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Is Pizza Hut still considered fine dining these days?

• seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  In China it is more on par with TGIF and such chain restaurants.
• yourapostasy 7y ago
  They're trying to upscale it even more [1], and when they first entered the China market, they were considered upscale relative to other options [2], and were far more sit-down oriented than their US branches during that long-ago time period. Since then, options have proliferated, and competition has heated up to the point that such low-level differentiation is no longer sufficient, hence their current even greater upscaling efforts. I'd like to hear from Chinese HN readers who grew up remembering Pizza Hut arriving in their locale, and how it was viewed then versus now with the greater competition. With innovations like Haidilao's highly-automated (not fully-automated) robotic restaurant [3] for locals, and even Tier 2 cities with business class Western hotel chains like Sheraton boasting every day dinner buffets that put US Sunday brunch at Four Seasons to shame, I think Chinese citizens in most metro areas have an embarrassment of culinary riches in options now. The local hole in the wall restaurants in the more rural areas that I tried were also a delight. To stay at the top of the game, Western restaurant chains have a high bar to clear, especially as many home-grown Chinese restauranteurs have cottoned onto how dining out is not about food, it is about entertainment. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yum-china-hldg-pizzahut-focus/fast-food-fashion-yum-chinas-plan-to-get-pizza-hut-back-in-vogue-idUSKCN1M72XV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yum-china-hldg-pizzahut-f... [2] https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Pizza-Hut-so-much-better-in-China-compared-to-the-US https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Pizza-Hut-so-much-better-in-Chi... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61y2nAE8GsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61y2nAE8GsI