Pizza Hut delights fans with the return of the lunchtime buffet

Pizza Hut has delighted fans by announcing the return of their all-you-can eat Lunchtime Buffet for Freedom Day.

Stores across England will bring back self-service today, meaning fans can enjoy the  Salad Bar, Ice Cream Factory and bottomless Pepsi Max refill.

Almost five million guests ordered a Pizza Hut Buffet in 2019, so the news is sure to be met with excitement by pizza fans across the country.

Customers will soon be able to pile their own plates high once more with unlimited Self-Serve favourites – a luxury missed by many throughout the pandemic.

The return of the Lunchtime Buffet, which has been off the menu since the closing of restaurants in March 2020, has been highly anticipated by pizza lovers – many of which took to social media to express just how much they missed it.

Between July 2020 to July 2021, the Pizza Hut Lunchtime Buffet was mentioned a whopping 18,000 times in comments across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram begging for its return. Some even petitioned for it be moved al fresco, into the carpark, to work around previous restrictions.

In the original Buffet’s absence, Pizza Hut Restaurants launched the ‘Bluffet’, offering unlimited pizza and pasta via table service. Despite the temporary Bluffet’s success, customers are still itching to get back to helping themselves.

Kathryn Austin, Chief People and Marketing Officer at Pizza Hut Restaurants, told FEMAIL: ‘We are excited to be able to finally put our guests back in control and give them their beloved Buffet back. 

‘We’re counting down the days until we can re-unite them with all their favourites, from the unlimited Pizza and Salad Bar to the Ice Cream Factory and Bottomless Pepsi Max.

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‘We’d also like to thank all of our brilliant team members at Huts across the UK for their hard work under the difficult circumstances of the past 18 months. 

‘While we’re celebrating the return of our much loved unlimited offerings, the safety of our guests and team members remains paramount and so we ask that all our customers act responsibly when dining with us.’

Pizza Hut will continue to have a number of stringent hygiene and cleaning measures in place across all restaurants to ensure the safe-running of the Buffet.

Pizza fans can help themselves to the Buffet in England restaurants on weekdays until 3pm from Freedom Day onwards. Adult meals are available for £8.99 and kids meals for £5.99. 

It comes as Freedom Day was branded ‘disaster day’ by stricken businesses today as self-isolating Boris Johnson faces fresh demands to dump farcical test and trace rules to stop the country becoming the ‘United Pingdom’.

The PM is marking the grand unlocking alone at Chequers, where he will host a ‘virtual’ press conference at 5pm after performing a comical U-turn from initially saying he and Rishi Sunak would dodge quarantine. He has tested negative for coronavirus so far and is not displaying symptoms, according to No10.

But the lifting of almost all legal restrictions has been overshadowed by fears about spiking cases bringing the economy grinding to a halt, as more and more people are doomed to house arrest.

Experts estimate around 1.7million people are still self-isolating after being ‘pinged’ by the NHS Covid app or contacted by Test and Trace.

Firms including Iceland and Greene King have warned of serious problems, with some companies having to reduce hours or shut sites completely because up to a quarter of staff are off – as scientists warn the situation could spiral as the UK faces up to 200,000 cases a day.

Source: Food Recipes and News