Papa John’s is the fourth-largest pizza delivery restaurant franchise in the United States of America. It was founded in the year 1984 by John Schantter in a broom closet in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and now it has 5,199 branches and 4,456 franchise restaurants across the world in 44 countries with its headquarters located in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. In 2019 Papa John’s opened its first restaurant in Lahore Pakistan.
Inception
Papa John was started in the year 1984 in Jeffersonville, Indiana, by John Schnatter, better known as ‘Papa’ who started the business by transforming an old broom closet in the back of his father’s tavern to a pizza shop. To purchase pizza equipment, he sold his 1971 Z28 Camaro for $ 1600 and started selling pizzas to tavern’s customers. When his pizzas became popular, he shifted his shop out of the closet to a new adjoining place and invented a dipping sauce for pizzas, which also became very famous.
In 1993 the company went public, and after one year the company opened 500 stores and after four years 15,000 stores across the USA. In 2009 John reacquired his Camaro that he sold to buy pizza equipment for $ 250,00.
Evolution
In 2002 Papa John’s started taking online orders from its customers in America, becoming the first pizza franchise to do so and covered 6.6% of the market according to Technomic. On 30 March 2006, Papa John’s became the official sponsors of the amusement park company Six Flags and did promotions of it. Six Flags announced that its park’s pizza will especially be from Papa John’s and became the official pizza supplier of the Olympic Speedskating Oval in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In November 2016 Papa John’s became the sponsors of college post-season football bowl called Papa John.com Bowl.
The company gained media attention when a franchise of Washington DC spread t-shirts mocking Cleveland Cavaliers star player Lebron James at a playoff game against Washington Wizards. The pictures of the t-shirt spread all over the internet and reached Cleveland television, which led to a controversy that demanded an apology from Papa John’s. To apologies, Papa John sold a large single topping pizza for only 23 cents all over Greater Cleveland and a Northern Ohio.
In 2011 Papa John’s became the official pizza sponsors of the NFL and Super Bowls and, in 2011, the official sponsors of NFL Canada, United Kingdom, and Mexico. Papa John’s became the official pizza partner of The Football League United Kingdom in the year 2012.
Awards and Achievements
Papa John’s is the fourth largest pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States, with its franchise located in 50 states and 44 countries, the recent one being in Lahore, Pakistan. In 2017 for the 16th time in 18 years, Papa John’s was ranked number in customer satisfaction among the QSR pizza brands American Customer Satisfaction Index. For the past several years, Papa John’s is voted as the ‘best pizza’ in cities like Los Angeles, Indiana Polis, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C, and Phoenix.
Net Worth & Salary Papa John’s in 2024
As of December 2024, The estimated net worth of Papa John’s company is $2 billion. In 1993 when the company went public with 500 stores across the USA, it became a multi-millionaire dollar industry overnight with John Schantter, the former CEO having 30% shares of it and eventually a few decades later a hundred-million-dollar industry. Now Papa John restaurants operate in more than 5,3000 locations around the world, with 16,000 employees and average annual revenue of $1.5 Billion.
Like any other big and successful organization, Papa John’s began its journey on a very small scale. It was started in a broom closet by an enthusiastic entrepreneur and a die-hard pizza lover John Schnatter in 1984 who sold his favorite car for $1,600 to start his business. Now Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza delivery franchise in the USA, operating in more than 5,000 locations worldwide and with annual revenue of $1.5 billion.
On 1st January 2018, Schnatter stepped down as the CEO of the company and succeeded by Steve Ritchie, but remained its chairman until 11th July 2018.