Pizza Hut

RadioShack Corp. recently announced that it is forthwith to be known as The Shack and launched a campaign to get consumers used to the new image. "We're contemporizing the way we want people to think about our brand," Lee Applbaum, RadioShack's chief marketing officer, said of last week's announcement. Companies rename themselves for a variety of reasons. William Lozito, president of Minneapolis-based brand-naming company Strategic Name Development Inc., calls RadioShack's move a "name-ectomy" and compares it to Pizza Hut's decision in June to call itself The Hut. The shortening is a nod to the abbreviated, text-message-driven nature of youth culture, Lozito said.

Who didn't grow up wolfing down pizza slathered in tomato sauce and gooey cheese? And yet the dominant pizza aesthetic in L.A. seems to get reinvented from time to time just like everything else in this constantly changing city. In 1982, Wolfgang Puck changed the game when he installed a wood-burning oven in the little pizza and pasta place he opened called Spago.

Pizza Hut has deployed a mobile ordering system that ratchets up the competition in the industry's battle to sell more pizzas using the latest technology. The unit of Yum Brands Inc. has introduced new cellphone services that let customers order from any of its 6,200 outlets nationwide via text message or the mobile Web. The top U.S. pizza delivery chains -- Domino's Pizza Inc., Pizza Hut and Papa John's International Inc. -- have invested in online and mobile ordering as a way to boost sales in one of the restaurant industry's most competitive segments.

Andrall E. Pearson, 80, founding chairman of the parent company of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, died Saturday after suffering a heart attack at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., the firm said Monday. He was 80. Pearson was president of PepsiCo and became founding chairman of Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. when it spun off from PepsiCo in 1997. After the acquisition of Long John Silver's and A&W All-American Food Restaurants in 2002, Tricon changed its name to Yum Brands Inc.

WE'RE being smothered in hot wings. In recent years, these addictive delights have been showing up on menus all over town, and everywhere you turn there's another Hooters staring you in the face. Not that I'm complaining. It was only a matter of time before wings got "Yum-ified." Yum Brands Inc. owns Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers and now (drumroll, please) WingStreet!

"Getting old is getting old," said Alvin Ellis, age 63, "but who wants to be reminded of it while dining at Pizza Hut?" Ellis was referring to a sales receipt he received at an L.A. eatery that identified him and his 79-year-old companion as "A Old Man and A Old Woman" (see accompanying). Ellis complained at the time, and said he was told by the cashier that she was sorry but that "it was to assist her in remembering who had placed the order."

"While I was waiting for my food at a Wienerschnitzel stand in San Gabriel," wrote David Prechtl of La Verne, "a car pulled up and two gentlemen with obvious German accents got out. "While looking at the menu with quizzical looks, one man asked the clerk at the window, 'Where is the schnitzel?' " Let us pause here to interject that the recipe for schnitzel calls for veal, eggs, flour and breadcrumbs fried in oil or lard. Now back to the drama.

A 50-cent surcharge tacked onto the price of pizza at the cash register has prompted a lawsuit against San Diego-area Pizza Huts by the district attorney. The surcharge, for the restaurants' cost of energy, wasn't disclosed to customers beforehand, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Tricia Pummill of the district attorney's consumer protection unit. Her office filed suit Thursday against RLLW Inc., owner of 62 Pizza Hut outlets in the county, seeking a $1-million civil penalty.

I'd have to agree with [Jim] Gavin's comments in "A Fish Tale: Food Costs in Ireland," [Letters, Aug. 31]. I have never paid $25 for a meal while backpacking across Europe several times or across Korea and Japan at last year's World Cup. And I'm not talking about saltines and a cup of rainwater. Although pubs may not be to everybody's liking, you don't have to go there when it's drinking time, and you certainly don't have to have fish and chips. The menus are expanding to satisfy many tastes, especially those of visitors.