Although this is a social phenomenon that is better addressed via one of my many sites, Proposed Solutions, it is unfortunate that owners of commercial property, even after it is entirely paid-off, will still seek high rents that then causes prices to go up that then hurts all those consumers who are not wealthy. Overpaid government employees also affect this with their taxes. With that aside, surely there is still room for each of these companies to offer better prices, particularly Papa John's. The profit for the owners/shareholders should not be considered the number one priority as is now so popular in the face of greed. I asked Little Caesar’s last year to make their basic pizza $4 as a promotion during this masked depression we are in with $23 Trillion government debt and climbing, federal plus state and local combined along with our very real 23-26% unemployment rate (140 million workers out of a working age population of 240 million and estimating at least 40% of the 100 million who are not employed would take a job if it paid enough to offset the Bernanke-induced wealth-dividing inflation). Sadly they didn’t do it. They had an opportunity to grab more of the market share. At least Little Caesar’s has a fairly decent price.
Now I must say I am one who can live on under $60 of food per month and I speak of it in my book "God Gave You a Brain; use It!" and as such, I normally eat all my meals at home except for getting a pizza once every month or so from Little Caesar’s. I am very value-minded. There was a time I use to buy a burrito on occasion elsewhere but since the prices of the place went up, I am now on boycott mode, so at this moment Little Caesar’s is [practically] the only restaurant I go to. I happened to have gotten a coupon for 4 large, one-topping pizzas from Papa John’s for $5 each so I decided to get 4 and spend a week eating them as sort of a home-cooked food vacation. I was both pleased in some ways and disappointed in others. Below is a tentative chart of particulars of 1-topping large pizzas based on my observations. I did not do a side-by-side comparison but if I am able to get another $5 per pizza coupon from Papa John’s again I would get two and see if any of my comments require amending.
| Subject | Papa John’s | Little Caesar’s |
| Pizza crust cooking | Very consistent, light brown | Often uneven and inconsistent, from slightly underdone to slightly overcooked |
| Pizza crust other details | Chewy without being tough, surpassing contributions of toppings except where certain portions contain more cheese | Adequate dough quality |
| Tomato sauce | Quite bland, tasteless | Excellent flavor, zesty to within likely palatability of American tolerance |
| Cheese coverage in area | Excellent, to near edge of crust | Adequate |
| Cheese quantity | Marginal with some inconsistency | Marginal but with consistency |
| Toppings | Barely adequate | Sufficient |
| After-effects | Moderate urge to drink water | Minimal urge to drink water |
| My Estimated Value | $5.00, predominantly from the dough | $4.50 |
| Typical cost | $10/$11 | $5 |
My recommendations to Papa John’s:
1. Drastically improve the sauce. I would find out how Little Caesar’s makes their sauce and make similarly.
2. Add more toppings.
3. Bring down the price considerably, at least knocking off $2-3 per large 1-topping pizza. There is more to life than just greed.
My recommendations to Little Caesar’s:
1. Keep the dough similar but improve it slightly.
2. Investigate cooking process and improve so that the crust is cooked evenly and consistently.
3. Have the dough less pronounced on outer edge and cover more of the overall area with cheese.
Photo image of sample 1-topping large mushroom pizza from Papa John’s (I added crushed red pepper):
I hope both of these pizza restaurant chains take this effort of mine as constructive and hopefully the consumers would be pleased from any improvements taken.
