Pizza Hut Park Street has now shifted to Camac Street.
The banner outside the American casual dining restaurant on Friday basically meant that the 120-seater Pizza Hut was shutting shop and retreating to the pre-exisiting address at 22 Camac Street.
Why? No official word was forthcoming but sources confirmed that the bottom line for the exit was, well, the bottom line. "It's just not economically viable," said an insider. "The unit rentals are high and the numbers cannot justify continuing at this address."
The property, owned by the Apeejay Group, previously housed The Tea Table (T3) before Pizza Hut opened in 2013.
This was "the first Pizza Hut outlet in the world" to be modelled on a "2020" design, and had a grand opening in September 2013. But less than 24 months later, it's lost the pizzazz and therefore the pizzas.
"The company is taking a call on store-to-store development and the numbers just didn't add up for the Park Street outlet. The cost of ingredients and labour is rising and unless one owns the property, it is difficult to break even," said the source.
In addition to high rentals, international food chains are burdened by stringent food safety and staff recruitment policies that many local eateries don't follow.
So who will fill in the blank at the prime Park Mansions location? Not Chili's of Tex Mex fame. "We were in talks to open there but we decided against it. Chili's will be opening at South City Mall and Acropolis," said Rishi Bajoria, the franchisee of Chili's and area development manager of Subway, next door to the (ex) Pizza Hut. "On Park Street, all the new entrants which are paying high rentals are bleeding," added Bajoria.
The buzz on food street is throwing up names like theme restaurant Hard Rock Cafe, but there is no confirmation yet.
In recent times, Park Street has seen Music World give way to Au Bon Pain, The Myx replacing Sourav's, Veda and M Bar and Kitchen opening doors, Flame and Grill giving way to Barbeque Nation and vegetarian restaurant Hakuna Matata on its way in (next to Giggles).
