The CEO and founder of Papa John’s saw his net worth drop by millions after the pizza chain reported worse-than-expected sales, which the CEO blamed on the NFL.
He can always sell his mansion. 
Being national, maybe some people here can clarify things with PJ’s for me.
Here in New England, they are a bumbling comical train wreck- I mean… literally.
And they have been since they came here in the mid-90’s.
I could write a book on them up here- I was a DP franchisee since '93 and with DP since '83
And the last chapter with them was me just finding out a store they opening a year ago just closed.
Half the pizza shops in NE still have the green/red stripes running along the upper walls.
Now, all that said- they are a player- one of the top 3 so… their incompetence must be related to franchisees or franchise organizations in New England. Are they top of their game in the South? Out West?
I know they are KY based so know their roots are not up here but… it’s almost comical with them.
Whenever I see their ads… and it’s not infrequently… I think “Well, they must be cranking. Somewhere”
I have never seen a well run PJ store in all my years. Even worked for them as a driver for about 6 months several decades ago. They fill a niche market like Little Ceasers and the like.
The only reason corporate makes money is because the stores do not. And they seem to always be opening and closing stores, so as long as corp can keep getting the opening fees they will stay in business. Subway runs the same basic scam, most stores make close to nothing but corp does in royalty payments. And once you have enough stores paying Royalty payments you get to supermarket economics. Penny off a product sucks, until you sell a million+ a day of each item.
A few years back when cheese was at record highs I stumbled across an article that was headlined " Dominoes Pizza is unaffected by rising cheese prices " I was very interested to say the least. How do they do that??
Well come to find out, the article is an interview with one of the Dominoes corporate guys and he state that the franchisees pay all the extra cheese cost. So Dominoes corporate is all good.
Here in Central Illinois PJ’s has a good reputation compared to the other big chains. From a stock perspective Domino’s has been doing great, but they have a terrible reputation here. I guess it just depends on the individual franshisee.
Regardless, all their pizza is crap. Always eat local.
Being from New England, I remember I was 10 it was 1995. Papa Johns was new and all the rage amognst my friends, they were nuts over that garlic butter dipping sauce and the pepperoncinis they included in the box. Fast forward a few years intrest was lost no one seemed to care most locations closed. Then a few years after that, they reopened a location, its still open but no one I know seems to care
That’s funny- back then, we started (as Domino’s) adding the garlic dip to sort of steal some of their thunder if they started opening a bunch of stores. Did it for 6 months or so and then made it optional. I forgot about that.
They opened a UNH/Durham store around a year ago… only took them a year+ to even open it!- now it’s closed.
They spent some money there, too.