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.

A "Rosie" Outlook for Pizza

I've already mentioned in this space how I grew up on Yala's Pizza and how it is still the pizza I look forward to every Friday night. However, I have to mention my other favorite pizzeria: Rosie's Pizza Palace.

   I never even had a Rosie's pizza until I was well into my thirties. It was one of those nights when the wife left me to fend for myself for dinner on a Friday night, so I gave Rosie's a try – and I was hooked.

   It's a very different pizza from Yala's. Very brown and well-done; a spicier cheese, a different crust. I think it's great. My wife and I still prefer Yala's, but every so often I sneak over to Rosie's.

   The ad shown above is from 1961, when she moved her business back to Lorain. (She had started her own place in Avon at the corner of Lear Nagel and Detroit Road around 1958. Then it was back to Lorain, at the corner of Ninth and Broadway in 1961. For a while, her ads showed two locations: 3113 Broadway and 1032 Broadway. But she soon focused on just the 3113 Broadway spot and that is where the business is today.)

   I love the Rosie mascot. Her family still uses it in ads. (They later gave her a slight makeover (at right.)

   Lorain is lucky to have so many authentic pizzas to choose from. 

What IS the secret of the Pizza Hut?

While researching pizza places in Lorain County, I came across this interesting slice of pizza history: a place called the Pizza Hut (emphasis on the 'the') out in Avon. I could be wrong, but it seemed to show up in the mid-1960s, just before Pizza Hut came to Lorain County. 

   This ad from 1968 is intriguing for a few reasons. The presence of a top-hatted chicken carrying a bucket of his own kind is strange enough. But what really makes me wonder is the tagline: the pizza with the BIG SECRET! 

   What could the big secret be? Was soylent green one of the choices of pizza toppings?

  Maybe the big secret is how they managed to get away with calling themselves the Pizza Hut. Since the Pizza Hut disappeared soon after Pizza Hut opened several outlets in Lorain County in the late 1960s, I wonder what business the owners went into next.

   Maybe they opened a burger joint called the Burger King. Just kidding!

   

The Many Faces of the Pizza House

Here's a real rogues gallery of pizza chef mascots from the early days of pizza in Lorain... and they all represented the same pizzeria: the Pizza House.

   The Pizza House has the honor of being the first pizzeria to run an ad in the Lorain Phone Book. The company was all alone in the book in 1955, with the chef mascot at the far left. For the next few years at least, they went with a different chef mascot. (From left to right, the chefs are from 1955, 1958, 1959 and 1961. 

   The Pizza House was located at 3113 Broadway. Rosie Brest of Rosie's Pizza Palace got her start at the Pizza House, working there from 1954-1958. She later moved her own business into the Pizza House's building and that's where her business is today. (She passed away in 2007.)

   There was also a Pizza House in Vermilion that opened when Rosie took over the 3113 Broadway location, so it might be the same business. And there was a Pizza House in Oberlin in the early 1960s as well.

   I guess there are only so many ways to describe a structure in which pizza is made -  and a 'house' sounds better than a 'hut'!

Yala's Pizza: I wonder if they still use Wonder-Dough?

Here's something you don't see every day. It's an ad for Yala's Pizza that ran in the Journal back in 1959 in one of those big Lorain anniversary editions.

   It's interesting (to me at least) because you actually get to see the names of the people behind the operation: Louis Fuervando, Jay Telloni and Yala Armelie. (I always thought that 'Yala' was a last name!) The ad is also great because of the chef mascot.

   It sure is great pizza – no doubt Lorain's favorite now and forever. To my taste buds, it tastes the same now as it did when I first tasted it back in the 1960s. 

   My family always had Yala's Pizza every Friday night when I was a kid, along with Pepsi (never Coke). Once in a while, we would have Selenti's for something different, but we always came back to Yala's.

   I remember when you could sit down in Yala's and eat your pizza there. 

   Once back in high school days, a couple of pals and I ordered a Yala's pizza during Christmas break and walked there with the intention of eating in. To our dismay, Yala's had gotten recently gotten rid of the booths, so we had to take it with us. After walking around in the snow with it for a while, we decided that we didn't want to walk all the way home with it – so we took it over to Hardees, sat down and started eating it there.

   The Hardees manager came out and asked us, "Is that a Hardees Pizza?" He must have had a sense of humor, because I don't remember being thrown out.

  

  

Donut Wars

Here's a 1960 ad for Dixie Cream Donuts at 2851 Broadway in Lorain. For a short while, this place was a competitor of Bob's Donuts.

   I like the globe-headed advertising mascot - he's great! Dixie Cream Donuts is a chain, founded in 1922 in Dallas, Texas. The company is still around and even has a website under construction.

   Cool mascot or not, they obviously were no match for Bob Smith, the donut king, because they weren't around very long.

Remember Oakie the Squirrel?

Sure you do! Especially if you ever drove down Route 254 by Pearl Avenue in the 1960s and 70s and saw Oakie's huge image on the side of the building.

Well, even though Oakwood Shopping Center in Lorain is being redeveloped, Oakie the Squirrel is still around! You can visit Oakie at Oakie's Treehouse!

Climb on up into the Treehouse and visit Oakie and a lot of other old pals who served as advertising mascots for great local companies around Lorain County.