Pizza Hut will open Monday

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By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)

Originally published 01:38 p.m., November 20, 2007
Updated 01:38 p.m., November 20, 2007

Photo by Maizie Main

The new Pizza Hut on West 18th Avenue is near completion.

A new Pizza Hut WingStreet restaurant will open Monday, just in time for most area residents to have finished their Thanksgiving leftovers.

Pam Seuferling, senior marketing director for National Pizza Corporation International, said the restaurant will begin serving customers on Monday.

“We kind of had a ‘friends and family night’ last night, a trial run,” she said.

Interviews to hire additional staff and a general manager continue.

“We’re bringing over everybody from the original store and we’re hiring more,” Seuferling said.

Plans are to hire a new general manager who is experienced in dealing with the detailed service that will be expected in this type of restaurant in Emporia. In the interim, area general manager Jeff Wolfe will manage the store here, as well as six in the Topeka area.

The new restaurant will feature an expanded menu with additional pastas, sandwiches, wings — both bone-in and boneless — with “eight intense flavors,” Seuferling said.

Appetizers like cheese sticks, artichoke dip, and “nacho taters” plus an assortment of desserts also will be included.

Seuferling expects the old Pizza Hut store on West Sixth Avenue to close later this week, and the delivery store on Industrial Road will close soon after the new restaurant opens.

Pizza Hut WingStreet will offer dine-in, delivery, and carry-out services in a more service-oriented atmosphere, she said.

Construction on the new building began in late spring, after National Pizza Corporation bought the property at 2920 W. 18th Ave., from Eagle Development.

The restaurant will seat 104 people, Seuferling said. Construction plans filed with the city show the building has almost 3,800 square feet of floor space.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned on Dec. 4.