When I went back home for Thanksgiving, my family and I went to Pizza Hut the night I got back. This can almost be considered a family tradition. Before college, we would go to Pizza Hut every once and a while, and we would never have a bad time. There was something about the atmosphere of the eatery that allowed us to be out playful selves. We would talk, crack jokes, laugh and have a great time every time that we went, even if we brought others with us. Now, whenever my brother and I return home to visit, we go to Pizza Hut to truly reunite.

What is it about that Pizza Hut that inspires us to reveal our jovial roots? I can count on one hand, in fact, one finger, the number of times that I didn't have a great time at a Pizza Hut. This time was in Bozeman and there were a few factors influencing why I actually had a somewhat poor experience. First off, when we were seated, the staff was extremely slow and couldn't decide which waitress would seat us (which was weird because we weren't a large party and there were only two other people seated in the establishment). Little did I know that this was just a gentle segue into what would be my worst experience with a Pizza Hut.

Once we were finally seated, we ordered our beers and the waitress rightfully checked our IDs. She then returned to the kitchen to allow us time to browse the menu. After a few minutes, a new waitress came to our table rather than our beers. She, for some reason, also took our drink orders and again checked our IDs. This redundancy subtly added to the frustration. Now, we were quite thirsty and were still without our beers. At this point, a large group with more than enough young children entered this ever so classy establishment. Not only was this a group of youth softball players, but it became apparent that it was also someone's birthday. That being said, it became quite clear that the parents had absolutely no intentions of trying to contain the children to act in a civilized manor while in public.

Shortly after their arrival, we finally got our beers. This was nice as we at least able to find some comfort in our scotch ales. After the baseball birthday clan got their drinks, the kids were quick to unwrap one end of their paper covered straws. The Pizza Hut which was once used to feed hungry customers quickly evolved into a war zone. Straw wrappers and even a few spitballs started flying across the restaurant. One even happened to land on our table. At that point, we were lucky enough to see a stereotypical parent put a stop to what I consider to be the largest paper straw wrapper that I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the type of person that gets pissed when others are having fun, but I just about popped a bottle of champagne when that display finally came to a halt.

To add fuel to the fire, this was all happening on Sunday, July 5th. As I'm sure you already know, this was the day that the US Women's World Cup team beat Japan, the team that they had lost to 4 years before. I kept receiving notifications on my phone: 3-0, 4-0... I scanned the various TV screens around the restaurant and was disappointed to find that none of them had the game on! To add fuel to the fire, they for some reason elected to air a Texas college football game from the '80's over one of the year's largest sporting events.

The poor service continued as we were now finished with our first beers and had just ordered our pizza and our second beers were emptied before we could take our first bite pizza. We finally got our food and ate a few slices. To my surprise, the pizza was actually average! After we were finished with our meal, we boxed up our food, quickly paid, and got the hell out of there. One thing that I will never forget is that it started raining just as we left the establishment. I thought that was very fitting to the situation as that was the death of that Pizza Hut in my eyes. I have never returned to that location.

That does not hold true for all Pizza Hut establishments as again, I have a positive view of the franchise and still enjoy their food, but I refuse to eat at the Bozeman Hut based solely on the single experience that I've had there.