The Wichita State University campus is home to a small brick building. It might not look like much but it’s the structure where two brothers, Dan and Frank Carney, started one of the most popular pizza chains in the world.
The first thing you might notice when looking at the original Pizza Hut is that it bears no resemblance to the chain’s now-classic red, pavilion-style roof. That’s because this building predates the debut of Pizza Hut’s iconic architecture in the 1960s. In 1958, the Carney brothers, then WSU students, had the humble goal of opening a small pizza shop on the corner of Bluff and Kellogg Streets in Wichita. Run with the help of fellow students and family, the pizza joint was a success, leading the Carneys to open another branch in Topeka. Soon, more followed. Today, Pizza Hut can be enjoyed in more than 100 countries worldwide.
The original building is no longer on Bluff and Kellogg. In the 1980s, it was relocated to the WSU campus, and in 2017, it was relocated to yet another home on the campus. Although the original building no longer serves pizza, it does serve up plenty of Pizza Hut history as a museum.
