Don't order pizzas from Papa John's

[El Cid]

If you’re planning your child’s birthday party (a football party in this case), and thinking which local pizza company to order from, well, I would not recommend Papa John’s in East Dulwich.

I had ordered and paid for the pizzas yesterday and booked a 4 pm delivery, thinking that’s another thing crossed off the list. I gave the address, postal code, and clear instructions to the guy who took my order, explaining that the driver needed to deliver them to the entrance of the sports centre at the school in North Dulwich where we were having the party.

When I phoned the restaurant at 4.15 pm to ask where the pizzas were, the guy who took the call told said the delivery guy was there at the sports centre. I told him he wasn’t, as I was standing at the entrance. This conversation went around in circles for ten minutes, with me becoming more and more frustrated. I had fifteen eight-year-olds waiting for pizza.

It turned out, despite my clear instructions, the delivery guy had gone to the school next door. The pizzas ( and pretty poor quality they were, too) arrived at 4.40 pm, and then the delivery guy tried to charge me for them, even though I’d already paid for them.

I visited the Papa John’s web site to make a complaint, only to discover that I had to do this to the restaurant that took the order - Papa John’s restaurants are franchises.

I won’t be using Papa John’s again.

[admin]

there's one much closer, in Penge.

The reviews are pretty good.

[Razgriz_101]

Yeah, that's an issue: since the restaurants are franchises, there are huge quality differences between different outlets of the same brand. I've been lucky to live a couple years near a great Papa John's, which I almost never visited for the first 2 years as the one next to where I lived before was terrible.
So, globalisation or not, you can't avoid going back to the good ol' "go there and try" method to see which places are worth it and which ones aren't