Pizza Hut, 2001 North Beltline Boulevard: early 2000s 12 comments
The Forest Acres area used to have several Pizza Huts. There was one on Forest Drive more or less across the street from where Golden Corral is now. There was one on Garners Ferry about where Ruby Tuesday is now, and then there was this one on Beltline in between D's Wings and the Japanese steakhouse.
I was noticing that Casa Linda looks a bit like an old-style Pizza Hut (though with some additions) and that this building is one of the newer style Pizza Huts, so it's possible that they moved here from the Casa Linda building. However, I have no recollection of any such thing, so that's just speculation.
At any rate, this Pizza Hut was part of my ongoing disenchantment with the chain, becase the service was consistently... not good. In fact this store had an innovation I had not seen before, and have not seen since: A Neon Help Wanted sign.
Honestly, do you want your customers to notice that your help turns over so often that you have a built-in, lighted, Help Wanted sign? Much better to just continue to tape a paper one in the window every week. That will go below most people's radar.
After this place went under as a Pizza Hut it became a Rising High. This was sort of interesting because it was one of the most protracted re-purposings I can recall. My memory is that the Coming Soon Rising High! sign went up at least a full year before they got around to opening, with the actual work seeming to happen on a very off-and-on basis. I suspect that opening this store while also trying to cope with the road-work on Harden Street was what drove Rising High under. At any rate, this store didn't last long.
I think there may have been another operation between Rising High and the current tenant, Shane's, but if so I can't now recall what it was.
UPATE 26 June 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.
12 Responses to 'Pizza Hut, 2001 North Beltline Boulevard: early 2000s'
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Dennis
23 Dec 08 at 8:06 pm
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I'm pretty sure that Casa Linda's building started out as a Shane's Steak House, then was some kind of Chinese restaurant for a while, maybe called Mandarin?
Sue
26 Dec 08 at 4:48 pm
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At some point in Casa Linda was a pirate/Caribbean themed type restaurant as well.
ChiefDanGeorge
26 Dec 08 at 4:55 pm
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Pizza Hut? Good riddance. Make way for a locally-owned original restaurant that values their customers.
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I remember the Mandarin Chinese place.
Mr Bill
6 Jan 09 at 12:14 pm
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Wow, there's still a Golden Corral in Columbia? Awesome! They have one of the biggest buffets I've ever seen.
Bill C.
10 Feb 09 at 12:07 am
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folks I recall there being Shane's Rib Shack and Rising High being in this building after Pizza Hut left before Zaxby's took over but I was wondering if it was Shane's Rib Shack before Rising High or vice versa..
Andrew
6 Oct 11 at 3:10 pm
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Pizza Hut->Rising High->Shane's Rib Shack->Zaxby's
Mike
6 Oct 11 at 8:31 pm
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I think this location, but not the physical building, was also previously "Bright's," which, as I recall, was like a local all-night diner. It was there until either the late 80s or early 90s. After they closed, the Bright's people (I think) opened a different restaurant called "Southern Connection" or something like that in the Leesburg Plaza, in the location currently housing "Pizza Palace."
badger
7 Oct 11 at 8:17 am
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Last time I was at Leesburg Plaza, the whole place seemed sketchy to me.
Hey, badger, you remember El Toro barber shop in that strp mall back in the 70s/early 80s?
tonkatoy
7 Oct 11 at 8:39 am
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Nope. That area was terra incognita to me until the mid 1980s. If the barber shop was there then, I didn't notice it. The only business I recall from that area was Scruples, where Parklane Seafood is now. I'll agree that Leesburg Plaza looks sketchy, but despite that, Pizza Palace has a very loyal customer base.
badger
7 Oct 11 at 10:37 am
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Mid eighties was the Book Nook era for the Plaza. That was a cool store.
tonkatoy
7 Oct 11 at 10:39 am
The Pizza Hut I miss is the one my high school gang used to get tossed out of regularly - on Two Notch close to Beltline. (Across from Pulliam Ford.)
Back then you could drink beer at 18, and get served if you were 16 with a deep voice and a decent mustache. We were all in the high school band, and we'd go there after football games and start ordering pitchers.
They would always throw us out when we got loud, which was about pitcher #4. Every once in a while they'd throw us out before we paid. Perfect!