Pizza Hut - New London, CT

Pizza Hut - New London, CT

  July 08, 2018    Robby S.

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©Ciry of New London

PIZZA HUT
S. FRONTAGE ROAD
NEW LONDON SHOPPING CENTER
NEW LONDON, CT
CLOSED 2014

So truth be told, I don't really know what the trend is with Pizza Huts nationwide, but right now, there are just under twenty remaining Pizza Hut locations in the state of Connecticut including Pizza Hut Express locations within Target. I'm not sure if this massive downsizing of the Pizza Hut chain as affected other areas of the country, but I know it sure has taken its toll here.



One of Pizza Hut locations that haven't survived was the one in New London, Conn, which was located prominently in the New London Shopping Center. This location opened in 1988 and replaced the former Pizza Hut location at 361 Colman Street (now a Rita's ice), which opened back in 1970.

When the store closed in 2014, not much changed from when the store opened back in the 1980s. As seen from this picture courtesy of The Caldor Rainbow, the store sported the old-style Pizza Hut logo up until its close

©The Caldor Rainbow via Flickr

I remember two things specifically about this particular Hut location: 1) There was a REALLY old Galaga machine in the Carry-Out area of the restaurant and 2) The door handles said Pizza Hut on them. While pictures of either don't really exist, you'll just have to trust me on this one :)

In case you were wondering, the door handles looked something like this:

©Ryan via Flickr

Lastly, when digging through the Foursquare page for the former restaurant, I found this one picture

©Mark P via Foursquare

So what became of this former Pizza Hut? Well after sitting vacant for a few years, Denny's finally moved in after conducting some extensive remodeling on the building in 2014.

For the most part, not much remains of the old Pizza Hut besides the distinct roof shape. Denny's even went through the liberty of ensuring there was no labelscar left behind from the old Pizza Hut sign on the building

The rear of the building remains largely the same besides a new paint job. Something odd that I would like to point out, though, is that the windows on the rear (facing towards I-95) still have the 'NOW OPEN' decals despite the restaurant now being open for 2+ years. That's just a little something I found odd

The most direct relic of Pizza Hut on the properly incidentally is it's pylon sign. When Pizza Hut closed, instead of removing the sign they just put the sticker for another business over it. At night when the sign is illuminated, you can actually see it say 'PIZZA HUT' underneath (it's just above Town Fair Tire)

So there you have another article on an abandoned Pizza Hut. There'll be more articles like this one coming in the near future as there's been a mass-closing of Pizza Huts here in CT in the last few years. Anyways, I'll catch you next time!

~RS