The Salad Days of Pizza Hut Pete

Here are a few ads featuring Pizza Hut Pete from the early days of Pizza Hut in Lorain County. The large square ad is from 1969 and the vertical ad (below) is from 1973.

Note how in the 1969 ad, Pizza Hut Pete figures prominently on the building itself, with large cutouts of him on the building's roof and sides. Now he's just the answer to a trivia question.

I remember going to the Oberlin Avenue location a lot in high school, with the occasional trip "all the way out to Sheffield Lake" for something different and exotic (perhaps to razzle-dazzle an easily-impressed date?)

Now, for ten years, I've been living a mile from the Sheffield Lake restaurant and really don't think of it too much when I'm in the mood for pizza (although I used to love the priazzo).

Maybe if they hadn't gotten rid of Pizza Hut Pete...

Meet Pizza Hut Pete

Remember this guy? This is Pizza Hut Pete. He used to be the advertising mascot for Pizza Hut back in the 1960s and 70s.

It's interesting that Pizza Hut fashioned their mascot to fit in with all the other mustachioed chefs that were out there promoting local pizzerias. Although I kinda like Pizza Hut Pete, I never really cared for Pizza Hut pizza too much.

To find out more about Pizza Hut Pete, here's a link to a blogger who has discovered a bunch of old Pizza Hut Pete items, including placemats, hand puppets and signage.

Pizza Hut first showed up in the Lorain phone books back in 1969, with restaurants in Lorain and in Sheffield Lake. Now, forty years later, the original Oberlin Avenue location in Lorain is long gone, as well as the replacement delivery-only store in the old Lawson's store further north on Oberlin Avenue. The Sheffield Lake location is still hanging in there, but I'm pretty sure it is a delivery-only store.

Pizza Hut Pete himself is long gone as well. He didn't stand a chance against Yala's, Rosie's, Stella's, etc.