Papa Johns Pizza — Restaurant in Anderson

OKAY I'm SO sick of reading this horrible complaints over small petty stuff about this store so I'm going to put my thoughts in and share my experience from last night. Hopefully people will read this and understand from my point of view as well as the employees, and STOP the complaining over every small little thing. KUDOS TO THIS PLACE AND THEIR EMPLOYEES!

I ordered here last night as I do every weekend. I'm also a Dasher who takes orders from here but I know to be patient, and if it's too long of a wait, I will unassign myself from the order. I don't do that frequently though. I wanted to relax tonight after a busy week, so I ordered from here. I don't think the other Dashers/Grub Hub/Uber drivers and carryout customers understand that they have more than one way that they get orders, and they can get orders piled up on them very quickly within a few minutes. That would be very overwhelming! Think about it; 20 orders suddenly appear and they are large orders with multiple, different items? Then another 15-20, and it keeps going. Yeah, that's stressful. Everyone yelling, cussing, and throwing an attitude doesn't help, so if you're reading this, please don't do that. Don't do it to anyone in fast food or restaurants, or anywhere. Be patient and have compassion. Day-shift helps to prepare them for this. I've watched them in action and heard the conversations. For me, the call center said a 15-20 minute wait, but I know the call center is not based in the USA and there is no way that you're going to get a carry out from a popular, busy pizza place in that time on weekends or holidays. Common sense should tell you that.

I gave them time to get my order ready as I was busy at the time anyway. Getting inside was horrible as the lobby was packed, but that was not the employees fault. They can only do so much. I had a 45 minute wait, and yes, the assistant manager at the cut table had pizza's piling up on him but he was doing a fantastic job. But the guys making the pizza's were staying on top of it, too. A few times they had to hold off to give him a chance to fix things up. The young guy who also runs the register was constantly going back and forth filling up boxes and putting the labels on them, and the older guy was constantly bringing up what was called out that was needed. So you can't say they were lazy and unorganized.

There were two ladies who were sorting everyone's orders; one eventually had taken the orders to the side and was helping with cutting and making sure everything was put together. If I recall right, this is the hearing impaired pregnant lady who works day-shift with her husband (the assistant manager) and is due to have a baby soon. So she had been there since the store opened. At 9:30pm she was still there working hard just like the rest of them. Talk about dedication and determination, wow! The other lady was handing the customers and the orders, and had been cussed out multiple times and was on the verge of tears. They finally had to move everything in the back to clear room for the assistant manager and to get the orders together to give out.

The nice young gentleman who took their spot was helping customers with orders, offering and giving refunds and discounts for wait time, and running to the back and grabbing orders as fast as he could. I did see the pregnant lady come through and try to squeeze through saying something about an urgent issue due to her GM about to pass out. I finally got my order, and yes it actually was fresh, everything was there, I did end up with something extra that wasn't mine and called to let them know. I also was offered a refund but I didn't take it because I felt they deserved the money. Plus my order was correct and fresh.

I feel that everyone who worked last night did their part to the best of their ability, just like I always see when I'm in there. Great job, Papa John's Anderson! You did very well! I'm sorry people are rude...

I want to praise this team. I order from here a lot and also pick up doordash and uber orders. Yes it can get busy with a wait on weekends, but that is because they get hit with huge orders unexpectedly. The weather, the football games, the sales that are offered play a part and large orders that come in through multiple sources smash them at once. The crew does do the best they can do on both shifts. The morning crew is very pleasant to deal with and have less wait time because of the male assistant manager and the really nice lady who is hard of hearing that works with him. I do know they work way past their shifts because I see them late at night a lot. Customers have complained about her ignoring them, but they don't know she's very hard of hearing. I have interacted with her, she is a lip reader and tries to hear with what seems to be her better hearing side. With all of the noise in the back, it's hard for her. When she's there at night, it's even harder because it's louder due to more customers being in the lobby. But she's fast and does her job well. At least she works and does multiple things at once. She does try to interact with customers. It's a shame that customers treat her poorly. Night shift seems to be fun to interact with also. You can tell they are doing the best that they can to keep up with all of the orders. They try to keep a pleasant, upbeat atmosphere while being focused on doing their jobs. I picked up my latest order as carryout. I expected a wait and was surprised that my order was done as quick as it was. No mess ups, looks and tastes great! I wish others would understand that these are humans working, there is no need to yell at them. It only stresses them out worse and you take up time that they could be dedicating to getting the orders out to others, mostly you. The customers yelling and cussing at this staff need to be more patient and understand they are doing what they can. Stop being rude to them and have some patience and grace with them. Yes, there bound to be mistakes but what company doesn't make a mistake? Do you make mistakes? We all do, so why all the dramatics and hate placed on this place? The GM they have now is doing a great job with the staff that he has, he is pleasant to work with, the morning assistant is "not on drugs" as I've read from others. I wish people would stop assuming that based on how a person speaks. You can't really tell that the hard of hearing lady even is hearing impaired by her speech. You can if you listen close enough, and if you watch her eyes, you can tell she's trying to read your lips and that's why she looks like she has a deer in headlights look. If the assistant was "on drugs and slurring" then tell me why his morning shifts run so smooth and on time with barely any mistakes? The crew is getting much better at...

Tonight was the absolute worst experience I've ever had with a restaurant. Hands down!! It took over two and a half hours to get our pizza's. They all were cold, pepperoni pizza's barley had any pepperoni. The cheese on the cheese pizza was hard. I had to feed my kid's before any food ever arrived. They were tired and hungry, we have 4 kid's and tonight we also had our granddaughter. When we called Papa John's, the phone just rang and rang. The driver finally showed up, we ordered at 8:00p.m, it was 10:15p.m. My husband said, I really hope our pizza's aren't cold after this long or I'm not tipping.To whice the driver said, there's a credit card tip!! I always tip in cash, always! I absolutely, 100% did NOT put a credit card tip. I had cash on my counter for the driver already. My husband was hungry and had some of the cold works pizza. Two bites into his second piece, he threw up. After close to 3 hours after we originally ordered, I threw all 4 pizza's in the trash. I didn't bother to call the store to speak to a manager, because between my experience tonight, all the terrible reviews I seen AFTER my service and the fact that they never answered when we called to check on our order, it's clear that it would do no good. IF they were to make thing's right, our pizza's wouldn't have arrived until the next day. Then after the driver left I seen I had a missed call and a voice-mail. It was the delivery driver he said, "this is your driver from door dash". I didn't order through door dash, I've never used door dash, EVER!! I ordered right from the Papa John's online app. I'll be calling the corporate office tomorrow. This experience was totally unacceptable! Tip's being added to my check without my approval, food was a total loss, 5 hungry, tired and crying kid's, $40 plus for absolutely nothing but aggravation and...