Pizza Hut is the pizza chain recognisable by its red-roof branding, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1958 and now operating thousands of restaurants worldwide under new ownership following a major 2026 sale by Yum! Brands. If you’re wondering who runs Pizza Hut now, what’s changed in the UK, or what the chain actually serves, this guide covers the confirmed facts.
Pizza Hut was launched on 31 May 1958 by brothers Dan and Frank Carney, who were students at Wichita State University and used a $600 loan from their mother to open the first location. The name came about because their sign could only hold eight letters hence “Pizza Hut” rather than something longer. The brothers began franchising in 1959, and by 1963 there were 24 locations. Pizza Hut +2
From family business to global chain
Growth was rapid. By 1966 the company had 140 locations and had set up headquarters in Wichita, and the now-iconic red-roof building style was introduced in 1969, later becoming part of the corporate logo. The Carneys took the company public in 1969, and by 1971 Pizza Hut had more locations and higher sales than any competitor. WikipediaWikipedia
Ownership changed hands more than once after that. PepsiCo acquired Pizza Hut in November 1977, when the chain already had over 4,000 locations. In 1997, PepsiCo spun off Pizza Hut along with Taco Bell and KFC into a new company, Tricon Global Restaurants, which took the name Yum! Brands in 2002. That put Pizza Hut in the same corporate family as KFC and Taco Bell for nearly three decades. WikipediaWikipedia
Who owns Pizza Hut now?
This is the biggest recent change to the brand. After a strategic review that started in November 2025, Yum! Brands agreed in June 2026 to sell Pizza Hut in two separate deals. According to Yum! Brands’ own investor announcement, Pizza Hut outside mainland China was sold to the private equity firm LongRange Capital for approximately $1.5 billion, with Yum! also eligible for an earn-out of $75 million by 2030, while Pizza Hut’s mainland China business was sold separately to Yum China Holdings for approximately $1.2 billion. Yum
Both transactions have now closed. Yum! Brands confirmed that the sale of Pizza Hut China to Yum China closed on 7 August 2026, and the LongRange transaction completed on 1 September 2026, bringing the combined value of the two deals to $2.7 billion. Yum! Brands CEO Chris Turner said the deal marked a “key milestone” that lets Yum! move forward “as a more focused company with significant opportunities for growth around the world”. YumYum Brands
The sale followed years of underperformance. Reporting on the deal noted that Pizza Hut’s US systemwide sales had declined approximately 8% in fiscal 2025, and the brand closed roughly 250 US locations in the first half of 2026, part of the reason Yum! wanted out. LongRange Capital, notably, had no prior experience running quick-service restaurants before this deal worth bearing in mind if you’re wondering whether operations or franchise terms might shift going forward. There’s no reliable public confirmation yet of exactly how LongRange plans to run Pizza Hut day-to-day, since the sale only closed in September 2026. L’Express FranchiseL’Express Franchise
What happened to Pizza Hut in the UK
UK customers had their own separate scare in late 2025. In October 2025, DC London Pie Limited the company that ran Pizza Hut’s UK dine-in restaurants collapsed into administration. According to ITV News and Reuters reporting, this triggered the closure of 68 restaurants, with the number of affected workers not initially disclosed, and separately, 68 restaurants and 11 delivery sites closed, resulting in the loss of 1,210 jobs. ITV NewsBbc
The story wasn’t a total shutdown, though. Yum! Brands stepped in with a pre-pack administration deal. Yum! Brands agreed to save 64 UK restaurants, preserving 1,276 jobs, with staff transferring to the new ownership under UK employment protection (TUPE) rules. Yum!’s managing director for international operating markets, Nicolas Burquier, said at the time that the “targeted acquisition aims to safeguard our guest experience and protect jobs where possible”. Administrators cited “challenging trading conditions and increased costs,” along with tax-related cashflow pressures, as key reasons for the collapse. Notably, this was less than a year after DC London Pie had itself rescued the chain from an earlier insolvency in January 2025 so this was Pizza Hut UK’s second restructuring inside twelve months. Pizza Hut UK to close 68 restaurants, 1,210 jobs to go | +3
Pizza Hut has a long history in Britain regardless: it first opened in the UK in 1973. For readers checking whether a specific local branch is affected, the safest approach is to check directly with Pizza Hut UK’s official website or app, since closure lists reported by various outlets in October 2025 may not reflect the current, post-rescue picture. Wikipedia
What’s actually on the menu
Pizza Hut’s menu is built around a handful of signature crust styles that it has offered, in various combinations, for decades:
- Pan pizza – baked in a pan for a crispy edge, one of the chain’s original styles
- Hand-tossed – closer to a traditional pizzeria crust
- Thin ‘N Crispy – a thin, crisp dough that was Pizza Hut’s original crust style Wikipedia
- Stuffed Crust – introduced on 26 March 1995, with the outer edge wrapped around a ring of mozzarella; it became one of the chain’s most popular products by the end of that year Wikipedia
Beyond pizza, the menu typically includes pasta, chicken wings and breadsticks, alongside sides, desserts and soft drinks that vary somewhat by country. Menus, prices and available deals differ by market and even by individual franchise location, and change fairly often so for exact current pricing in your area, the only reliable source is Pizza Hut’s own website or app rather than third-party menu-price roundups, many of which are unofficial fan sites carrying outdated figures. Wikipedia
Pizza Hut also runs a free loyalty scheme in the US market, Hut Rewards, where members earn points on qualifying purchases that can later be redeemed for menu items terms, point values and thresholds are set by Pizza Hut and are subject to change, so check the official rewards page before relying on any specific figure you’ve seen quoted elsewhere.
Global footprint and scale
Despite the recent turbulence, Pizza Hut remains a very large chain. As of 2025, there were 19,974 Pizza Hut restaurants worldwide, employing roughly 350,000 people across its franchise network. The chain operates across North America, much of Asia, the UK, the EU, Egypt and other markets, with China alone home to over 4,000 outlets in more than 1,000 cities as of the end of September 2025, now under Yum China’s direct ownership rather than a franchise arrangement. Pizza Hut +2
It’s also worth knowing that Pizza Hut was overtaken by Domino’s as the largest pizza chain in the US by 2018, a shift that has shaped much of the strategic pressure behind the 2026 sale. Wikipedia
A brand in transition
Pizza Hut today is best understood as a chain mid-restructuring rather than a settled entity. Ownership has just changed for the first time in almost 30 years, its UK dine-in arm went through insolvency and a rescue within the space of a year, and US store counts have been shrinking. The pizza, the red roof and the Stuffed Crust are all still there but the corporate structure behind them looks quite different from a year ago, and further changes under LongRange Capital’s ownership are plausible, even if nothing specific has been confirmed publicly yet.
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