Retro Pizza Hut draws customers from hours away as 1980s nostalgia sends sales soaring

Florida's only Pizza Hut Classic, featuring the nostalgic red plastic cups, vinyl booths, Tiffany-style lamps and checkerboard tablecloths reminiscent of the 1980s, has become so popular that employees from other locations have been brought in to help accommodate the influx of guests at the Homosassa Springs restaurant.

"We have a big responsibility," Tim Sparks, president of Wichita, Kansas-based Daland Corp., which operates 82 dine-in Pizza Huts, told Fox News Digital.

"We always want to provide great service, and we always want to provide a great product.

But when you get put under a spotlight like this, and people are coming from two or three hours away, you've got to deliver on that expectation." PIZZA HUT BRINGS BACK VINTAGE VIBES AS FRANCHISEES EMBRACE NOSTALGIC MAKEOVERS Pizza Hut started the Classic initiative around 2017, according to Sparks.

"They approached a few franchisees and said, 'Hey, we're thinking about doing this retro look.

Do you guys want to participate in the test?' So I jumped at that opportunity," he said.

The first Pizza Hut Classic that Daland opened was in Dahlonega, Georgia.

"We flew out to see it once it was finished, and as soon as I walked through the door, it just really struck me," Sparks said.

"I was super excited.

I thought I was going to like it.

I didn't know I was going to like it as much as I did.

For me personally, it hit home." Leadership changes at Pizza Hut eventually led the brand to move away from the Classic remodels, Sparks said, but Daland was allowed to continue with them.

"We did eventually run into a problem where we actually bought all the Tiffany lights that we could find," he said.

"The brand quit producing them for us because … there just wasn't a big enough commitment from people to buy them." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER Some of Daland's Pizza Hut Classic locations still don't have the distinctive lamps, but renewed interest in the retro restaurants could soon change that.