Pizza Hut enters the burger game with bizarre pizza-cheeseburger mash-up

No one out-pizzas the Hut — and now the Hut is hoping to out-burger everyone, too.

Pizza Hut is officially entering the burger business with a bizarre, new menu mash-up: the Cheeseburger Melt.

The handheld item is a parmesan-coated Thin N’ Crispy crust folded over typical burger contents including beef, applewood-smoked bacon, onions, and both mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, then served with a dipping sauce on the side.

The lack of a traditional bun makes it unique to the pizza chain, which offers it as a selling point as customers can “say goodbye to soggy bun burger deliveries,” the fast-food purveyor said in a statement,

A spokesperson added that the crazy concoction has “packed everything you know and love about a cheeseburger into our craveable Thin N’ Crispy crust.”

Pizza Hut Melts are also available in four other recipes: Pepperoni Lover’s served with marinara dipping sauce, Buffalo Chicken served with buffalo dipping sauce and ranch dipping sauce, Chicken Bacon Parmesan served with ranch dipping sauce, and Meat Lover’s served with marinara dipping sauce.

However, Pizza Hut is getting even more brazen than that.

To get consumers to cheat on their go-to burger chain, the company is deploying delivery drivers to popular fast-food drive-thrus bearing a huge QR code displayed on their vehicles’ back windows, which curious minds can scan to be entered to get a coupon for a free Cheeseburger Melt and Pepsi, while supplies last.

Alas, the offer to cheat is only available in Chicago, Illinois, and Miami, Florida — where McDonald’s and Burger King are headquartered, respectively.

“As a brand known for exceptional pizzas, venturing into the burger business is an exciting first for us,” Lindsay Morgan, chief marketing officer at Pizza Hut, said in a statement.

“We thought we’d kick off our burger journey with something bold. That’s why we’re making waves in burger chain drive-thrus, serving up our delicious new Cheeseburger Melt for all you burger lovers out there.”

The Cheeseburger Melt is part of the new My Hut Box offer, in which guests have the choice between Melts or a two-topping Personal Pan Pizza, plus a side of fries or four boneless wings and a 20-ounce drink.