Highway 321 runs like a lifeline through Pigeon Forge, a tourist town in the US state of Tennessee. On either side of the road, at the foot of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, amusement parks sit alongside two-story motels and toothless fast-food joints with drive-through windows — it doesn’t get much more American than this.
Inside a Pizza Hut branch here, televisions flicker against beige tiled walls, the windows have taken on a yellowish film, and garlands reading “We love USA” dangle from the ceiling, swaying wearily in the breeze of the air conditioning. After nearly half an hour’s wait, a young employee in an apron, who looks as though he’s simply killing time on his summer job, calls out a number: one large pepperoni pizza, $22, the crust thick and glistening with oil.
The whole scene feels bleak, almost like a swan song — as if the branch’s days were already numbered. And that is no coincidence. Across the country, one Pizza Hut location after another is shutting its doors.
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