MANHATTAN— A Pizza Hut in Manhattan that has been at its original location longer than any Pizza Hut in the nation will close this weekend in Manhattan.

Company officials announced Tuesday the Pizza Hut in Manhattan’s Aggieville will close at 11 p.m. Sunday. It began operating there in 1960.

Employees at the restaurant were offered new jobs and all other Pizza Hut restaurants in the Manhattan region will remain open.

Co-founder Bernie Butler said in a news release that the Aggieville location is closing because it is not designed to handle increasing preferences for delivery over dine-in service.

Opened in 1960, the Aggieville store was the 8th Pizza Hut in the franchise’s history – and the longest running store in it’s original location. There are now over 6,000 Pizza Huts worldwide. The Aggieville restaurant was the first foray into Manhattan by franchisees Dick Hassur and Jim Nellis, who enlisted a young Topekan, Bernie Butler, to run the operations. Butler later bought out his original partners and brought in his longtime operations manager, Rose Pritchard, as a partner. The Store (at 1121 Moro St.) has been a centerpiece of the ever-evolving Aggieville business district since it opened.

“If you had asked me in 1960, how long the Aggieville store would have lasted, I doubt I would’ve said almost 55 years,” Butler said. “No one here even knew what a pizza was! Imagine that! But I don’t think I would have guessed how big Pizza Hut – and Manhattan and Fort Riley and Kansas State – would get either. I’m very proud of the success we’ve achieved here in Manhattan – and I’m very grateful to all of the people who have helped us get there. I’m so lucky to have been surrounded by great people. But there are two groups of people that I will be eternally thankful to: the folks who worked tirelessly in the Aggieville store over the years – and to everyone who ever dropped by or called in to order a pizza. You can’t make it in any business for 55 years without loyal customers – and we have some of the best customers in the world. We look forward to continuing to serve them at our other stores.”

Pizza Hut was founded in 1958 by two Wichita State University students. After the original Pizza Hut in Wichita moved, the Manhattan location became the oldest still operating at its original site.

-The Associated Press contributed to this story