Restaurants turning back the clock to lure customers

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:01]In the hills of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, a familiar red roof catches the eye. Inside the vinyl booths, Tiffany-style lamps, and yes, the salad bar you may remember from decades ago. I mean, it's amazing the comments we have about they have the red cups. Yeah, yes, we do. Tim Sparks got his start working at a Pizza Hut that looked like this. He's now president of Daylen Corporation, which owns this franchise and more than 80 others around the country. They've redecorated many restaurants to rewind the clock.

[00:00:32]>> It looks exactly like the one that I remember from when I was a kid. Yeah, that's that's what we were after. Some Pizza Hut classics are now top-performing locations. Customers show up for a piece of their childhood. It just brings back memories. To share with their own kids. When you finally find something that tastes how you genuinely remember it tasting, like you can't let it go. People come from two and three hours away, and I'm not making that up. More restaurants are serving up nostalgia. Franchises like Burger King and KFC returned to old-school logos and packaging in recent years. At Pizza Hut, they even brought back Pac-Man.

[00:01:10]But for Sparks, this is much more than a game. It's a mission to rebuild places where families can connect. If we can get them in here as a family, they do tend to put their phones down and actually have conversations and speak with each other.

[00:01:24]I'm not going to tell you I know how to fix the world, but I do think that family is a good place to start. He hopes to renovate more of his restaurants as long as he can find enough of those lamps. They're hard to get? Yeah, they're they're almost impossible to get. A familiar taste, Well, cheers. Cheers.

[00:01:41]bringing people together. Just like I remember it.

[00:01:44]>> [laughter] >> Again, Bradley Blackburn, CBS News, Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania.