The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Photograph by Skye Dunlap Each Papa John's pizza comes with a trademark tub of garlic dipping sauce and pepperoncini peppers. The company claims it uses 60 percent of all pepperoncini peppers grown worldwide. Some like it hot: Peppers set Papa John's pizza apart By Pam Marino Keep it simple. That's the motto of Papa John's, the new kid on the block in the fiercely competitive local pizza market. The 13-year-old pizza chain, despite having 1,700 stores in the nation, is just now coming into the Northern California market. The first Sunnyvale Papa John's opened two weeks ago at the corner of Fremont and Mary avenues, in part of the old Straw Hat Pizza store. The first Northern California store opened in June in San Jose on Winchester Boulevard; a third store is slated for Willow Glen next month. Started in Louisville, Kentucky by 36-year-old John Schnatter when he was 23, the chain focuses on serving a traditional-style pizza using high-quality ingredients and nothing else. Schnatter actually got his start in the pizza business at age 21 by converting a broom closet in his dad's tavern into a pizza oven. He's now worth over $300 million. At Papa John's there's just one kind of crust, hand-tossed, and just one sauce. The toppings are mainstream--no artichoke hearts here--and they are served under the cheese to keep them hotter longer. By not getting into multiple kinds of crust and sauce, the restaurant can focus on quality, said Ken Kaufman, vice president of operations for PJ-S.F. Bay Area Inc., the company that owns Papa John's franchising rights from Gilroy to San Rafael. The dough is made with filtered, distilled water, and the tomatoes for the sauce are picked in Stanislaus County and canned within five hours of harvest. "Our motto is better ingredients, better pizza," Kaufman said. Every pizza comes with a trademark tub of Papa John's garlic dipping sauce and a tub of pepperoncini peppers. The company claims it uses 60 percent of all pepperoncini peppers grown worldwide. The cost runs from $5.99 for a small 10-inch cheese pizza to $18.99 for the extra-large 16-inch size with "The Works." The restaurant offers a "Second Pizza Deal," whereby additional pizzas of equal or smaller size and equal or fewer toppings are available at a reduced price. The store also sells breadsticks, plain or with cheese. The new location has limited seating, so its focus is on delivery and carry-out. Papa John's offers free delivery for anyone within a 10-minute radius of the store, which includes a large part of Sunnyvale, and parts of Cupertino and Los Altos. "We don't want to sacrifice the quality of the pizza," Kaufman said of the limit. In addition, Sunnyvale store manager Ken Fullerton said drivers can only take a limited number of pizzas each trip. The goal, the men said, is for the pizza to be still steaming when it reaches the customer. Papa John's Pizza is located at 1287 S. Mary Ave., at the corner of Fremont Avenue. Call 732-7272. Hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day except Friday and Saturday, when the store closes at midnight. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, September 23, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.