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Right Time, Right Place: The Pizza Hut Story

In 1958, two brothers – one a recent Wichita State University grad, another a freshman at WSU – started a restaurant in a tiny building on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg in Wichita, Kansas. They sold pizza, an Italian dish that was just beginning to come to prominence in America. They called their new place Pizza Hut. They staffed it with family, friends, and fraternity brothers. From those humble beginnings, Dan and Frank Carney grew their business into the largest pizza restaurant chain in the world, and established Pizza Hut as one of the most recognizable brands in the United States and abroad. It started right here, in this building. This is the Pizza Hut story.

A Founder's Dream

Button 1: Dan Carney and Steve Reinemund on entrepreneurship

Button 2: Dan Carney on the early days of Pizza Hut

Case contents: Gold Pizza Hut Watch. Dan Carney kept this watch in his golf bag. Dan never wore a watch, saying he always wanted to be ready if he needed to make pizza sauce. A reproduction is featured in the tactile library. Dan and Gayla Carney Collection, 2017.7.205 Lowell D. Holmes Museum of Anthropology.