Pizza Hut is bringing back the red roof (and the salad bar)

Pizza Hut is bringing back the red roof. And the Tiffany lamp, and the red plastic cup, and the checkered tablecloth, and the Pac-Man machine in the corner that ate every quarter you had between ages 7 and 12 (mine still owes me money).

Yum! Brands announced this week that 155 Pizza Hut locations across the country are being converted back to the chain's full 1980s and 1990s look, complete with working jukeboxes and a salad bar that still has the little metal tongs. If, like me, you ate a Pan Pizza off a paper plate at any point during the Reagan or Clinton administrations, this one is for you.

The guy steering the project is Tim Sparks, president of Daland Corporation, a Kansas franchisee that runs nearly 100 Pizza Huts. Sparks started his career at the chain as a dishwasher (which feels exactly right), and he is now the one turning his stores into "Pizza Hut Classic" locations, with a few dozen already remodeled and more on the way. This is not a wallpaper job, either. The Classic spec calls for the full retro architectural package, which means some of these stores are getting brand-new gabled-roof buildings instead of a quick interior refresh.