Pizza Hut experienced significant growth, including the acquisition by PepsiCo in 1977, followed by a spin-off into Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., later renamed Yum!

Despite these hurdles, Pizza Hut remains a significant player in the global fast-food industry, known for its innovative products and marketing strategies.

[11][12] On May 30, 1997, PepsiCo spun off Pizza Hut, along with Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken, into a new company named Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc.

[13][14] The first Pizza Hut restaurant east of the Mississippi River was opened in Athens, Ohio, in 1966 by Lawrence Berberick and Gary Meyers.

The menu was expanded to introduce various items such as crust flavors and 11 new specialty pizzas, and the company's employee uniforms were redesigned.

At 50 US locations, the Bistro is similar to a traditional Pizza Hut but with a menu that included previously unseen items, such as penne pasta, chicken pomodoro, and toasted sandwiches.

[citation needed] Vintage locations featuring the red roof, designed by architect Richard D. Burke, can be found in the United States and Canada; several exist in the UK, Australia, and Mexico.

In his book Orange Roofs, Golden Arches, Phillip Langdon wrote that the Pizza Hut red roof architecture "is something of a strange object – considered outside the realm of significant architecture, yet swiftly reflecting shifts in popular taste and unquestionably making an impact on daily life.

"[34] In 2014, Curbed.com reported, "Despite Pizza Hut's decision to discontinue the form when they made the shift toward delivery, there were still 6,304 traditional units standing as of 2004, each with the shingled roofs and trapezoidal windows signifying equal parts suburban comfort and strip-mall anomie."

[35] Many of the older locations with the red roof design serve beer or have a full bar, music from a jukebox, and in some cases an arcade.

Pizza Hut is installing cocktail bars in its London branches as part of a £60 million bid to win back "the Nando's generation".

[48] In March 2020, Pizza Hut Hong Kong announced that it had partnered with furniture retailer IKEA on a joint venture.

[63] In 2016, private equity firm Allegro Funds and a local management team bought the master franchise agreement for Pizza Hut in Australia from Yum!

[71] Savio S. Chan (陳少宏, Pinyin: Chén Shàohóng) and Michael Zakkour, authors of China's Super Consumers: What 1 Billion Customers Want and How to Sell it to Them, stated middle-class Chinese perceive Pizza Hut as "akin to fine dining", though Pizza Hut was "China's largest and most successful foreign casual-dining chain".

[citation needed] The first Pizza Hut store in New Zealand was established in New Lynn 1974 by businessman Garry Melville-Smith, who bought the franchise rights for the country.

The franchise originated as a dine-in restaurant targeting families and also served alcohol, pasta, salad bars and desserts.

[74] In 1998, Pizza Hut shifted from a dine-in restaurant chain towards a takeaway and delivery service in response to changes in consumer behaviour.

[75] In late September 2024, Pizza Hutt celebrated the 50th anniversary of its establishment in New Zealand by holding pop-up lunch and dinner buffet and dessert events in Auckland.

It features a man in a business suit and tie, played by Ron Williams, who was then a production manager for Wichita's ABC affiliate KAKE-TV, as he orders take-out, leaves his house, and gets into his 1965 Mustang JR to drive to Pizza Hut, where he is chased by a variety of townspeople, portrayed by neighborhood kids, Walterscheidt and his daughter, and various employees for Harry Crow and KAKE-TV.

The ad first aired on November 19, 1966, during halftime of the Notre Dame vs. Michigan State "Game of the Century", and dramatically increased sales for the franchise.

These commercials ran from 1991 to 1999 and was created by Walter Williams, creator of the Mr. Bill sketches from Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s – upon which the ad campaign was based.

Adding to the impact of these advertisements, the role of Dougie was played by famous Australian soap opera and police drama actor Diarmid Heidenreich.

The last scene of the commercial showed Ivana asking for the last slice, to which Donald replied, "Actually, you're only entitled to half", a play on the couple's recent divorce.

[97] In 1995, Ringo Starr appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial that teased to a Beatles reunion, but featured three members of The Monkees.

Also, in 1999, the game Crazy Taxi for Sega Dreamcast featured Pizza Hut as one of the locations to which players were able to drive and drop off customers.

Using mobile-phone SMS technology and their MyHut ordering site, they aired several television commercials (commencing just before the Super Bowl) containing hidden words that viewers could type into their phones to receive coupons.

Other innovative efforts included their "MySpace Ted" campaign, which took advantage of the popularity of social networking, and the burgeoning user-submission marketing movement via their Vice President of Pizza contest.

[104] Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev starred in a 1998 Pizza Hut commercial with his granddaughter Anastasia Virganskaya to raise money for the Perestroyka Archives.

[105] The ad "obviously exploited the shock value of having a former world leader appear... [and] played on the fact that Gorbachev was far more popular outside Russia than inside it".

[106] More recently, Pizza Hut has had various celebrity spokespeople, including Jessica Simpson, the Muppets, Damon Hill, and Murray Walker.