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Pizza Hut introduces Chicago-style tavern pies and eight new toppingsPizza Hut introduces Chicago-style tavern pies and eight new toppings

The thin-crusted items are permanent additions to the menu

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

June 20, 2024

2 Min Read
pizza hut tavern style
Pizza Hut's new Chicago Tavern-Style Pizza

Pizza Hut has launched a new pizza format, Chicago Tavern-Style Pizza, along with several new pizza toppings.

Tavern pizza is a thin-crust pie usually sliced into squares that is widely eaten in the Windy City, much more so than the deep-dish pies for which the city is better known.

Additionally, Pizza Hut introduced eight new ingredients available on any pizza.

Rachel Antalek, the chain’s chief food innovation officer, told the attendees of a launch party for the new pies at Mister Paradise, a bar in New York City’s East Village, that thin crusts such as those used in the new tavern pies were Pizza Hut’s first crusts and are in line with the way people want to eat today.

“We want our pizza, but we’d like it to be a little lighter, a little fresher,” she said.

She added that Pizza Hut’s make table was due for some new ingredients, and so along with the new pies she added those trend-forward toppings. They are chicken sausage, pesto sauce, spicy marinara sauce, diced garlic, grape tomatoes, caramelized onions, roasted peppers, and crispy cupped pepperoni.

Additionally, Antalek and her team developed a Parmesan-oregano seasoning to sprinkle on top of the tavern-style pies

Both the new pizza style and the toppings are permanent additions to the menu.

Related:Pizza Hut is getting into the burger business

The tavern-style pizzas come in four varieties, each starting at $12 for a large:

Pesto Margherita Tavern Pizza: Thin crust pizza topped with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, grape tomatoes, garlic, pesto, and Parmesan-oregano seasoning, cut into squares

The Ultimate Tavern Pizza: Thin crust pizza topped with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, sausage, pepperoni, roasted peppers, onions, grape tomatoes, and Parmesan-oregano seasoning cut into squares

Spicy Chicken Sausage Tavern Pizza: Thin crust pizza topped with spicy marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, chicken sausage, roasted peppers, caramelized onion, and Parmesan-oregano seasoning and cut into squares

Double Pepperoni Tavern Pizza: Thin crust pizza topped with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, classic pepperoni and crispy cupped pepperoni plus Parmesan-oregano seasoning and cut into squares

Pizza Hut, based in Plano, Texas, is a subsidiary of Yum Brands International, based in Louisville, Ky. It operates or franchises more than 19,000 locations globally.

 

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

 

 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor of Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality.

Hi is responsible for spotting and reporting on F&B trends across the country for both publications. 

He is the co-host of a podcast, Menu Talk with Pat and Bret, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities, and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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