Local Pizza Hut is No. 1

It’s official: The Columbia Falls Pizza Hut has won the Kendall Award, making it the top-rated Pizza Hut in the nation.

General manager Raleigh Flint received a plaque and a $10,000 check May 5 in Orlando, Fla.

“I just can’t believe it,” he said Wednesday. “I’m just happy for my team and community here.”

Flint started working for Pizza Hut as a Kalispell delivery driver in 1989. In 1996 he was named manager of the year for High Plains Pizza, the Liberal, Kan.-based franchise company that owns 76 Pizza Huts in the Northwest and middle-South states.

High Plains Pizza has won the Kendall Award five times, more than any other franchise group in the country. Two years ago, a Hamilton restaurant won the honor. A few years before that, a Libby store took top honors.

But even that couldn’t prepare Flint for this newest honor.

He accepted the award dressed in a tuxedo. A video presentation followed the award, and when he was called on stage to accept it, he reached out to his wife and brought her up with him.

High Plains Pizza Area Coach Becky Hacke said that was her favorite moment of the night.

“That’s just how Raleigh is. He doesn’t want the limelight, he wants to share it,” she said.

After the award ceremony, Flint placed a call to his assistant manager in Columbia Falls to tell him they had won. He got so excited, he hyperventilated and had to be calmed down.

Prior to the award ceremony, Flint, his wife and Hacke were treated to a day at Disney World. The weather there was a sticky 94 degrees, while it was 34 and raining in Columbia Falls.

Splash Mountain, an attraction where participants ride a log through Frontierland and down a waterfall, was Flint’s favorite ride.

“It felt so good getting wet,” he said.

Now back in Columbia Falls, Flint rewarded his employees with cash bonuses and treats he picked up at Disney World. He also used some of his reward to replace his aging pickup truck.

While some of the money has been placed in a savings account, another portion will help cover the costs for his daughter to attend cosmetology school in the fall.

While the big reward from corporate Pizza Hut was a huge honor, Flint said it was the plaque he received from some of his customers that really made him proud.

A group of line dancers that comes in every Tuesday evening — and has been known to perform in front of the buffet station on occasion — presented a plaque to the store that reads “Good food. Good friends. Good times.”

“I think that fits our store,” Flint said. The dancers’ plaque will be hung below the Kendall Award.