Well, I bought my first Papa Johns pizza last night. There's a new Papa Johns in Pacific Beach near where I live, here in the San Diego area. So I called them.
A young woman answered, I told her I wanted to place an order for pickup.
She asks for my phone number. (Get me into the database no doubt). Then she asks for my name. (More database info).
Then she asks for the order. So I order a large pizza with jalapeno and mushroom toppings. She asks if I have any coupons. No, I do not.
She then asks if this is for delivery or pickup. What is it about order-takers not listening to you? This happens whenever I order food in San Diego. For example, I go to a Jack in the Box. Walk up to the counter and clearly and slowly dictate, "I would like to place an order TO GO, please." And then the order-taker will say, "Ok, what would you like?" and then I give my order, and the order taker inevitably replies, "For here or to go?" (To be more accurate, they reply with a musical 4-syllable Spanglish phrase, "fohitugo". And when I order my Grilled Sourdough Burger from them, it gets turned into the delightful phrase, "GLEED Soo-doo BOO-gah.") Sigh. :-/
But anyway, back to the Papa Johns experience.
So I went down to Pacific Beach and there were 5 cars and pickups in the parking lot adjacent to PapaJohns, and they all had Papa Johns Pizza signs attached to their roofs, and they were all lit up, like taxi signs. The engines were running in some of the cars.
I went into the store, and my immediate reaction?
Jiffy Lube.
I say that cuz whenever I've been to a brand-new auto tune-up franchise, everything is spic-and-span clean, and there appear to be, at first sight, too many employees, and then I immediately think, all this fancy stuff and all these paychecks mean my bill is gonna be higher than elsewhere.
There were no other customers in the store, but then there wasn't much room for them anyway. You walk in and there's the counter and that's it. This place is pickup and delivery only. There were 4 or 5 computer terminals at the counter, and red Meridian phones everywhere.
There was a girl behind the counter talking on one of the phones. I walked up to the counter and stand there. She looked at me but continued talking on the phone. The rest of the employees were milling around, looking busy, nobody offered to come to help me even though they all knew A Customer was waiting at the counter. Further evidence for my rapidly-formulating theory that this operation is much more delivery oriented than customer pick-up oriented.
So the girl on the phone ended her call, and looked up to me, and asked what I'd like to order. I told her I'd called and placed an order for pickup and at that very moment one of the red Meridian telephones in front of me started ringing so loud I thought I'd done something wrong!!! I mean, this thing rang loud enough for people down the block to hear. And it kept ringing as I tried to tell her my name. She was only 2 feet away from me and she could not hear what I was saying cuz the phone was so loud! Anyway, someone else answered it (I would have been pretty distraught if she'd answered it, so 2 points to Papa Johns for training their staff to stick with the customer who's already in the middle of a transaction). She typed some stuff into the computer and found my order and told me the amount, which I couldn't hear cuz the phones were ringing again. Finally I heard the amount. Something like $14.75. A bit pricey, considering I usually buy the very same pizza at Pizza Hut for about $4 less, and that even includes two cans of Mountain Dew.
The pizza was ready and I paid and she gave it to me and I went home. It smelled good in the car, but the big test would be: is it better than Pizza Hut?
Couple things I noticed: Papa John's pizza boxes are fancier than Pizza Hut's. Pizza Hut's are brown paper; Papa John's are white. That white paper has gotta be more expensive. Then there was this weird little container inside the Papa Johns pizza box, for "special garlic sauce". I didn't want that, but I guess I paid for it. There were also two real jalapeno peppers in one other corner of the box. Papa Johns had been very skimpy in putting the jalapeno peppers on the pizza itself. There was like one little slice right smack dab in the center of each piece. Then they throw in two whole jalapeno peppers on the side. What gives? Thank goodness I didn't order anchovies. I can imagine a few sprinkled on top, and a couple of fish lying in the corner!
So.... the big moment. Taste the pizza. I did. I immediately noticed the pizza crust is much higher quality than Pizza Hut's. Or to put it another way -- Pizza Hut's pizza crust (I always order the deep pan crust style) is so greasy it must be cooked in butter. But it sure tastes good! Papa John's crust --- more like pita bread in terms of dryness -- no grease or buttery sponginess at all.
The pizza itself? Not as good as Pizza Hut. I was *really* disappointed cuz I was really hoping for "a better pizza experience". Obviously the Papa Johns pizza is a "healthier" pizza, but I was not looking for a "healther" pizza, I was looking for, to tell the truth, "a Papa Del's experience".
You see, Papa Del's is, in my opinion, THE WORLD'S GREATEST PIZZA. Papa Del's is located in Champaign-Urbana, IL, home of the University of Illinois. It is the reigning, undefeated world champion best all-around pizza in the entire world, bar none, no questions asked, period. It really is That Good.
Unfortunately, Papa John's is nowhere *near* the Papa Del's level of quality and sheer gastronomic bliss.
So, to make a long story short, I'm putting Papa John's pizza in my "guilt pizza" category --- when I'm feeling guilty about eating the greasier, but tastier, Pizza Hut pizza, maybe I'll order a Papa John's. But most of the time I'll prolly continue to spring for Pizza Hut.
So there you have it. :-) |
