someone tell me it is I think they should have to answer the phone and at least interact You know, it's all millennials working there, right? Millennials hate the phone. So Don't work at a place that has phones then here's what I did at my last actual professional office job When too many people were calling I just disconnected my phone Okay, and I got paid much more than the people working there, right? It just is what you did. I'm just saying I did the same thing they did and

It's all about protecting your own mental health No, don't give me that so let's say this poor poor No, there is no scenario you can give me where I'm feeling sympathy Michael is a fussing little boy, baby Michael is a fussing little boy Michael is a fussing little boy What if this person is the only human working everyone else on their shift called out This man's wife is about to give birth and he is alone in this restaurant making pizza cleaning up waiting on customers Delivering a baby in the back and you're trying to call this man and you're interrupting this birth process

How do you feel about that? I'd be like I hope that your health rating isn't an a you're delivering a baby near your pizza oven No, I look there don't be on call out of work If if if you can't be there and do the job call out of work like everyone else did to him on his shift You're you're inventing this isn't actually the scenario. This isn't what happened How do you know Were you there to know that this man was not delivering a baby and hanging up the phone in between cries? I literally heard chatter between two employees on one of those answers

I heard them talking to each other. That was a precocious baby the first some babies speak right out of the Okay, so That was my first impression. It wasn't kind No And it will it will impact how I view this pizza hut and then we actually get there in person And the first impression just gets worse because even though the place is in truly pristine condition It is it is very clean. It is very uh What would you even call it like

Manufactured it has a very like corporate feel to it, right? Like everything's just a little too clean and the the edges are just a little too cornered You know what i'm talking about? I wouldn't even say that it's corporate It's cohesive and their staff is good at maintaining and cleaning their location Right, but i'm just saying like you go to a mom and a pop and there's like Scratches on the table and like a stain on the floor. There's been a for a while cast out in the corner It's flavor and this had none of that. This was very like Staryl very clean, which is okay. It's not a vibe. I actually dislike. Oh, I know what this was it looked like

It was trying to be like a new gastropub sure Yeah, no it it had this just very clean and sterile vibe and we walk in And we look around and we see tables so we know that there is dine in But the tables are not the classic wooden tables. We're all used to what the I mean I mean that didn't matter to me But what did matter to me is I see little wire stands with cards with numbers on them And I immediately know this is not a casual dining establishment This is not the type of place that we have set out at least for now to review to find that perfect five

Yeah, so this is a fast casual establishment A hybrid between fast food and casual dining you order at a counter and they bring you your food You don't get that relationship with your server You just have like everyone is kind of like occasionally coming by and busing and thankfully we got a relationship Because we're pretty needy Well that and we're pretty social and talkative while we're at the counter But I walked in with notebooks taking pictures of things come on. You got to pay attention to us I'm truly flustered as I walk up to the counter and she's like what would you like and I

Was not prepared to have to have an order ready because I thought we would be taken to a table and they would take our order Maybe that's naive of us, but maybe they should answer their fucking phone Well, they did answer the phone for me After multiple attempts the next day and they told me there is table service And I think that they probably interpreted that as Yes, we will walk to your table and do something which they did they brought out our food to us But it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't a waiter. Yeah, so basically no true table service and even worse

No big red roof. What the hell? Well, that's that's been the case of almost all pizza huts in the I don't even know how long ago But actually I got a fun fact about that red roof. Do you have just a bunch of fun facts? I may hit me with them So the designer of the iconic red roof struck a deal with the original founders to receive exactly $100 for every location built with the red roof design in the beginning He made a few hundred bucks But many years later in 2004 there were 6300 locations with the red roof So it's estimated he and his estate had made 630 000 dollars based on this one red roof design

That's Good for him. Yeah, good for him So pizza hut was founded in 1958 by two brothers who borrowed 600 dollars from their mom Wow, where's the value of hard work in america? Hold yourself up by your own bootstraps. Am I right? I know, right? In 1999 pizza hut executives wanted to have the pizza hut logo lasered directly onto the moon I want to know who that that is the most 1999 business idea of all times probably like to celebrate the new millennium That's peak 90s. That is we're gonna put it on the moon like think about the literally was that it's trl

It's nicolodian. It's pizza lasered on the moon. You could not make a more 90s vibe than that marketing campaign And they were almost going to do it until they actually researched the project until they found out The etching would need to be the size of texas So you need to etch out a logo the size of texas on the face of the moon. How do you do that? God that would have been so good though. Imagine Pizza hut in 2019 goes bankrupt And forever the moon still has their logo because in 1999

There was no way they foresaw a world without pizza hut And one more random thing apparently I just found this out last night pizza hut has a problem with the vehicles crashing into their buildings uh I'm not even gonna go on Just a quick google search Within four google search pages. I found 10 different locations That way hold on run ins 10 10 in the first four pages of assert So pizza hut just has like a car magnet built into their walls

That's why I think they had to do the whole redesign and change into that like stop the square brick building everyone staring at these red roofs Oh, yeah, that's that's funny. They actually had a an employee that was seriously injured He was working at the lunch buffet in that car less funny had gone straight through the building And that's what killed the lunch buffet that probably did And now a word from our totally not made up sponsor Hi, hi again, it's job and I am ready to make some noise I am tap dancing my way into my next business when you spent as many years as I have just living inside of a suitcase You tend to get a lot of creative ideas and I am back with a brand new product for you

That's going to take your business to space a laser beam that'll draw your business's logo on the side of the moon You want your company's logo on the side face of that little cheese ball in the sky? I'm the guy for the job I'm the only civilian with this much uranium this side of the mississippi and the other side both sides of the mississippi That means the entire world. So how am I going to do it? I don't know No job is too big or too small for jubb. What business do you want to advertise? Do you sell copper wiring out of the back of a van behind a burger king? Have it your way It's on the moon if this sounds appealing to you. Just call me

I do not have a phone and I probably won't get one because of my neuropathy I have a hard time dialing. So just call me scream out my name jubb jubb. Don't spell it That's how I spell it, but I'm telling you how to spell it so that you know how to pronounce it I don't like people butchering it in the past. I have cut people for doing so But I do not cut people anymore because I refuse to go back to prison Although it did give me free lunches either way call me jubb jubb and I will put your business to the moon Atmosphere I noticed

blaring whitney houston once we sat down And it was my shit like I love A good soft rock. It is unironically one of my favorite genres Uh and and just something about the instrumentation of that like 80s to 90s transition with like those synth keyboards that are A little bit more chimey or whatever. I don't know what the actual term would be for it But are you like a delilah fan? There was like a syndicated radio host

Who um boomer males just loved as she hosted like a soft not a boomer She hosted a soft rock radio hour. I don't know who that is but your description is making me think that I would be yes Reason number 568 that michael's a boomer. No the entire playlist was just vibing with me the entire time It was all just like in that vein. I was I was here for it. So you know after kind of

screwing me over on the Not answering the phone and not having table service They did do a little bit of a rebound with the presentation of the place. I guess like they took care of your 1955 born heart Yeah What else was there? Uh, so there was the music obviously good. There was uh a contractor there That was the weirdest. There was a while we were ordering actually this man walks in so Around six o'clock when you think a dinner rush would happen right a contractor just walks right up and he's like Hey, I was sent here by corporate to repair your tables

Yeah, and he goes out to the patio and you hear So he drags this giant metal table across the length of the entire parking lot to his van To his van. He couldn't have brought the van closer to the tables He dragged the tables From the patio to his van and just had like a power drill or something like that and was just like working on tables I guess and like I assume later on we noticed that all of the tables were like chained together So this man had to unchain the tables and then move that well No, when we pulled up they were actually set up for like actual dining

And then he came pulled the table away Maybe they found out that he just stole a table and didn't actually work for corporate into like We need to put a lock on yeah, because like who sends a contractor to a restaurant at six o'clock. Yeah, so he we went outside later in the Like kind of toward the end and there was a big chain that Linked through every chair and every table on the patio and then a padlock in the middle Which I thought was

Pretty funny So maybe this guy just jacked the table for them and they're down one table three tables three tables or he said three That's pretty funny. I don't know if you could have fit three tables in that van Oh, definitely not. He may have come and gone in waves, which is an even funnier way to do a theft And then the the other decor they just had like beer signs and TVs. It was very like sports barry Yeah, it looked like a clean dry buffalo wild wings. Yeah, it was pretty simple But it wasn't like dark. It actually got a good amount of natural like two full Sides walls of the building were windows. Yeah, so like I don't blame them

I would want more chachki, but there wasn't a place to put it. Well, there were nice chachki umbrellas inside Oh my gosh By that I mean patio umbrellas that were being dragged in off the patio It was a freaking parade of umbrellas coming right by our table There were six that were just piled up and stacked in the far corner of the restaurant What perfectly in my eye line, it was just what I was facing and I'm afraid of poles. Why? When I was in high school, I was diving for a loose ball My knee meets a volleyball pole. That's just hanging out in the corner

So I still have trouble when it rains. It's cold weather changes to this day. Yeah, my you're injured So so you so the guy's dragging a bunch of umbrellas past us and you're just getting like Nom flashbacks. I'm just like, okay every time he comes by the pole the bottom of the pole is facing our faces It's like gonna hit us in the head. So I'm like, uh, uh, uh We did have like a family of four come in a little bit later The kids were like dancing to the music. It was actually cute and heartwarming Normally, I hate this shit kids really bug me crying noises. It gets in the way of my chewing, but This was actually nice

I am but no for once this was nice It Made it feel like this wasn't a dystopian nightmare. Like there were other patrons. It was alive I know you like being alone, but alone with your own thoughts and it's a hut can be pretty haunted. Oh my god Another reason these kids didn't bother me I was too busy watching baseball There was a tiger the tigers were playing the daddies the Padres the daddies the Padres go daddies And the angels were playing the royals. How many times a day do you think you say daddy? Like this is a totally serious question

Like if you actually tallied it or let's say in a week does counting does talking to myself count That's so much fun here that you say daddy to yourself alone Daddy to myself More than I say daddy to anyone else. Like I refer to myself as daddy you text it so often That was one minute in a in a week Fuck let's see What's the daddy count daddy counts gotta be 50

More than that. You really think more than 50 actual instances. I've got to be like 10 a day at least So that's like 70. Yeah 70 80 90 per week. That's So stupid You're such a unique man gary. I know daddy like What else okay, so we were watching the baseball game which uh Actually that gets my this is way too much award No is way too much for me gary what was way too much being done with our meal and waiting an extra hour That was an hour

Let me exaggerate for the sake of the podcast waiting for what felt like an hour But was probably realistically 25 to 35 minutes. No, I believe it could have been an hour because extra innings baseball takes forever We were waiting for this game to finish and you were just like I need the I need them to win I need them to beat the daddies and I was like, oh my gosh sure. We're in the bottom of the ninth There's no way they were down by two. They were down by three runs in the bottom of the no No, no, no, no, no, no, they were down by one run I think when we were they started off in the bottom of the night the beginning of the bottom of the ninth They were down by three really. Yeah, okay, so they scored the three tied the game up

We went into extra innings the Padres scored another three And then we had to watch the bottom of another inning and I was just like Jesus like I I like Going to Chicago Cubs games. Yeah, that's that's what I grew up on. I did just go to one The Dodgers kicked their ass it of course wasn't fun for me But I did get to witness An inning and a half of the Cubs having the lead which was nice But it just took forever and it was like a late game and I don't mean late baseball game

I mean like late to the game of us eating at Pizza Hut Where we actually started paying attention to this game and it not just being background noise And I was like so ready to go. I was just Uh, we didn't get any service There were other things that bothered me because I'm just grumpy And now I have to watch this so you making me wait in what was honestly a pretty uncomfortable chair at a Pizza Hut Was way too much for me Okay, that was way too much for you

There was another thing I wouldn't say it's way too much for me, but it was just a mild annoyance I had to go to the bathroom when we left. Yeah, and there were codes on those bathroom doors And I hate having to ask permission from another human for me to poop. That's Yeah, I don't like it either. I think it's actually inhumane. I I get it But I don't right. It's just like just let people pee Coolest thing That we saw. Yeah, there was a disco ball in the middle of the restaurant. There was like one of those party city like, uh red white

blue multi-colored changing like color changing all the races of the rainbow Yeah, and it was off, but it was peculiar and we're like what's going on over there What's going on over there? Got a disco ball on the ceiling Garrett. What is going on over there? What could be going on over there? The disco ball is a light to warn approaching vehicles that there's a Pizza Hut restaurant there Because like I know I wouldn't hit a wrist restaurant that had a disco ball warning me

Yeah, when when you have a restaurant that is just notorious for people crashing their cars into You you basically take the ambulance approach. We're like, okay, you've got a big bright siren on the top of you You're not gonna hit this That's Yeah, and that's why they've got two entire walls of glass It's the only way to see the disco ball from the outside. It actually it's the type of glass that projects outward It's like that the foggy ice cube glass Yes

And we had from the 80s. Oh gosh. Yeah. No, I think that's it. I think it's a warning sign It's like the rattlesnake of a Pizza Hut. It's a rattlesnake lighthouse. Yeah Oh god Yeah, it's it's a lighthouse Effect of a Pizza Hut. We thought it was for dance that no that kid on the ground was foolish for dancing on the ground the kid by his table He would have been on the ground if the car went through That's true

But thanks to the disco ball cars know to stay away that explains all the boat horns that we are While we were eating I was like, what's that? What's that slow rumbling? It's out ahead Yeah, and then like the seagulls that we're like pooping on everyone outside it explains it all it does I think that's what was going on over there. That's what was going on over there All right, so we have to rate this atmosphere from two thumbs down to two thumbs up somewhere on that spectrum Well, okay, we've got this clean corporate

Kind of sterile design building we've got but it lacked personality As a building as a building it lacked personality the inside was very it was it was a Pizza Hut It didn't take away from my dining experience. No, it didn't it didn't but it didn't add to it really They kind of doubled down on the sports bar feel with the beer signs the neon lit up signs and the tv's and the sports on they Had way too many umbrellas Yeah Just sitting in a corner the weird thing is they had a stand with two tv's that overlapped Yeah, yeah, like one of the one of the tv's blocked about a third of the other tv

Which is just great design. I guess yeah, you have the same game on both of them. Yeah They had the code for the restroom, which I am an adamant Not fan of yeah, whatever the work for that is you want to be surprised when someone either opens door Knocks on the door when you're in there exactly Now the other thing that they're not at fault for you are but it applies to atmosphere and it gave me a negative experience Was how long I had to sit in that uncomfortable chair to wait For your tiger's game to finish. Hey, it wasn't my fault that the tigers are terrible But they're good enough to not lose right away. Yeah

That brought it down for me. But I mean even if I don't include that I'm going just a light one thumbs down There was nothing classy about this place. It wasn't It's not a place where you take a date if you're trying to impress them It's not a place where you take your parents if they're in town visiting and you want to show them What's around so in that regard they can't be like good I think they're neutral at best, but I give it that slight nod to a thumbs down. Okay Well, just one just one. Okay, that's fair. I'm willing to give In theory one thumb up to any restaurant that has a cohesive design

Like our first outback experience confused me a bit because they didn't know where they were They were half chachki half fancy. I didn't like that. But now this pizza hut They knew what they were doing. They were a clean corporate joint, but the tigers lost zero thumbs We'll be right back after a short break One day I was really late for a for a delivery and I was kind of in a hurry And I had just passed an intersection with a crosswalk and then see a little lady walking across the middle of the street She was in an intermediate coming into my lane. So of course I decided to stop because I'm not going to hit a little lady And she gets about halfway into my lane when she takes her little walker and sets it up

So that way she could sit down in the middle of the street I was very late for my delivery and I didn't really have the time to just wait for her to sit down in the street So I decided to turn over into the intermediate lane. That's when she got really mad and uh She picked up her her walker and like hammer through it at my car as I was passing by her But she was a little old lady. There was no No damage and I could tell the moment she hit my car So I just kept on going and to my delivery on the way back I tried looking for her to see if she was still out on the street because all of her groceries had spilled out all

Over the street when she decided to throw her walker at my car, but she was nowhere to be found I get back to uh my store and my manager is outside. They're waiting for me and he's got this uh long Grin because he apparently already knew what had happened word for word. He says well, you're not in trouble We just got a call from someone on the street saying that one of our drivers was assaulted on the road And if you need it their phone number is available for you if you want to file a police report Normally we when we get people calling in about our drivers, they're not good things So it was really nice to have someone call in with actual concern All right, so we're talking about the service what service exactly we didn't have service

And and we're already coming in negative because I tried calling them So many times And they hang up right away like there's no other category that that falls into other than the service that's and it made me Legitimately angry. So I was coming in hot and then we walk in and then we find out that there actually isn't service There's just order at a counter and the person we ordered from was very friendly. Yeah, she was okay She was great. She gave us suggestions. She was patient with us because we obviously didn't know what we want We were clustered. We were thrown into a situation where we had to order right away And I think she understood that somehow. Yeah, because she put us in that situation

But she did look at me like I'm an idiot when I was like, do you guys have like Do we sit down and you come to our table and she was like, no you order here This is a pizza hut like sir. This is a Wendy's. It was like, you know what this is sort of deal And I didn't Appreciate that but no she was nice. She was good. They did bring out our food as it was ready. Yeah kept it hot I liked the way how They had a double decker pizza tray so we could have two pizzas placed in the same spot on the table It was very space efficient. That is true. They they definitely had their

Routine down they were they were kind of like a pit crew in that regard But you would never order food from a pit crew and call them like You know a big part of your experience. Well, actually you might That would be crazy. They just throw all your food at you in the middle of a race. How else are you gonna eat? Yeah, so I don't know. This is kind of just a bad Situation that we're trying to make the best of yeah, it didn't It didn't kill like I didn't have the bad. I didn't have a bad time. No overall

You your bad time started before you even walked in the building Yeah, I they actually improved the time I had there given the mood that I was walking in with Which is good on them, but at the end of the day We got to be able to evaluate the service and if you don't even offer service I don't think that you get a good rating for service agreed so What do we do with what could they do to make it better? It's the structure of the restaurant that I think is poor like I think when you go out to a dinner for restaurant

For restaurant We're keeping this I think I think when you go out to dinner for restaurant You you know you get you get to have look. I'm social I like the rapport that we build with our servers. I make jokes. They pretend to laugh That's the transaction that we do. Yeah, I like that They give us content. We didn't get to have that here And I actually think that a couple of the people would have made good servers Yeah, like I was the woman who rang us up suggested some items later actually turned on the disco ball without us even asking

Well, I mean we knew it was coming We mentioned we like pointed out the disco ball and we're like that's kind of weird And then she's like we can turn it on and they went and turned it on and like that is a good thing I appreciate that and I will say this I'm gonna be the bad cop here because no matter what she did We didn't have service If there was anything we needed we had to get up and go to a counter I don't

Want that that's not the experience I'm going out to have so because we didn't have it because they hung up on me 13 times Or whatever it was. They were nice They were nice Two thumbs down Okay, that that's fair Now I agree with I would grow a third thumb and put that down too if it wasn't for the disco ball She was very nice about the disco ball. So the disco ball saved three down I mean, I can't give three down. I'm not I don't I don't have the parts to do that, you know

I don't have a third thumb. Okay I Can see the look on your face right now. I saw the look on your face and my face is just a direct reaction to You try to latch on to me saying I don't have the parts for something. I'm talking about my thumbs. What is your rating? Okay, you know what I agree Almost completely I would give this place two thumbs down purely on the fact that we didn't get waited on But this very nice woman turned on the disco ball without us asking She was attentive all of our food got brought in a timely manner

It was placed in an organized fashion on the table nothing It didn't touch the napkins. It didn't touch my phone I hate it when food plates and items touch other items on the table. It really bugs me like I just get all Look about it. But so I'm gonna do this. I'm a fussy little boy Fussy little boy Yeah, it's a fussy little boy Even though i'm the one who's been ranting and being fussy

Both of them are fussy little boys Both of them are fussy little boys babies. Both of them are fussy little boys Both of them are fussy little boys I'm gonna give it a kind one thumb down because they tried they did try I acknowledged that it was just the circumstances and the structure of the restaurant itself that earns it two thumbs down from me They tried but they were fighting a losing battle because of how many times To be fair, maybe those same people hung up on me when I was trying to reach them It could have been it could have been we don't know

but it really Hurt my feeling It was funny like you sent me a yelp review What's it yelp or a google review where someone was complaining about getting hung up on? Oh, yes. Yes So this is what I know is and it was for that location Yeah, yeah, yeah And they took very insulting pictures of the items like you know how like Unless you have commercial lighting the food always looks disgusting

It was one of those like they were like they hung up on us. Here's an old pizza So, uh, all right. Well, those are our ratings. We'll be back after another quick break Hey guys, thank you so much. Your reviews are helping us climb the charts and you know what they're helping our egos I kind of like that. So my favorite review from this week was what a hoot from Vero Bob The guys do a great job bringing to life what most of us have experienced when dining at these fine establishments Maybe I just suggested wine pairing review to round out the dining experience That sounds like an amazing idea. Just imagine going to Applebee's and being like, hey, uh, what wine goes best with this? Oriental chicken salad

Anyways, Vero Bob if you're listening send us an email at fine dining podcast to gmail.com And we'll get you a free t-shirt the rest of you keep those reviews coming And if you hear your review read on an episode Again, send us an email and you can get a free t-shirt. Well until next time Thank you and you guys live in our hearts along with the cholesterol Food All right, so the thing we wanted the most with the food doesn't exist anymore and that's the lunch buffet So I mean that kind of is a knock

Oh, it is and The fact they don't even have a lot of the menu items anymore that used to be on the lunch buffet like there was a thin and crispy Cinnamon apple and there was like a vanilla cherry dessert pizza. These are amazing. No, there was a place I grew up with in texas that had that as well Oh Gatties has that. Oh really? So if we go to mr. Gatties in texas gattie town Let's go to gattie town daddy. No, that's they actually have a location called gattie town Or they have a few locations called gattie town. I believe I'm gonna say daddy so much in that episode

On brand yeah, if I remember correctly, they had like a like a chocolate crispy Dessert pizza. Oh, that sounds so good over like kind of like that wispy flaky sort of bread cc says the same thing Okay, also in texas. We should do a texas trip. Yeah do a little loop of restaurants Yeah, it's like maybe we should go to austin this fall. Yeah, maybe I don't know. We'll see So the first thing we had were the boneless lemon pepper wings. Yeah, so all right So I guess getting back to the lunch buffet real quick. Is it even fair to I think it is fair to Count it as a knock against them because it's like we're rating your food and you've removed what historically we think is your best thing Oh, yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, okay

It's like going to mcdonald's and the big mac is no longer there or the fries Like they changed their fries drastically Yeah, you can't have something that at least to me is so iconic to your brand and then remove it and not Suffer from a ratings standpoint. Yeah. Okay. So what do we get? So we got the boneless lemon pepper wings Which I think our mileage varied on this one, but I really I liked them You know, you and I have both had original buffalo wings like in buffalo new york so we've had the 10 out of 10 and You know, these are

Basically fast a step above fast food wings They were good. They were boneless Nuggets basically. Yeah, they were like the best case scenario for like do it at home frozen Yeah, assuming you're gonna like deep fry them then Yeah, it's the crispiness was very impressive. The texture was really good But I also had this element in the back of my mind telling me I'm eating like beaks and feet Like it's just like there's no way this is the best part of the chicken There's no way this is a chicken that wasn't just pumped full of steroids and feet is like a terrible snack mix

Lots of beaks and it's like a trail mix And it's like everything that's like too crunchy that like your teeth pop. It's basically popcorn kernels Beaks and feet as tasty as it is hard to chew Oh, fuck Is that my tooth? Oh beaks and feet. It's a barnyard in every bite So over I mean, I liked them. I did like the flavor and I think the seasoning was really good The seasoning was very lemon. It was very lemon. It was very salty. It was a very

prominent seasoning, but I thought it was a salty battered lemon head I Liked it more than you did. I'm going seven out of ten on the boneless lemon pepper wings I'm gonna have to go with the five out of ten. That was an average wing. I was not upset by it. Now we have Uh, the best part of the meal from my standpoint the breadsticks I thought were really tasty, you know, their breadsticks taste like they did back in the day 100 it tasted like childhood And I I really

enjoyed them they Were the right texture But by the time I got to like the second one I was about halfway through my second breadstick and my jaw was getting tired from the chewiness And I don't want to hurt while eating something which is the only reason Which is the only reason I'm not going perfect on them. I'm gonna go an eight and a half out of ten for these breadsticks Okay, right now my rating is changing. I originally had an eight out of ten for these breadsticks They were very good solid breadsticks

But yet not a ten out of ten because these were not the best breadsticks I've had in my entire life These were amazing pizza hut breadsticks, right? But since you said your jaw hurt from eating the breadsticks I'm giving them a nine out of ten Wait, so them causing me pain made them more enjoyable for you. Yes. All right, uh, then we got two pizzas Uh, just to try different variety. Uh, we got different types of pizzas. We got a pan pizza that was pepperoni lovers Lovers of the pepperonis. We got a medium pepperoni lovers pan pizza If that was pepperoni lovers They we must not love pepperoni that much. They went a little light on the pan. It looked like a regular amount of pepperoni

It did Uh, there was there was one slice that only had one full pepperoni on it Yeah, and kind of like those crease corner or side pepperonis that you get like the the border pieces Um where it's like you can't trust those like shady border pepperonis Yeah, so it definitely wasn't pepperoni lovers, but their pepperoni is very good and their pan pizza is pretty good So, oh my god. Did you see the bottom of that pan pizza? It was so greasily orange and amazing. Oh, yeah Yeah, it had like the like the radioactive glow where you're like, oh, this is why I'm gonna die early

This is like no, but this is straight up pizza hut taste of the orange They had yeah, they had an orange to them like just this golden yellow orange color that I was like I know this is gonna be the best textured bread, but I also know that it's Not good for me in any capacity. Oh, no, I agree the next morning. I paid for it Yeah, but it tasted amazing the crust was great The pizza was fine Pretty good. But yeah, I go 6.8 out of 10. Oh, wow

Just a not just a nod below a nod just a notch below seven. Okay I'm going to give this pizza 6.5 out of 10 for all the above reasons the amazing crust the orange bottom But everything else everything else was a little man But I would have given it a six if they put the right amount of right amount Wait a six I would have given it a six if they put the right amount of cheese on it because The pepperoni lovers supposed to have double the amount of normal cheese Ours did not. Oh, I don't want that exactly. I don't either. I'm not a cheese fan

Oh, you're saying you would have gone lower. I would have gone lower if they made it correctly It's going lower But I'm giving it a 6.5 out of 10 because they didn't overdo it because they messed up But had they put the right amount of pepperoni, I could have seen this nudging Why can't I say this word? nudging A notch up more is your jaw still sore? Yeah, from the breadsticks two days later. Yeah, it's from the breadsticks

Okay, and then the other pizza they gave us was the most Just did not register on my radar. Anyway, it was the ultimate edge pizza supreme So we got it with what was on it. It was like bell pepper onion mushrooms Sausage, yeah pepperoni Maybe bacon. Oh, yeah, I don't I don't remember all the ingredients that were on there. It was thin I don't know it was like their whole Marketing push for the edge pizzas the toppings go all the way to the edge

Which is their way of saying we didn't do a lot with the crust Yeah, no like that was them saying oh, yeah, you know what this giant salting cracker we have we put some more toppings on it It tasted very similar texturally to the dominoes thin crust Which I like the dominoes thin crust from a seasoning standpoint But I will say the crust element of it is probably the weakest part about that pizza This one was slightly thicker than the dominoes thin crust it was and it still didn't really Set my world on fire. I thought this was just pizza Yeah, and I mean that in a it is a 5 out of 10

It is the it is a very average pizza and I'm not even gonna give it that really all this was to me is like Ah, cool. Someone put some toppings on top of a lavash Like that's it three out of ten three out of ten on the ultimate edge. Okay garbage um Before we go further. Do you have a take On pizza etiquette like all right, so when we were sitting down we had the pan pizza between us I

You know gave you a slice and then I didn't grab the next slice over from that The pizza's already been cut up and now I'm going two over and now we have like two different pizza segments Inside the pan and when I went for a second slice later I grabbed another one that was like out of the middle of a couple other ones So you're basically saying am I okay with food drafting? Yes, I'm completely okay with food drafting because it's a fair method to get the prime pieces turn by turn Like you should be able to just grab the piece that looks the most appealing to you If it's closer to another person that doesn't matter

You don't have an entitlement just based on your geography exactly and we're all adults We can remember how many pieces of pizza we had so we can share equally so it's not like a counting issue or anything so Yeah, I I've seen arguments before where people are getting mad over which slice of pizza you go for insecure people too And so I think it's fair to say that it is the position of the fine dining podcast that take whatever piece looks good to you Exactly just make sure that the other people around you get a chance to take a piece before you go for another one Yeah, exactly. Take a turn maybe even get in you have an app on your phone for uh to see who goes first in board games That's right. I do bring that to the pizza table do that. Yeah, that's actually pretty fair

Yeah, uh, cool I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about that because you didn't like bring up a stink about it But it was something I was nervous doing because I was like, oh, he's gonna call me on this and we're gonna get into a fight I am never gonna hesitate to call you on something now is where I'm gonna call you on something And we're gonna get into a fight. Yes Our dessert is not eligible to rate that dessert was the best pizza hut dessert I've ever had this is the best it's not a pizza hut dessert Okay, this dessert was the best dessert I have had at one of these restaurants at one of these restaurants to this date

It does not matter. It was so good. So what we got was the cinnabon mini roll They were amazing. It was how many like 10 mini cinnabon rolls there Okay, cinnabon also has mini rolls themselves, but these were even smaller than the cinnabon mini rolls So this is like a japanese cute miniature thing, but this isn't a pizza hut product. This is cinnabon Giving pizza hut a product and you can get it at pizza hut. I don't think that's the same thing pizza hut didn't make this This was shipped to pizza hut by cinnabon already made like warmed up like no pizza. No, they didn't create it They didn't create it. They have desserts that pizza hut has created They have like a like a pan cookie brownie or something like that

That's what we should have done that probably arrives frozen from corporate in a pan and they make it the same time Talking about conceptually. They didn't make it. They ride the coattails of cinnabon And they serve you a smaller cinnabon with no flavor difference whatsoever It is just a cinnabon. I'm okay with that. I just look at the podcast. You're the one putting in more effort probably I'm riding your coattails. I'm cool with this. Come on. I love cinnabon. I think cinnabon is great I give this dessert a nine and a half out of ten But as far as the food rating for pizza hut it doesn't factor in If it did factor in pizza hut would get a better rating

But I think that a cinnabon as the dessert that we got disqualifies the dessert from our rating So like that is my stance you can do it however you want pizza hut didn't invent this cinnamon roll So therefore it doesn't count. No pizza hut Is literally serving another company's product When you think about it the only real pizza hut product is the pan pizza They were the guys that did that every other type of pizza someone else did because when they do their thin crust pizza Even though they didn't invent thin crust pizza It is their take on a thin crust pizza the cinnabon mini rolls wasn't even their take on cinnabon

It was totally a cinnabon sending them a thing And it's the same I bet those are made in the same factory as their brownies And I bet these humans had to put the icing on themselves. I Look, I just don't agree with you on this. Okay. It's gonna it's the best thing that we ate there And it's not factoring into my food rating. Taste is all that matters to me The taste was great. It was a great. It's an I'll give you like same with you 9.5 out of 10 Yeah, they were so good. They were really good They don't count. So my food rating is not going to factor in the cinnabon mini rolls. Yours can. I will totally but mine will not

So do you want to just get into the ratings? Let's go into it. Okay. What do you say? I'm saying this was On the level of the best pizza hut food. I have ever had in my entire life. So this was peak pizza hut We went to a pizza hut and you got a good pizza hut. Yes. Okay, unfortunately I don't think pizza hut is capable of getting two thumbs up. I don't either. They're they're fast food When you have a drive-thru you're probably probably and I will just say probably because it is not a guarantee But it is likely that you are not serving the best food that you can give somebody Okay final food ratings. Mm-hmm. So pizza hut can't reach the moon. They tried and gave up Yes, so I'm gonna give this one thumb up, you know, even disqualifying the cinnamon rolls

I liked the pan pizza enough. I like the breadsticks a lot I like the wings more than you did. I'm still going one thumb up. Okay after all that stink I made We're giving the same food. Who's the fussy little boy now. I'm fussy today. I don't think regularly I'm fussy, but for some reason I've got an axe to grind today. I think it's because they hung up I think it's because if you hang up on a guy 19 times, we're just gonna inflate this number 28 times What 47 times they hung up on me 47 192 times. Wow. I should have probably stopped calling somewhere around 27,000 But why did you purchase that auto dialer just for pizza because I wanted to ask them a question

All right, Garrett. Well, we'll be back after Well a sad word And now let us pay our respects to a departed friend from our past Oh Hello Hello The loss of a loved one can be the most difficult thing for any of us to handle. I've been struggling a lot The departed left such a void in our lives and as I struggle to comprehend how such a nourishing force for good can be

So abruptly taken from us I can only cling to better times So I'd like to share a little something I've prepared about our childhood in Wichita Each October our family dragged kayaks to a clearing tucked inside an apple grove right outside town The river was shallow here and fallen leaves made launching easy Floating down the little Arkansas. We saw our Wichita a great plains oasis fed by flight and innovation Built from hard labor and industry unflinchingly steady yet humble just like you After our morning on the water Pa would take us all to lunch always remembering to point to you

Our paragon of stability the true glue that kept our family together You're built to satisfy not to impress he'd say and the rest of us would chuckle Far too young too unaware to know that this was the lesson to absorb And now you're gone along with all your warmth a heat lamp upon our hearts Your love that kept us full for decades And now we've gone No more comfort no more constancy and now you're gone No, no more cherry dessert pizza

Oh pizza hot lunch buffet Why did you have to leave us the days of plates heaping with breadstick halves and perfectly portioned hand pizza are over No more red plastic cups No more scolding hot marinara. No more untouched salad behind a cracked plexiglass sneeze guard. I I I love you and will always carry you around in my heart Because of the cholesterol Thank you rest in power pizza hot lunch buffet

Rest in power You Final rating You Okay, so we need to go into the final rating we're accounting for the food the atmosphere the service We can weight them however we want overall garret your thumbs evened out to you gave everything all things considered one thumb up Zero and one down. So pretty average, right? Yes, all of mine ended up averaging out to Two thumb or totaling to two thumbs down, right? I had one thumb up three thumbs down. So

Overall, that's uh That's two thumbs down So I did not think of this place as favorably As you did especially since my food weight was the best like you waited your food more I'm waiting the service more or the lack thereof because they made you buy a damn auto dialer. I didn't actually I'm not a psycho Really, but the amount of times that I called Like it hurt so much more hearing them pick up and hang up It wasn't like a getting sent straight to voicemail. That leaves you with dignity

Okay, here's here. This is one way to know if you called too many times Let's say you've just completed your fourth date with a new person You call this person the same number of times you call pizza hut. Do they ever talk to you again? Um, I don't know if there's anyone I could talk to outside of an emergency that I could call This many times in a row and not lose that contact for my life I feel like if I called you 14 times in a row to ask you a question, you'd be like, what is happening? I probably would have sent you a picture. Yeah of whatever you were doing that was causing you not to pick up

Yeah, but it's also different because it it isn't necessarily that I would assume you're avoiding me or avoiding doing your job I would assume you were busy. So people in my life versus calling a business. It's a different expectation but okay, so I think For me, it was a more negative experience than a good experience I didn't hate it But it would be bad and I know we do have a weirder scale than most people You know for us hating it is going to be like your zero to two scores

thinking it's Not good is going to be like your you know, three to four and a half mediocre is right in that middle four to six, right? So Anything that leaves me less than average gets under a five and I'm going to 4.08 Okay on pizza. Well, I had a slightly above average experience because the food was pretty good. Mm-hmm for pizza hut 5.21 5.21, okay So now we need to slap pizza huts logo on to the chachki of mediocrity

And if you want us to explain what that is, we can do that the chachki of mediocrity is basically a frank and chachki It takes all the wall chachkies from all your favorite places combines them all together into one giant And right on the middle of that surfboard We have our rating scale where you can see the history of where we have rated every single restaurant We've been to so far looking for that perfect 5.00 out of 10 So where does pizza hut fall on this 4.65? We have a new Most average place it is the closest to five that we have found so far But the search does in fact continue. However, you do avoid

a consequence from the you must bowl I'm a little disappointed because you wanted to do some fun. I'm a little bit of a masochist to kind of enjoy these Yeah, so the you must bowl is a bowl of consequences that we have to draw from if whoever picked this week's restaurant Which in this case was garret if he were to pick something that was not average enough So basically anything that deviated from a four to a six score He would have to draw a consequence out of the you must bowl and it has a you must statement on it And that is a thing he has to do the next time we go out to eat If you have any suggestions for things we should add to the you must bowl we are always open to hearing them

Yes, please keep them legal Yes, and we don't want to upset people around us. We're not looking to ruin anyone's night We are there to literally just make people like point at us and laugh That's about the extent of it embarrass us. So email your suggestions over to find dining podcast at gmail.com And if we like your suggestions, we will put them in the you must bowl along with your name And we can shout you out if we ever draw that thing out of the bowl. So gives you something to look forward to but now We need to determine

What are we going to do next week? So we got to play the headline game The rules of the headline game are as follows Garrett will present three headlines to michael that include this week's restaurant They can be made up or they can be actual headlines If michael can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake He will get to select next week's restaurant. However, if Garrett stumps him, he'll select again Are you ready to play fellas? I'm ready hit me headline number one Pizza Hut withdraws offer of free animals with pizza purchase

Uh Like real live animals. Yes like pets real live animals um That is madness if true I can see why they withdrew it and I think because they withdrew it. I'm actually gonna say true. Okay Next one pizza hut customer outraged by ketchup label that sounds like app for swingers This is one of the best ones ever false. I'm gonna say false on that Final one. These are good

Pizza hut is sorry. It baked a cockroach into your pizza got fined $35,000 I'm gonna say false on that one just because of the way it reads. I think you made that up True false false. That's those are my guesses the first one Pizza Hut withdraws offer of free animals with pizza purchase is true. Yes. Okay. This actually happened in australia Of course, of course, it's australia And the sign They actually had a banner the animal. I don't know what animals they were offering

But on the banner it was a hamster You had to purchase 10 large pizzas and you got a hamster. That's the funniest promotion Okay, now the next one pizza hut customer outraged by ketchup label that sounds like app for swingers You guessed false. It is true. That's true. Yes. Where that was in the uk. I'll I'll read that one after Final one pizza hut is sorry. It baked a cockroach into your pizza got fined $35,000. Uh-huh. It is true That was okay. Yeah, it was just a read. I intentionally chose that because it was a sloppily awarded article That's a good strategy because that was my entire. Okay, read me the the swingers app one Now this was from the uk mirror

Okay, pizza hut customer outraged by ketchup label that sounds like app for swingers A man has said he was left outraged by a tomato ketchup label on pizza hut, which has sexual connotations Uh-huh the man 31 of all went to a chain for the first time on wednesday evening And was taken aback by the bottles label which read shake squeeze and squirt I see where this is going. It's not innocent in my eyes. It literally sounds like an app for swingers I do not understand how someone could put that sentence together. It feels like it's on him This is completely on him. Yeah, this it's like I

Put a sexual connotation into most things in my life. Sure. So this would be like me complaining to a paper about it It really sounds like that like you're just making up a problem. Is there more? Or is that kind of the extent of it? That's just the rest of the article is just him Complaining and yeah trying to be like they need to change it. So it doesn't give you proper instructions Yeah, he's like if I had my niece with me, it would have been a problem I hate that guy. Yeah, I don't like him. All right. Well, you stumped me. You picked three true articles I guess two of them fall so You get to pick again

Since this week pizza hut became our new most mediocre restaurant I think we can do a little bit better than that. Okay next week. We're going to olive garden Ooh, so we're doing italian again. You think it's the most mediocre I don't know personally. I think olive garden has one of the best chances to be a pure 5.00. Do you? Yes. All right So, yeah, we'll we'll see you next week for olive garden But in the meantime, it would actually mean a lot to us if you took the time to write us an itunes review help us climb those charts it helps us with the algorithm and Send us your thoughts on

Anything consequences for the you must bowl. Am I wrong for disqualifying cinnabon from the dessert ratings even like how your day was or I'll listen if you have A story because you used to work at olive garden. Go ahead and send it to us. We'd love to hear it fine dining podcast at gmail.com at fine dining podcast on both instagram and tiktok follow us on everything and We'll see you next week. Thanks again for dining with us. Check please We need like what is we need to think if you have an idea for a sign off for us also Send that to us. Okay. Check please. All right. Bye. Have a good night people. It's been fine

Does our pun register that we are fine dining? We're not like the finest. We're not saying it in our interest We need to keep this this needs to stay as our outro for this episode this is all of it right here The search continues We still need the perfect five The search continues Like and subscribe The search continues Our journey did not conclude the monorail and search continues

Write us an iTunes review And hey while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Come on Follow us on tiktok The same on instagram All the socials at fine dining podcast We have a website find dining podcast dot com Buy our t-shirts

Then put them on And don't forget you can always suggest where we go next Okay We're going to find it Mediocrity The search continues See you next week Heard my throat a little have a fine day