Pizza Hut bistro enjoys upbeat customer traffic

Considering the track record of Pizza Hut, the newest concept of the famous international pizza parlor chain, the Pizza Hut Bistro, is slowly getting recognition in the upscale market.

Pizza Hut Bistro’s concept is entirely different from that of a regular Pizza Hut branch because it caters to a more discerning market, said Philippine Pizza Incorporation’s Marketing Manager Benjamin R. Domingo in an interview.

Pizza Hut Bistro is a notch higher than regular Pizza Hut in terms of services as they cater to casual dining and their food menu is slightly different as they serve gourmet pizza and a different line of pasta. “Pizza Hut Bistro’s aim is to be the number one casual dining pizza parlor in the country after our vision of becoming the number one pizza restaurant in the country has been achieved,” said Domingo.

Cebu’s Pizza Hut Bistro opened last year during the soft opening of SM City Cebu’s Northwing, which caters to the high-end market. As Domingo said, their Cebu branch is so far their smallest outside Metro Manila with a capacity of only 69 people but it already enjoys a positive inflow of customer traffic composed of a widely segmented market catering both from domestic to foreign customers in mostly A and B classes.

In the first quarter of this year, Domingo revealed that they will be opening two new Pizza Hut Bistro branches in Metro Manila located in the newly renovated SM Megamall and the soon-to-open Robinson’s Manila, a condominium mall that caters to upscale customers.

“We don’t open branches of Pizza Hut Bistro that easy without considering a lot of factors because this is a different concept and it is more upscale,” stressed Domingo.

Domingo said that they are still looking at other locations for more Pizza Hut Bistro outlets nationwide and they are eyeing to operate a store in Mindanao located in Davao City. However, Domingo is keener on Cebu and its neighboring islands but he said that the expansion plans will materialize only after they stabilize their operation here in Cebu since they are still starting to establish their presence.

“If we will open another branch outside Manila, it will definitely have to be Cebu again or probably we will consider Iloilo and Bacolod because there is already a prospective market for Bistro in those areas. But we will still have to talk to our area coaches regarding the things we should do,” said Domingo.

Pizza Hut is already an internationally known pizza company and Domingo said that their Pizza Hut Bistro may tend to compete with their regular Pizza Hut branches but he said that it is just a healthy competition. “We have a different market, but although we are not really competing with each other, we still strive hard to gain positive profit,” said Domingo.

As a new concept, Pizza Hut Bistro’s Philippine operation is only their third location after countries France and Korea. Having started four years ago, now Pizza Hut Bistro has nine branches nationwide.