Pizza Hut

When one heads into Pizza Hut a bit early or a bit late, thereby missing the masses, the salad bar and pizza bar are a good value. I have never had a rude or careless server at the Keene Pizza Hut.

Yeah so I was on my way out of town and stopped at Da Hut for a quick meal. What is up with this location having a bar? A pizza hut with a bar? Thats weird. Im sure they have the usual deer piss on tap. I didnt actually look/​care.
The service was the usual award winning performance of apathetic proportions. The pasta nicely reheated from frozen state. The breadsticks were not up to the usual standard though. Tsk Tsk! They were half cold half warm and had way too much oily sludge brushed on them.
h1gHLy rEc0/\/\mEnD3d!

I haven’t been to a Pizza Hut in ten years, at least, but I had a craving for a cheap salad bar, and not many places have a cheap salad bar any more. I talked the mister into hitting it up and against his judgment he agreed.
It was supposed to open at 11am. The doors were finally unlocked at 11:15am when an old lady and a guy and with a couple kids pounded on the door.
The salad bar was set up, but the pizza for the buffet didn’t come out until after 11:30am, and each time a new one came out the wolves set upon it and there was a wait for the next. Except for the veggie pizza, which sat there lonely the entire time we were there.
The waiter was… odd. Nice enough, just a little socially awkward. Hey, how’s that salad?
Shockingly, the pizza was pretty decent. Finally, a good greasy fried crust, properly salted. Cheap cheese, but what do you expect? The thin crust pepperoni, I hate to say this, but it’s true, was better than any of the Greek style pizzas permeating this area. The pan pizza has too much texturizer, but it’s acceptable. The hand-​tossed has the texturizer without the friedness and is far inferior.
The mister tried the mac and cheese and it was awful, but good lord the stream of chubby office women seemed to adore it. The breadsticks were okay but the cinnamon breadsticks were extremely late, so they were also extremely fresh when the mister finally snagged some and they were surprisingly good.
Super cheap, too: two adult buffets, one soft drink, $ 13 before tip. And good god but I have never seen a place more child friendly, both in food and atmosphere. All we saw at first was retirees and families with small children, until the office ladies started coming in. It ain’t fancy but sometimes, sometimes I long for trashy heaven and Pizza Hut fits the bill.

This place started out as a solid 3 star review, and that is not an easy feat. You either have very low expectations of a place (i.e. 1 star) or very high (i.e. 5 stars). This place however, has just the right balance of weird and regular to make you say to yourself «who the hell thought of this?!». Here is my story…
So Marathon Monday, my boy and I decide that we do not want to be anywhere near the Back Bay. So we climb into the two door Honda Civic and take off in pursuit of a record store chain called «Turn it Up» (review to follow for that place) that has a branch located in Keene NH. Since neither of us had never been to Keene we thought that it would be a nice little car ride, and it was nice… very scenic. Any way, after our long journey and a couple of hours spent scouring every corner of the little record shop, we were both hungry. Here enters the ‘Hut’…
This is no ordinary Pizza Hut people, this is a Pizza Hut Italian Bistro. That’s right, Bistro, so you know right off the bat that it is fancy. And fancy does not begin to describe what you will find when you enter its doors. You go through the typical double doors of any fast food restaurant, and are greeted by a sign that says «It will be our pleasure to seat you.», however in our case there was no one behind the host/​ess podium; seriously, no one, we thought that the place was vacant for a second. Directly behind the podium are two salad bars, one of which was closed. To the right of that is the seating area, which was empty, save two women and two young children in a corner booth. The host/​our waiter, showed us to the furthest corner booth, and before we even got our butts in the booth he asked us what we would like to drink. I am not joking about that, I was taking off my coat when he asked what we would like to drink; I am guessing that this was this guys first job ever, so I shouldn’t be too harsh on him, but here is a helpful little tip for you, let the patrons at the very least sit down prior to demanding drink orders. The place is dead empty, there is no dire rush to hydrate us immediately.
We are sitting at the booth and we noticed that the salt & pepper holder also had a roll of paper towels on it, and not like someone left a roll of paper towels there, but an actual part of the wire frame holder was specifically meant for paper towels. Every table had one. We got over this in a timely manner, after all if you put thought into it, it could be considered a clever idea, kind of sketchtastic, but clever none the less.
We look at the menu. Typical Pizza Hut fare, though there are a few things there that you normally don’t see. We both order, and both have to use the restroom. In order to access the restroom, you have to go through the Café… I seriously couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Yes, there is at least one Pizza Hut out there that has a Café in it.
Once we were both seated again it was time to venture to the salad bar… This salad bar is like what your aunt would make for a family reunion. There was the following offers at this bar:
Pre –dressed Cesar Salad, that looked as if there might have been bacon bits though out it. I had no idea that this particular kind of salad contained bacon…
Canned peaches
Cottage cheese
Lettuce that was clearly from a bag. It had the strips of carrots and that nasty purple cabbage in it.
Cherry tomatoes that were just slightly too big to be eaten in one bite
Broccoli that, again, was slightly too big to be eaten in one bite.
Very crisp and very cold cucumber slices. So much so that I think that they had been frozen.
Widely sliced red onion.
Macaroni and Potatoes salads
5 different dressings
Those crispy onion things that normally adorn green bean casserole.
Pine nuts. Remember, this is a Bistro, so it has to be fancy.
Croutons that looked to have some type of herb something on them.
and finally…
Those ‘Townhouse’ crackers from Keebler.
Now this is not a complete list mind you, just an over view.
Directly following our salad retrieval is perhaps the best part of the evening. Our host/​waiter now sees that we have our salads and are eating them; he is standing about halfway across the restaurant, by the entrance to the kitchens. Without moving from his spot, he shouts «HEY! How is that?»
…
We were eating salads… that we made ourselves… Just think about that for a second.
I am going to end it there.