Papa Johns Pizza — Restaurant in Fairfax

If I could give ZERO stars I would. I got a call from my husband today...he is working OT and so am I. We are tired and exhausted but have some goals to meet so we are working 6 days a week. Anyways hubby calls and tells me wonderful lovely things including that I’m his best friend and make him so happy and so on. He knows I did not pack lunch today and knows that neither of us eat out except maybe once every few months lately. So he asked if he could order me some lunch. He knows pizza is my favorite and I asked for Papa John’s pizza to be delivered. Hubby works on a machine, very labor intensive job, stopping all work to order his wife a pizza is a major undertaking in that environment. So, you can bet I was SUPER excited. That was at 12 noon. I got a call at 12:54 pm from this Papa John’s at 10782 Fairfax Blvd. Firdavs says he does not deliver to my office address (which is less than one mile west of him...on the same road). He says I have to call Merrifield Papa John’s on Arlington Blvd. i relay this message to my husband. He calls them and they obviously say they don’t deliver to my address (they are four miles east of me and they would have to actually pass the 10782 Fairfax Blvd store to get to me). So they tell my husband to call Fairfax Blvd. Again, Fairfax Blvd refuses to deliver a pizza a few blocks away. So it’s 3 pm, I have not yet had lunch and need to leave for the day and drive an hour home. And my poor sweet husband’s wonderful idea to treat me to lunch got thwarted by some kid who told me a few moments ago that it’s the computer’s fault but he sees now on his phone that I am located just a few blocks away. Well no duh...we are on the same street and our street numbers clearly indicate that we are a few blocks apart. So yeah no I don’t recommend this store at all. Because for heaven’s sake if their computer stopped working or they had an internet outage or some other technical problem, they would probably not even figure out how to breathe nonetheless make a pizza. And whoa if they had to COUNT CHANGE or perform some other primitive business function, they would not know where to start. But, alas, these college kids are the frightening future of America. Go get your pizza somewhere else folks, save yourself some...

Great pizza and my family love the quality of the pizza. Service, however, needs so much improvement. I arrived there, today, December 20, 2024 at 5:37, because my mobile order said that it was going to be ready between 5:27pm and 5:37 pm. Everyone was busy and seemed to ignore my arrival. I waited for about 5 minutes. Then, announce that I was there to pick up order for "name given' and order number....everyone seemed amazed that i dare make an announcement. The attendants walked passed me... (oner can verify on cctv if i works)...and enquire from the other three persons about their order...then proceeded to give out those order..for me that was fine... but then almost 4 minutes passed before I knew that I had to say something. I said, " shall i cancel my order then?" and while saying that, one that may he the senior and closest to me, said, "sir you see we are busy; what is it you need? This hit me like a bullet, forcing me to get angry, and said, "Surely I have an order, or else I would not threaten to cancel the order!". Almost, immediately, another server pushed my order to my face...which seemed that he knew very well what was going on.

But I proceed to engage the person who said that they were busy. I told him that this is not a "busy" issue....it is a management issue and owner issue...get someone to just be at the counter...to attend to everyone who arrives...even if it is to just say, "hi, welcome; what's your order? Just give us a few minutes, we will get it to you".

Just to ignore and think it's ok is for the time when business was fine...now for sure, business have to compete for market share. To take for granted and leave your "brand" to customer loyalty is risking too much. Remember the four pillars for branding: differentiation, relevance, esteem, knowledge,

A brand should be as unique as possible, because brand health is built and maintained by offering a set of differentiating promises to consumers and delivering on these promises consistently.

Brands in trouble show little or very low differentiation, but differentiation alone is not enough for the long-term success of a brand. Papa Johns, how do yo plan to be different from Pizza Hot or Dominoes?

I can so more, but you need to work on customer engagement and...

Darkest burnt pizza, ordered as normal bake and original NOT thin crust, I've ever seen in my life. I took a literal video and pics of this crispy brown and black disaster and shared with friends. Before this, I called to request the sauces I paid extra for (they always miss them) and Parm cheese to substitute for Mozz, and this took 2 calls bc dude hung up randomly first, and it sounded like it was all too much for him to deal with. Called back upon receiving a large topping covered BURNT cracker instead of a pizza... Same rude "manager" offers NO apology and blamed the oven and the GrubHub driver, anything but his ineptitude by sending a pizza looking like this catastrophe to leave the restaurant.... and offered nothing to help, complained that I called 3x, took zero responsibility, just said to contact GrubHub. Even laughed when I said hey man this is all your bad. 30 bucks after tip for a 12" burnt, inedible pizza, 1 small drink and 2 sauces. Wild times fam!...