In the 1980s, Pizza Hut had something called the Taco Pizza-- exactly as it sounds like, the pizza had the classic Tex-Mex combination of lettuce, tomatoes, ground beef, and shredded cheddar cheese atop its regular pizza dough.
The Taco Pizza was featured prominently in those classic Pizza Hut commercials throughout the 1980s, but was eventually pushed out by other products even though some die-hard fans remember it and regularly petition the chain, which has long been owned by Yum! Brands (YUM), to bring it back.
An old Facebook (META) group called "Bring Back The Taco Pizza" has thousands of members. In 2004, Pizza Hut briefly indulged them with a limited-edition item called the Fiesta Pizza.
Some fast food obsessives even post videos of how to order it by customizing ingredients.
Tacos And Pizza, Yet Again
While Pizza Hut has no plans to bring back the Taco Pizza, it is launching the Italian Taco, a taco-shaped slab of pizza dough filled with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and one's selection of toppings.
Pizza Hut
On September 14, Pizza Hut will promote Italian Taco at restaurants across the country. But as it is essentially a folded-over slice of pizza, it is more or less a marketing campaign meant to breathe new life into its products.
"The best part? This nearly unbelievable innovation will never run out," the company said in a statement. "The Italian Taco has been here and will be here forever."
Pizza Hut is asking those who try it both at Pizza Hut locations and with other pizza to share photos on social media under the #nooneoutpizzasthehut hashtag.
The campaign comes a week after Pizza Hut announced that it would bring back its Detroit-style rectangular pizza in time for football season.
Don't Forget The Mexican Pizza
There is a reason that Pizza Hut has specifically chosen tacos for its latest marketing push -- another Yum! brand, Mexican chain Taco Bell, has been all over the news for months due to its notorious Mexican Pizza.
Around since the 1980s, the combination of salsa sauce, ground beef, and shredded cheese on a taco shell was discontinued in 2020 after the pandemic closed many stores and made it difficult to make certain extra-saucy items for delivery.
The outcry over the beloved item was huge and, over the next two years, Taco Bell returned and pulled back the Mexican Pizza in large part because every attempt to bring it back was offset by demand so high that many Taco Bell locations simply ran out of ingredients.
"Turns out we underestimated how many of you love Mexican Pizza," Taco Bell wrote on Twitter (TWTR) in May 2022. "7x more than we expected, to be exact. We are working as fast as we can to restock Mexican Pizza ingredients."
This week, Mexican Pizza is poised to make its "grand return" even though many social media users are skeptical of Taco Bell's promises that it is back "for good" this time.
But social media snark aside, Mexican Pizza has caused the kind of internet sensation and free advertising that most fast food companies can only hope for. The only thing mildly comparable was the fried chicken sandwich introduced by Popeyes (QSR) in 2019.
The chicken-and-two-pickles sandwich caught the attention of celebrities like Serena Williams and Justin Bieber and caused round-the-block lines in Popeyes restaurants across the country.
