In the past, if you and a dining partner couldn’t agree on a place to eat, a Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo restaurant was a convenient solution. These hybrid locations were possible because Taco Bell and Pizza Hut are both owned by Yum! Brands.
However, most of these combo restaurants have now closed, with few remaining in 2024.
Yum! Brands initially promoted the hybrid restaurants as a way to offer more choices in one place. This strategy also allowed Yum! to cut costs on real estate and share equipment between the two brands. Despite these advantages, Taco Bell’s popularity outpaced that of Pizza Hut, making the combination less practical for Yum!. Currently, Taco Bell’s sales far exceed those of Pizza Hut, which is also struggling against competitors like Domino’s, the largest pizza chain in the U.S.
Today, combined Taco Bell/Pizza Hut locations are rare. Yum! Brands has not publicly explained why it phased out these hybrids but began closing or converting them to single-brand units in the 2010s.
Yum! Brands is the world’s largest fast-food operator, with over 59,000 restaurants. Its portfolio includes The Habit Burger Grill and KFC. Occasionally, KFC locations have been combined with Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, leading to the rare “KenTacoHut.”
Yum! began opening Taco Bell/Pizza Hut hybrids in the early 2000s to compete with McDonald’s. Former CEO David Novak mentioned in a 2002 report that McDonald’s success came from offering something for everyone, and Yum! wanted to replicate this by combining pizza and Mexican food. However, the reality was more complicated.
There were widespread rumors that the combo restaurants cut corners to save money, which was supported by issues such as the New York Department of Health shutting down the Penn Station TacoHut for multiple violations in 2012 and 2013.
Some Reddit users reported limited Pizza Hut options and even instances where pizza was unavailable, suggesting that Taco Bell received more resources.
Taco Bell now outperforms both KFC and Pizza Hut, showing a 5% sales increase in the latest quarter while the others declined. In early 2024, Yum! announced plans to open 100,000 more restaurants globally, with a significant expansion for Taco Bell.
Despite the decline of Taco Bell/Pizza Hut hybrids, new fast-food combos are emerging. Dine Brands, which owns IHOP and Applebee’s, has successfully launched hybrid locations in Canada and is planning to expand this concept to the U.S. Dine Brands aims to dominate the family dining market with these combined locations.
FAT Brands, which owns Fatburger and has 16 brands in total, introduced a triple-restaurant model in late 2022, combining Fatburger, Buffalo’s Express, and Hot Dog on a Stick.
It’s also worth noting that Yum! Brands still maintains some restaurant combinations. WingStreet chicken is only available alongside Pizza Hut locations, and an attempt to open a standalone WingStreet in Denton, TX, failed shortly after opening in 2003.