If you are an eighties kid who ever participated in the Pizza Hut Book-It program just to get a free personal pan pizza, I have a secret for you.
There’s something called Pizza Hut Classic restaurants that are like a portal back to 1985. Here the pizza comes out in a scolding hot metal pan, soft drinks are served in plastic tumblers and the vintage advertising on the walls will make you feel like a kid again.
Don’t even get me started on the red checked vinyl tablecloths and amazing Tiffany style stained glass light fixtures!
In an age where Pizza Hut has closed so many of their iconic red roofed dine-in restaurants, it’s down right refreshing to find one that feels like it has been mostly left untouched all these years. Most of their locations are just carry-out or delivery store fronts that rob us of the opportunity to sit and enjoy the dining experience.
We stopped at this one in Hillsboro, Ohio after I read about how Pizza Hut has been converting some of its locations to celebrate the vibe of the chain’s seventies and eighties heyday.
I felt like a kid again, nearly scalding the roof of my mouth with all that gooey cheese! Back in the day, my pizza would have been pepperoni. Now my choice is veggie or just plain cheese. This veggie pizza was excellent. In fact, I don’t know what they did to it, but it was way better than what you get at a carry-out location.
You can spot one of these restaurants easily because the pole sign says Pizza Hut Classic.
There are many things in this world that once were common but that are now so rare I tend to stop and take note when I see them. Tail fins on cars, people who still play compact discs, a punch bowl at a party, and all around good manners make me look again. Another thing that tops my list is the humble payphone.
The payphone originated in the late nineteenth century, giving folks the opportunity to prepay for a call. This was handy if you were traveling or if you didn’t have a home phone and just needed to make a call. Young people may be skeptical when I say this but there was a time that a phone was a luxury rather than a right or necessity.
When I was a college student back in the nineties, I carried quarters as well as a prepaid phone card to call home from a pay phone. This went on until the day I got my first mobile phone – a giant black corded monstrosity inside a leather bag that was attached to an external antenna via about six feet of cord. It was bulky and not meant to be portable. Instead, it lived in my car, more or less turning my little Chevy Cavalier into a rolling phone booth.
As technology improved, that bag phone was traded in for a flip phone and then one with a pull out keyboard (that one was the bomb) before eventually embracing the iPhone, a decision I’ve been repeatedly told was an upgrade. I’m still not convinced about that given how intrusive it can feel.
I liked using the payphone because the upfront cost lent a certain kind of urgency to a phone call. If I had just a handful of quarters, I had an excuse to keep the conversation short. Not to mention, being tied to the wall in a public place where others might need the phone encouraged some brevity as well.
Unfortunately, the rise of mobile phone usage in America has nearly driven our faithful payphones into extinction.
Almost.
I remember when the City of New York got rid of the last of its public pay phones back in 2022. That was a small news story but one I saw as a profound marker in our society. That city was once home to more than 30,000 payphones attached to poles, inside public buildings and in phone booths across the city.
I have just one question. Where does Clark Kent change now? I mean, how does he transform into Superman on his way to fight crime and save the day if there are no phone booths?
Yet, you still see them around. You see them more in small rural towns where cell service is spotty or where the economy is such that not everyone can afford a cell phone. You also see them in neighborhoods near county courthouses and jails. After all, if you’re released from jail with only the possessions you took in, it’s possible you don’t have a working cell phone to call for a ride.
This little number pictured above is located in the vestibule of the Frisch’s Big Boy in Chillicothe, Ohio. It’s a bizarre place for a payphone given the lack of privacy and the constant risk of being smacked with an opening door.
At least it’s there.
Personally, I haven’t touched a payphone probably since college but they always make me feel nostalgic, not just for my own youth but for eras before me. When I was a young reporter at a regional newspaper, the rookie desk in the newsroom was next to a man named Roy Cross. He was elderly at the time and cherry picked the best feature stories. He had earned that right after spending a career chasing stories during the golden age of journalism.
Roy regaled me with tales of covering crime and courts as a young reporter. If there was no time to come back to the paper to write up a story after a long day sitting through a criminal court trial, calling in the story for someone to transcribe was the only choice. So he and competitors would jockey for courthouse phones and public payphones to do just that. The idea of Roy as a young man with a reporter’s notebook in hand, writing his story as he spoke it into the phone was basically the coolest thing I had ever heard. It was like something out of a black and white film like “It Happened One Night” or “His Girl Friday.”
Sentimental, maybe, but most people couldn’t do it and I loved the idea. By the way, Roy would absolutely have been played by Clark Gable.
So seeing a payphone isn’t really about the phone. It’s about the memories and about nostalgia for a time I’ll never know. And let’s be honest. Given how much I despise talking on the phone most of the time, it’s absolutely about those shorter calls!
Tucked away in a corner shop, just across the street from the Ohio Statehouse, is a small business that harkens to another time.
It’s called The Peanut Shoppe and the business is in its 86th year. It actually was opened by Planters Peanuts in 1936, one of about 300 such Planters retail locations across the country. All of those locations fell into the hands of private owners in the sixties and this one in Columbus is one of just a few still in business across the nation.
Today, it’s owned by Mike and Pat who said she’s worked there since 1972. “I’ve been doing this so long I don’t know what I would do if I weren’t coming in here,” she told me.
While they are know for roasted peanuts, fresh ground peanut butter and nut candies, they have a great selection of all kinds of fun candies.
I came home with a couple of kinds of peanut clusters, cinnamon gummy bears and the most delicious honey roasted nuts I’ve ever tasted.
Pat and Mike are super friendly and happy to share about the business. Turns out that when Planters sold out, they went around the country destroying the Planters signs and marketing materials at all the retail stores.
They left a trail of destruction in their wake until they arrived at a store in Michigan where workers encountered a young boy who begged them not to kill Mr Peanut. Mike said there was enough negative press to convince the company to completely suspend the killing of Mr Peanut.
They never made it to Columbus which is how Pat and Mike are in possession of the last of these signs in the world. It still works!
I have a confession to make. I looked up the store just to see the sign.
Yes, yes, I know that anyone who visits here regularly is not at all surprised by this revelation.
They have more Mr Peanut pieces including a great one that sits on a roaster and a costume similar to one Mike wore during his college days. Turns out, he earned much needed book money when he took a job wearing a Mr Peanut costume similar to this one pictured below.
They specialize in fresh roasted peanuts, freshly cooked party mixes, a large assortment of raw nuts and a colorful assortment of candies. They even sell some nice tins that they can fill to order if you’re in need of a gift.
Friends, I loved it there. The natural light, the glass front displays of goodies and friendly people happy to scoop up whatever treat your heart desires made my day. The place is both timeless and like a time machine back to your childhood.
Pat said to me “We serve up smiles here.”
Yes they do. I certainly was smiling when I left with my paper bag full of treats. Look them up the next time you head to a show at one of the downtown theaters or when you tour the Ohio Statehouse. You won’t be able to resist the goodies!
Find The Peanut Shoppe at 21 East State Street, just across from the Ohio Statehouse. You can also follow them on Facebook!
