"PapaJohns" news and stories

Whether you're celebrating Valentine's Day as your own best friend or with your significant other, Papa John's Pizza is offering lovers a thin-crust heart-shaped pizza for quick take-out. (Maybe you've got better things to do than eat.) After ordering a pie for lunch, we found a handful of pros and cons to ordering this pizza for what's considered a pretty special occasion.

Lovers, you'll have to decide for yourself.

Pros:
1. Papa John's is the only national pizza chain offering a heart-shaped pizza.
2. The shape makes it easy to fold over and convert into a calzone.
3. Clean-up? Not a problem.
4. It's way cheaper than an actual restaurant meal. (This can also be a con.)
5. You can spice things up with the pepperoncino that's included with your pie.

The cons after the jump ...

Back in October, Domino's launched what seemed like the most over-the-top cheese pizza we've seen during our time here at Slashfood with their Wisconsin 6 Cheese Pizza. Well, that thought didn't last very long. Recently, Papa John's retaliated with not just one, but two pizzas: the Double Bacon 6 Cheese and the Tuscan 6 Cheese (both pictured to the left above).

Both pizzas are topped with a hearty helping of mozzarella, Parmesan, romano, asiago, provolone and fontina cheeses. The Double Bacon version also includes hickory-smoked bacon, as well as julienne strips of Canadian bacon.

Considering these two pizzas launched so close together, we couldn't help but compare them. Find out our cheesy thoughts about both after the jump.

I tend to be pretty particular about my pizza. When I lived in Virginia, I plotted out most of my region based on the tastiest pizza, the best priced pizza, and a few other key pizza considerations. While New York is a daunting pizza town, I've spent much of the past few years figuring out the best pizza places, calibrating the difference between amazing pizza and that which is simply acceptable, and generally trying to figure out how to best enjoy one of my favorite foods.

While I prefer mom and pop pizza joints, I have occasionally been know to frequent chain pizzerias. Of the major pizza franchises, my favorite was always Pizza Hut; their flavors always struck me as particularly clean, and their ingredients always seemed quite fresh. However, when I removed high fructose corn syrup from my diet, I started being able to taste it in fast foods. One day, while eating a pizza, I detected its foul flavor in the sauce. A little research confirmed my suspicion: Pizza Hut was using the dreaded HFCS. In a moment, Pizza Hut joined the foully-sweet Papa John's and the blandly repulsive Domino's on my no-eat list. My "pizza island" got a little smaller, a little narrower, and a little sadder.

Recently, however, the chain has developed The Natural, a pizza that allegedly uses vine-ripened tomatoes and all-natural mozzarella, while eschewing artificial ingredients like HFCS, nitrates, nitrites, artificial colors, and preservatives. According to some sources, they are planning to extend this all-natural trend to the rest of their line.

It looks like I may have to revisit one of my old favorites!

We've probably all seen crop circles and we've all been exposed to pizza flyers, but recently Papa John's innovated a unique combination of the two.

According to the Fire Wire blog, this advertisement for Papa John's new whole wheat crust is cut into a wheat field near the Denver airport. It'll be seen by everyone flying in to the Denver area, just in time for the Democratic National Convention. The pizza chain apparently wanted to get in on the convention sales, but wanted to have fun with it.

I actually really like this ad. It's a lot more fun and less obnoxious than other Papa John's ad campaigns. What's your take on the pizza ad crop circle?



[via Neatorama]