Slice of Life
Slice of Life (trailer) is a feature-length documentary about the American Dream through the lens of former Pizza Huts that have been transformed into everything from bars to churches to candy stores to cannabis dispensaries. A woman who runs an LGBTQ+ church out of a former Pizza Hut says:
It’s the stained-glass windows that draw people and touch people, and I think really takes it out of the realm of a Pizza Hut. It’s the power of transformation. When things continue to transform, beauty can come from it, good things can come out of it.
You can rent or buy the film from their website.
I’ve written before about how Pizza Hut was a special place to visit when I was a kid:
Pizza Hut was the #1 eating-out destination for me as a kid. My family never ate out much, so even McDonald’s, Arby’s, or Hardee’s was a treat. But Pizza Hut was a whole different deal. Did I enjoy eating salad at home? No way. But I had to have the salad bar at Pizza Hut. Did I normally eat green peppers, onions, and black olives? Nope…but I would happily chow down on a supreme pizza at Pizza Hut.
Comments 4
Things Become Other Things
https://usedtobeapizzahut.com
Always have loved Places That Become Other Types of Places. There's even a poetry in the sequence of transformations.
I used to live near a building that started out as a service station, became a flooring store, a transmission shop, a gynecologist's office, and I-forget-what-else. None of the "Oh, what used to be there" of the lot on which something gone used to stand, just the sense of repurposing and renewal.
My favorite ‘obvs inheriting the style of the former tenant’ in the Japanese countryside town I happen to be visiting right now is the corner gas stand with the high canopy that turned into… Korean-style bbq, ofc
(I share that fondness for the memory of Pizza Hut, I think the last one I went to was in Alaska? But I clear as a bell remember walking into my first one, closest to my suburban NY home was in Yonkers, and thinking ‘this smells of anaerobic respiration’, like as much yeast from the dough as the cheap beer in red patterned plastic glasses)
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