"Back then, pizza delivery wasn't a big thing. Pizza Hut was a dine-in restaurant, with its red roof, red-checkered tablecloths, and red lights that hung over the tables.Skimehorn would make a Pizza Hut pilgrimage every Saturday, a habit she financed by cleaning her friend's brother's apartment for $5. "We could get a small pizza and two small sodas and still have 35 cents left for a tip," she said."
"At the time, Skimehorn had no idea she was being drawn into an international caper with no parallel in recent history. As the Soviet Union contended with seismic political reforms and experimented with capitalism, Pizza Hut would be in the center of the action. There would be threats, vodka bribes, and incursions by tanks. There would be incredulous Muscovites who could not square the idea of a salad bar."
Rita Skimehorn grew up in 1970s Mascoutah, Illinois, where Pizza Hut served as the town's primary hangout after events. The dine-in restaurant featured a red roof, red-checkered tablecloths, and hanging red lights. Skimehorn financed weekly visits by cleaning an apartment for $5 and started working at Pizza Hut at 16. She advanced through the 1980s to become a training manager by her mid-20s. In 1990, Pizza Hut headquarters unexpectedly assigned her to open a restaurant in Moscow. The Moscow assignment placed Pizza Hut amid Soviet political reforms, capitalism experiments, security threats, bribery, and surprising cultural reactions to American restaurant concepts.
Read at Slate Magazine
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