Review: Papa John's Original Crust Pizza

One year ago, Papa John's did a Super Bowl Coin Toss promotion; if you correctly predicted the coin toss, you won a free pizza from Papa John's for ordering online.  It was a clever scheme to get you to sign up on the Papa John's website.  It must have been successful, because they repeated the promotion in 2013.

Original crust pie from Papa John's

Because I prefer a thin crust pizza most of the time, I chose that option a year ago. It was wretched! See my complete review HERE. It was and remains the worst pizza I have eaten since I started this blog. 

A slice of the tragically bad thin crust pie, 2012

Well, duty called again. After last year's subpar pie, I surely wouldn't spend money on a Papa John's pizza. But since I called the toss correctly, I decided (for the sake of research, wink) to give the regular ("original") crust pizza a try.

Last year, I found the website so confusing that I had to telephone to get my order correct. The website is still awful. I'm thinking that Papa John's pizza eaters might consume even more of that stuff if they could figure out this badly designed website. In my mind, I figured "Papa John's: Terrible Website, Terrible Pizza."

Once again I ordered my pie from their store in Exton, PA. It's tucked into a dark stretch of a soulless strip of chain stores, next to a closed gas station. Finding this dreary location last year, even with GPS, was almost as difficult as navigating the Papa John's website.

Inside, I found (again) the staff to be very friendly. Kudos for that. My order was ready, and no one tried to upsell me any extras.  They handed me a free pie with a smile, and I drove home anticipating another scathing review.

It's cognitively convenient when you find the lone wolf pizza maker who searches out fine and rare ingredients, and his pies match his passion. It's also convenient to regard all chain restaurants as crap, and I frequently indulge in that type of thinking. 

That kind of broad brush, unfair as it might be, generally serves me well and keeps me out of Olive Gardens and Cheesecake Factories. (I don't share the same disdain for lowbrow chain food - Taco Bell and Five Guys are just fine, and not pretending to be anything other than tasty, fast, cheap). 

Pre- re-heat, with nice pepperoncino and pointless garlic dressing

With that as perspective, I opened up the green pizza box with the smiling image of Papa John. Inside, the smallish "large" 14-inch pizza had an attractive, dark, and uneven cornicione. It had a generous cover of thin-sliced pepperoni. Because it sat for about an hour, I planned to reheat in on a perforated pizza pan. I doctored it a little, adding some spicy capicola to fill the pepperoni gaps.

After 12 minutes at 350 degrees, I served the pie to EPBAC (eats pizza but avoids cheese) and myself. How was it?

It was good!  It was balanced, tasty, and had a very appealing freshness. Not remarkable, not gonna make you forget Denino's (review HERE) or Santarpio's (review HERE), but good enough that I feel a little bit badly about slamming Papa John so harshly a year ago and on every opportunity since then.

It was better than Pizza Hut or Domino's (as my memory serves me -- been a while since I had either). It was better than the good/bad monster slices at Costco (review HERE). It was better than DiGiorno! (Review HERE). DiGiorno is my baseline pie; if you, fresh pie man, cannot beat DiGiorno, then why are you selling pizza?

Surprising hole structure in crust

The thin-crust pizza I had a year ago was not only crackerlike, but without any flavor. This crust was like very good supermarket Italian bread. Not much character on the bottom, but crisp there and with remarkable hole structure in the tender, chewy interior. I can make a much better crust myself, but I haven't yet matched that lovely internal bubbling.

The cheese was commercial grade dry mozzarella (perhaps with some other cheese mixed in) but was well-suited to this pie. The pepperoni was paper thin, but it still was a savory addition and it cooked up to a salty, greasy, slightly spicy crispness.

Unremarkable underside

The sauce was the weakest part. Typical of low-end pies, it had a cloying sweetness that tells me it is made for youthful palates. Still, it didn't ruin the pie. Adding some salt was an effective way to cut the sweetness.

Overall, this was tasty, al dente, satisfying, and did not leave us with regret for spending calories on it. There was a good balance of crust, sauce, cheese, pepperoni. EPBAC agreed that it's better than Costco pizza. Kudos to you, Papa John!

The crust earns a 6.5, the cheese gets a 6, the sauce comes in at 3, the pepperoni a 5, and the balance a 6.  Overall, this mass-produced pizza comes in at 5.75 which puts it modestly above most mom-n-pop joints. Papa John, you are better than Sysco-sourced pies. Pie-eaters could do a lot worse when selecting inexpensive pizza.

Review: Papa John's Pizza

I generally avoid pizza from the major chains. I don't remember the last time I had pie from Domino's or Pizza Hut, but I'm not willing to spend the dollars or calories on those soft-crusted pizza imitations. However, I have had a few chain surprises. Most notable is Anthony's Coal-Fired Pizza (reviewed HERE), but it has a scant 32 locations in FL, PA, NJ, and DE. The most shocking exception was at Bertucci's in Jersey City; they knocked out a brilliant Trenton-style tomato pie. And I also have a soft spot for the soft pizza at Costco, even though I know there's nothing authentic about it.

Hence, when Papa John's Pizza offered a shot at a free one-topping pizza and a 2-liter Pepsi Max just for signing up for their Super Bowl Coin Toss promotion, I decided it was time to assess their pie. If I've ever had Papa John's pizza, it was so long ago that I forget how it was. But my expectations were that it would be better than Pizza Hut, Dominos, and the rapidly improving availability of frozen pizza.

Click any pic to enlarge

Armed with my promo code, I went to Papa John's website to order. They give you some interesting options to customize your pie; I choose "thin crust" cooked "well done" with half pepperoni and half "spicy Italian sausage." I was too far from their Exton location, so I needed to go pick it up.

The "sausage" slice

Let's cover the positives first. The price was right. The young lady who took my order (I had to call after I placed my web order to adjust it) was polite and helpful, and that experience was repeated when I picked up the pie at the store -- the kids working there had a customer-friendly attitude. I really wasn't keen on "Pepsi Max" and they allowed me to substitute regular Pepsi.

The well-done thin crust

How about that pie? When I opened the box, I was struck by how small this "large" pie was. And beyond its dimensions, it looked like a thin, dry, sad little pie. It looked like a frozen pizza from the 1980s, when crusts were thin and cardboard-y, cheese was scarce, and sauce was thin, orange, and ketchup-like. This is the worst looking pie in my recent memory. It looked like high school cafeteria pizza from the 1970s. It looked like turnpike rest-stop pizza before they were privatized; it looked worse than Sbarro.

Looks can be deceiving!  However, in this case, you can judge the book by its cover. The crust was laughably bad. While it certainly supported the sauce, cheese, and toppings, it did so without the slightest bit of nuanced texture or flavor. It truly was thin and cardboard-y. When I chose the well-done thin-crust pie, I was thinking of a well-done thin-crust Trenton tomato pie. Here, both choices were a mistake, I think. The thin and hard cornicione was completely uniform, indicative of the machine origins of this pie.

The cheese was adequate. The pepperoni was average, but plentiful. The sausage was a real disappointment - a tad better than rabbit pellets, but it gave no hint of authentic Italian sausage. The sole bright spot was the sauce; it was tangy and salty and the only reason to take another bite. I generally add a bit of surface salt to pizza, but this needed none. I suspect the saltiness may be the main (albeit unrecognized) reason that some folks might prefer Papa John's to other mass-produced budget pizza.

All told, this was the worst pizza I've eaten in many years. It was worse than the $1 personal-size "My Essentials" frozen pizza from Bottom Dollar Foods. I do understand that there is a place for the big chains, providing cheap pizza as a commodity. At this point, I don't understand why anyone would buy this pizza, which fails by any standard.

The crust gets a zero. The cheese is a four, the pepperoni a five, the sauce a 6, the sausage a 3. Overall, this pie rates a "1" out of 10. You can get enjoy much better pizza by topping a split English muffin with some Ragu and a slice of Velveeta.