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Everything Broad Ripple HomearrowRandom Ripplings Homearrow2005 06 24arrowColumn

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Converted from paper version of the Broad Ripple Gazette (v02n13)
Pizza Scene - Papa John's 6311 N Keystone Avenue- by Mark Rumreich
posted: Jun. 24, 2005

Pizza Scene header

The founder of Papa John's, John Schnatter, began his pizza career as a high school student at Rocky's Pizza & Subs in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a suburb of Louisville. While in college at Ball State, he worked as a delivery driver for Greek's Pizzeria in Muncie. After graduating, he began working for his father, co-owner of Mick's Lounge, a bar in Jeffersonville. In 1984, he sold his car to buy out the other owner of the bar, knocked out a broom closet and started serving pizza to customers. Business started picking up, and soon Mick's Lounge was converted entirely into the first Papa John's restaurant.

Papa John's 6311 N Keystone Avenue
Papa John's 6311 N Keystone Avenue
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Based in Louisville, Papa John's has become the third largest pizza company in the US in gross sales, behind Pizza Hut and Domino's. Today there are nearly 3,000 Papa John's stores.
The chain credits its fast growth to attention to quality and menu simplicity, but lately their menu has been expanding to keep up with the competition. John Schnatter once said he would never have a chicken topping - that idea changed with their current lineup of specialty pizzas.
Papa John's offers traditional crusts in 10, 12, 14 and 16-inch sizes. A thin crust is available in a 14-inch size only. Toppings include two kinds of sausage, bacon, beef, anchovies, pineapple, grilled chicken and all the usual favorites. Alfredo, BBQ and tomato sauce are available. There are ten specialty pizzas - five with chicken. We ordered a pepperoni pizza with spicy Italian sausage & baby portabella mushrooms and a Grilled Chicken Alfredo specialty pizza, both with traditional crusts, and a BBQ Chicken & Bacon specialty pizza with the thin crust. We wanted to try the Spinach Alfredo pizza, but they were out of spinach.
The pepperoni with spicy Italian sausage and baby portabellas had small nuggets of not-especially-spicy sausage, tasty pepperoni, a-little-too-sweet tomato sauce and 100% mozzarella. The mushrooms were extra tasty and a good addition to this pie. The traditional crust was chewy and golden brown. The Grilled Chicken Alfredo pizza had good grilled chicken and alfredo sauce flavors, but so subtle as to make this pizza bland. The BBQ Chicken & Bacon pizza had no such problem with its spicy-sweet BBQ sauce, onions and hickory-smoked bacon. The thin crust on this pizza was nice and crisp. So is it truly "Better Pizza"? Overall, the crusts on all our pizzas earned high marks. While it's not gourmet, Papa John's fares well with respect to its mass-market pizza rivals.



rumreich@broadripplegazette.com
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