These beautiful structures, most likely now devoid of the table-top Pac Man machines, dot the American landscape. Some provide ethnic food, some, used cars, and a rare few are now municipal buildings. Whatever their current purpose, we can always be reminded of the mediocre pizza that was once served in these establishments. That, and those red plastic cups.
Submit your photos of establishments that used to be Pizza Huts to: utbaph@gmail.com
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Thursday, April 24, 2014
Ocean Dental in Enid, OK
Just to be sure, I checked Google Maps. A scholar of many things, geography and political borders included, I had a hard time believing that Ocean Dental in Enid, OK was anywhere near an ocean.
My suspicions were confirmed when my advanced research showed, indisputably, that Enid, OK is, indeed, nowhere near an actual ocean.
But that is not the only lie that Ocean Dental spews at us like the water in one of those little annoying rinsing tools that the dentist uses to waterboard your teeth as if your teeth were some kind of little terrorists planning their next attack on food items and pen caps. TELL ME YOUR PLANS, BICUSPID. I KNOW YOU AND THE INCISORS ARE UP TO SOMETHING.
But I digress. The bigger lie that Ocean Dental is trying to get us to swallow is that this is just your average Spanish-speaking, medicaid-accepting dental practice in sleepy Enid, OK. No secret history here. Pay no attention to the familiar placement of the windows and very specific angle of the roof. Are you catching on here? Are you smelling the pizza that I am cooking up, metaphorically? If you aren't, put down your jug of Sunny D and scroll up real fast to look at the title of the website that you are currently reading. That's right, friends, this place used to be a Pizza Hut.
I know, I know. You are wondering what kind of crazed dentist would perform root canals in corner booths and x-rays at the buffet? Well, I assume that this particular UTBAPH has been cleared of its original furnishings, but one can never be too sure. It is entirely possible that the hostess stand is the receptionist desk and that marble-mouthed clients are rinsing out their freshly poked and prodded mouths with Pepsi served in red translucent cups. If that seems crazy to you, remind yourself how far Oklahoma is from ANYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLY BE CONSIDERED AN OCEAN!
Thanks to our dear friend Tyler, who submitted this UTBAPH via Twitter to our clever handle @UTBAPH, which I encourage you all to follow and share with your friends to fuel my campaign to take over the world, open a shit-ton of Pizza Huts, close them, watch new establishments move in, and then document those new uses. MUHAHAHAHAHA.
UPDATE: There was some dispute on the Twitters as to whether or not this establishment was ever a Pizza Hut (besides the fact that it looks exactly like an old Pizza Hut). One commenter, a 34 year resident of Enid, OK, claimed to have never remembered it being a Pizza Hut, but another commenter came through with the closest thing there is to definitive proof on the internet; a claim that he worked at this exact Pizza Hut in 1983. Not that I ever doubted it.