Whangarei's Pizza Hut restaurant at 116 Bank St closes on Monday after 16 years in the city, with the loss of 10 jobs.
The closure has been signalled for several years since franchise owners Restaurant Brands New Zealand Ltd began to reinvent the Pizza Hut brand as a home delivery and
takeaway service.
The company kick-started the process by buying and rebranding the Eagle Boys chain as Pizza Hut Delco in 2000.
This meant that, due to an accident of location, the Whangarei Pizza Hut has been operating for the past 10 years with a rival from the same company just over the road - the former Eagle Boys outlet at 141 Bank St which is now a Pizza Hutt takeaway outlet.
A factor in the continued operation of the Whangarei Pizza Hut may have been the company's long-term lease on the building, due to expire early next year. Operations manager Allan Simons said the company would not be sub-letting the building.
He said all 10 part-time and full-time employees at the Pizza Hutt restaurant had been offered jobs at other company operations in Whangarei. Only one had taken up the offer.
"Obviously we are still very happy to be in Whangarei," he said.
The company's website says home delivery is a "high convenience concept" which has grown rapidly over the past few years and would continue to do so.
Restaurant Brands is a corporate franchisee and specialises in managing multi-site branded food retail chains. As at February 2010, Restaurant Brands had 218 stores, employing over 4500 staff - 86 KFC, 91 Pizza Hut and 41 Starbucks. The company was formed to acquire the New Zealand restaurant and takeaway operations of KFC and Pizza Hut in 1997.
