Pizza Hunt photographic project reflects nation’s nostalgia for Pizza Hut family restaurants

REMEMBER Dougie the Pizza Hut dude? He was the face of the chain’s family restaurants. One couple is on a mission to find out what became of those iconic buildings.

Actor Diarmid Heidenreich in Pizza Hut Restaurant TV commercial Heidenreich Advertising / Food / Pizzas / Restaurants

WE loved them for the all-you-can-eat pizza and soft serve before they disappeared, but now a couple has turned the focus back on Melbourne’s distinctive Pizza Hut dine-in restaurants as part of a worldwide photographic project.

The project — Pizza Hunt — not only harks back to that nostalgic time but also looks at how many of the iconic restaurant buildings have survived in Australia, New Zealand and the US.

Pizza Hut veered away from dine-in restaurants in Australia and New Zealand in the 2000s in favour of takeaways.

Photographer Ho Hai Tran and collaborator Chloe Cahill found many of the former Pizza Hut buildings had become home to another popular family pizza and pasta chain — La Porchetta.

There are La Porchetta restaurants in former Pizza Hut buildings in Ivanhoe, Bentleigh East, Croydon and Doncaster.

Mr Tran said he grew up in the 1990s and would visit Pizza Hut as a family treat.

Photographer Ho Hai Tran outside the old Belfield Pizza Hut — now a Korean restaurant.

Mr Tran said he had photographed 100 former Pizza Hut buildings across Australia and launched a Kickstarter campaign to appeal for funding to self-publish the pictures.

“Pizza Hut buildings might not seem like the most aesthetically compelling structures but they do ooze a certain charm,” he said.

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“It’s fascinating to see how businesses have reinterpreted the buildings and either rejected or embraced the past.”

According to Mr Tran there are other original Pizza Hut buildings are still standing in Geelong North, Keysborough, Frankston IGA, Springvale La Festiva, Dandenong’s Marina Radiology, Ferntree Gully’s Seaspray Pools (“interesting because it was elevated with a carpark underneath”), Boronia’s Top Kids Childcare and Preschool, Forest Hill’s Isshin Japanese Restaurant, Preston’s Dino Family Restaurant, and Lazy Moes in Tullamarine.

He said many people would remember being part of the ‘Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program’, which encouraged primary school children to read in exchange for pizza vouchers.

The Gabriele family own and run Ivanhoe La Porchetta at the former Pizza Hut building.

He said the Sydney couple started their journey after spotting Seoul Korean Restaurant in Belfield, Sydney, which was once the first dine-in Pizza Hut built in Australia.

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Mr Tran said the idea came about while the pair were driving around NSW and kept on seeing buildings with the hallmark Pizza Hut roofs.

“It’s interesting that nothing has changed about the building, except a lick of paint,” Mr Tran said.

If you grew up in the 1990s, this was probably one of your favourite places.

And don’t forget Dougie.

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Diarmid Heidenreich, the blonde bombshell with the killer smile, captured our hearts as Dougie, the Pizz Hut delivery boy in a series of ads in the 1990s.

You might remember Heidenreich more recently in a very different role as part of Underbelly: The Golden Mile as Det Sen-Const Eddie “Parrot” Gould.