Papa John's: The Works

I fell out with Papa John a while ago. He wouldn't deliver a pizza to me when I was only 5 minutes up the road and this made me quite cross. It felt like he was being lazy and boy, do I hate laziness. I'd sure as heck do something about if I could be bothered and this bed wasn't so comfortable and I didn't already have a full day of sitting around in pants booked into my diary. I know calling him out for laziness is a bit rich coming from a semi-unemployed Call of Duty addict who hasn't updated this blog for two months, but then this is the Internet not afternoon tea with Aunt Judie so I can be as rude and unreasonable as I want and the worst you can do is stop reading. (Please, for the love of God don't stop reading. I'm a drowning man and you're my oxygen, don't leave me. I love you).

Anyway, in retaliation for not getting a pizza, I sent him numerous inflammatory e-mails and a couple of sexy dick pics (you know, just in case that greased the wheels in my favour). You can read about the whole, tawdry, regretful affair right here. Suffice to say, I didn't get my pizza. :(

That was over a year ago now and, since then, I feel I've grown both spiritually and gastronomically. So, as I was both really hungry and willing to overlook past slights, I returned to Papa John's with my tail between my legs. (I don't have a tail. This is just a phrase. I don't really understand why a tail's location would indicate being sorry. Maybe it's a cat thing. I'd ask my cat but he's an idiot and we're not talking at the moment).

In fairness the pizza was pretty good. Obviously I swapped the olives for something else because I'd rather lick between the toes of a dead hobo that eat those shrivelled little demon goolies, but overall a tasty meal was had by all (It was just me. I'm so lonely). HOWEVER, and I'm sorry to bring politics up, it's something I try not to do on account of knowing nothing about anything, but did you know that in America, Papa John has gone to great lengths to advertise the fact that he is raising the price of pizzas a few cents to pay for their employee's Medicare and that it's all Obama's fault? He's basically saying: "Sorry guys, Obama's making me do this because he's a dick. Why are you such a dick Obama you dick?" For a multi-national company that peddles in auto-chubbening cheese disasters, contributing to the clearing up of the mess they make seems like the least they could do. Obviously this doesn't apply to me in any way whatsoever because I'm English, live in England and am very happy to shave off decades of my life in exchange for extra pepperoni. Still, seems like a dick move if you ask me.

6 out of 10

Pizza Quest vs Papa John

As far as high street pizza delivery companies go I've always had soft spot for Papa John's. Unlike Domino's their pizzas don't taste like they should have a "Made from 100% Recycled Materials" stamp on the base, and unlike Pizza Hut I don't feel like I'm committing a cardinal sin against blood pressure when I eat one. Look, here's me being pretty happy with a Papa John's. That said, I have recently been on the wrong end of a rather nasty trait within Papa John's delivery policy: laziness. Now I know this is a bit like Josef Fritzel calling the NSPCC because he doesn't like the way his next door neighbour shouts at his kids, but humongous hypocrisy aside, for a pizza DELIVERY company Papa John's sure hate DELIVERING.

Here's the premise: I was at work, I wanted a pizza, I went to Papa John's website to order one, I was told I was outside of their delivery area, I thought this must be a mistake because there is a Papa John's literally five minutes away, so I e-mailed them.

From: Me
To: Papa John's


If I was on a moped, it would literally take me 5 minutes to get from your store to my house yet somehow I am still 'outside' the delivery area. May I suggest upgrading from horse drawn carriages to actual motorised vehicles so that you can deliver to people outside your immediate eyeline. You cannot be serious.

P.s. http://pizza-quest.blogspot.com I will bury you 'John', BURY YOU!!!

 *******

From: Papa John's
To: Me

Dear Joe,
Thank you for your recent email.

In order for me to fully investigate this matter I would be grateful if you could recontact me with your full postcode.

Once I am in receipt of this information I will then be in a position to fully investigate this matter and respond to you accordingly.

In the meantime I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

*******

From: Me
To: Papa John's

Yes, hello.

The address I was ordering from was E8 2PB. Good old Google maps says it would take a whopping five minutes to drive there from the store. I'm curious as to what the cut off point in journey time is for a trip to not be worth it? 4 minutes? 3 minutes? The few seconds of airtime a pizza thrown like a frisbee has before landing?

Forgive the whole "bury you" threats on my previous e-mail, I was just really hungry. REALLY hungry.

Joe

*******

From: Papa John's
To: Me

Dear Joe,

Thank you for recontacting me with the information I requested.

I have now had the opportunity of investigating this matter and I can confirm that your address lies just outside of the specified delivery area for this outlet.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused you however Im sure you will appreciate that a boundary has to be imposed at some point.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.

Kind regards,

*******

From: Me
To: Papa John's

Dear *****,

Thanks for getting back to me. I understand that there has to be some kind of boundary, but it's not like I was ordering a pizza while sitting in my little wooden shack in the Himalayas. I was literally five minutes away. I mean, why bother having a phone ordering service at all when, to get it delivered, people have to be so close to the store they could just shout their order at you? You could save a fortune on phone line rental; money that perhaps could be put towards hiring a second delivery boy, maybe this time one without a crippling case of agoraphobia.

 I'd be very interested to know where the 'imposed' boundary of the Hoxton Street branch lies. This is my local Papa John's you see, (that's 'local' as in the generally accepted definition of 'being within the same geographical area', not the Papa John's definition, which is apparently 'being within arms reach without having to stretch too much, or get out of my warm, comfy chair '). I very much look forward to hearing from you.

 Regards,

               Joe

*******

This was last week, and since then I ain't heard shit.

Papa John's: Papa John's Favourite

People have been hyping up Papa John to me for ages and I feel bad that I've never tried one until now. I think I have a fairly legitimate excuse in that there wasn't one that would deliver to my house in Nottingham. Like any reasonable person I got so sick of this I to moved to London, where the streets are paved with mozzarella. If you've never been to London, don't worry, this is a metaphor. Mozzarella would surely be one of the worst materials to use for paving a street, other bad choices that spring to mind would be honey, oil paint, soap or eggs. Thankfully they seem to stick to concrete in most places, which is far more sensible. Good call Hackney council!

This pizza was apparently 'Papa John's Favourite'. I hope they didn't mean this literally, and just meant the topping. I'd hate to imagine Papa John hunched over a photo of the actual pizza I actually ate, sobbing tomato puree tears while other mythical food mascots, (Ronald Mcdonald, the Dolmio muppets, Tony the Tiger etc.) try to comfort him. If this is the case John, and I've more or less eaten your son, is it any consolation that he was really tasty? Because he was.

The delivery man couldn't find my friend's house so our pizza arrived slightly colder than I would have liked but that's cool because Good Will Hunting was on TV. I like that film. I like the bit where Robin Williams keeps telling Matt Damon that "It's not [his] fault" until Matt Damon starts crying. I'm going to try that one day, just keep repeating the same sentence over and over again at someone until they break down.

8 out of 10