Tampa Luv Chicken & Waffles in Tampa, FL

Before you try to scrounge together enough taxi fare to get down to Tampa to check out Tampa Luv, I should warn you that this place has gone the way of the Dodo. Sad, too, because the reviews were pretty good, despite the odd name.

Sent to us by Wendy, this UTBAPH is rocking some serious trapezoids. Looks like the roof hump may have been lanced off at some point. Hopefully some alert reader can help us track down what it becomes next.

Valley National Bank in West Orange, NJ

Oh, Valley National Bank. You sneaky little son of a Pizza Hut. You think you can plant some trees and make us all forget about your past? 

While there aren't many banks posted on this blog, I am often sent a link to an old Onion photo that pre-dates this blog by many years.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-can-tell-area-bank-used-to-be-a-pizza-hut,8899/

I am not even quite sure where the bank featured in the Onion photo is located (although, if it still exists, I would love to add it to the blog), but I know that the good people of East Orange can sympathize with it. But really, a bank in an old Pizza Hut is nothing to be ashamed of. It is probably a lateral move, if anything.

So stand proud, Valley National Bank. You have nothing to be embarrassed about. Besides maybe the fact that you live in New Jersey.

Submitted by Steve, who probably also lives in New Jersey.

The Beagle Brothers in Pittsburgh, PA Used to Be a Pizza Hut

What kind of blog doesn't have a theme song? A shitty one, that's what kind. Well, this ain't no shitty blog no more, because our good friends (and half decent people) the Beagle Brothers, based right here out of lovely Pittsburgh, PA (where UTBAPH is headquartered) have gone ahead and recorded a masterpiece that I would liken to Mr. Holland's Opus if Mr. Holland was completely awesome instead of being a big dumb boring sack of dust who hated his deaf son and his opus was an awesome song about a blog that went viral when the users of the internet apparently ran out of real things to look at online (90s movie references and run-on sentences are limited from this point forward in this post, I assure you).

So here, without much further ado, is the first of two versions. Note the cowbell.



And then, my personal favorite, featuring the Ladies Man, is the alternate version:



Since, apparently, the readers of UTBAPH know what to do to take things viral, I assume that these will both have (deservedly) a few million hits by tomorrow morning. And go check out the Beagle Brothers on Facebook and Twitter.

And, despite the post title, I should explain that the Beagle Brothers did not, in fact, used to be a Pizza Hut.

I think they were a Shoney's all-you-can-eat buffet.

99% Invisible

If you don't already listen to the 99% Invisible podcast, then prepare to spend the next month or so catching up on old episodes (as I did towards the end of last year). Ostensibly, it is a podcast about design and architecture, but, in practice, it is a podcast about everything. The producers of 99% Invisible could argue, and rightly so, that it is a podcast about everything because design plays a role in almost every aspect of our lives, but that is only part of it. What I think is that, in an attempt to create a podcast about the interesting elements of design, they came to realize that there is almost nothing around us that isn't interesting if you dig in closely enough to the details.

As an example, a certain blog that I happen to curate (and that you, in turn, happen to consume) was the topic of the latest installment of 99% Invisible. Now, I put this blog, in terms of educational value/cultural awareness/architectural enlightenment somewhere in between a dick joke and a fart joke. It is, lest we kid ourselves, not much more than photos of old Pizza Huts.

But the good people at 99% Invisible (namely, Sam Greenspan and Roman Mars), who put this episode together, bothered themselves with the details of former Pizza Huts in a way that yours truly had not considered to do. The history of the buildings, the socio-economic reasons for their rise and fall, the official stance of Pizza Hut's corporate offices on this phenomenon -- these are all the kinds of things that they found interesting about this topic. And they were kind enough to share their findings -- with those of us who are still laughing over the word "fart" -- for our own enlightenment.

I had the pleasure of working with local producer Margaret Krauss on this piece, who, herself, is all kinds of interesting and talented.

Please check out episode 103 of 99% Invisible. Give Sam and Roman a follow on Twitter, and Like their page on Facebook. Maybe even buy a "Read the Plaque" shirt from their site (you will need to listen to a few episodes to get that reference).

Then, after you done got your learn on, come back here and laugh at silly pictures of abandoned buildings.

And if you came to this site via 99% Invisible, welcome.

Yours in childish humor being turned into something educational by much smarter people,

-Mike

Dragon China in Moraine, OH

Submitted by Danny, Dragon China in Moraine, Ohio is a great UTBAPH. First of all, Chinese restaurants love making it very clear exactly what they are, using a small, repeating set of words in their names (dragon, king, jade, garden, buffet, dynasty, rice, wok, super, China). Basically, pick two random words from that list, buy an old Pizza Hut, and you have everything it takes to open your own Chinese restaurant.Just to illustrate my point, here is a list of a few random combinations of the words above:

• Dragon Buffet
• Super China
• Rice Garden
• King Dragon
• Jade Garden
• Dynasty Buffet
• Rice Wok

If some of those names look familiar to you, it is because I just named 75% of all of the Chinese restaurants in North America (the other 25% are P.F. Changs).The second thing that makes this particular UTBAPH so great is that they kept that original roof. That shiny, metallic-looking original roof is really going extinct these days, and it is good to come across a restauranteur who has too much of a sense of history (and/or is too lazy) to replace the roof.And then, thirdly, I love how China has one font. You know exactly which font I mean. It is as if the whole of China had a meeting one day and just decided, "This is our font. We will use it on soy sauce packets, chopsticks, restaurant signage, menus, and, yes, even video games from now on."

So next time you are in Moraine, Ohio, or, hell, even in Dayton proper, do yourself a favor and get down to the Super China Double Dragon Garden Rice Wok Dynasty Buffet. Or whatever the hell it was called.

Vacant UTBAPH in Sarasota, FL

Quick, get Jerry Filipowski on the phone. I have an UTBAPH to buy. I did some searching around the commercial real estate sites and it doesn't look like this UTBAPH is currently for sale, so maybe it will find a new life and make its way back onto the site with a glorious update. But, for now, this sad specimen sits empty, reminding us of what once was. I can almost picture this thing all cleaned up and turned into the Used to Be a Pizza Hut headquarters. Not exactly sure if Mrs. UTBAPH would go for that.But, hey, better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Thanks to Greg for submitting this one and, potentially, breaking up my marriage. 

La Parrilla Rotisserie & Grill in Margate, FL

First off, thanks to Napa Auto Parts for sponsoring this post inadvertently. Yes, we see you, Napa, and we are all really impressed by those dorky little trucks you guys drive around with hats on them. 

I am more of a Pep Boys kind of guy myself, but I mean, hey, hats on trucks. You guys obviously know a thing or two about car parts. That is a part I didn't even know existed.

But I digress. La Parilla Rotisserie & Grill in Margate, FL has the best of both worlds: A rotisserie, for that slow cooked goodness, and a grill, for when you don't feel like waiting 8 and a half hours for some chicken.

Not to be all over the place with this post, but I have to stop my normal banter here and ask you, the reader, a very serious question. Don't make direct eye contact, but see that guy against the building, just beyond the Napa sign? Is that Tubbs?

Yeah, I thought so too. Don't blow his cover. I think he is on a stakeout of some kind. Anyway, this place used to be a Pizza Hut. Sorry I never got around to discussing that more, but I feel like maybe you had already deduced that given your ability to put context clues together.