Papa Johns is not good.
That’s the problem, I’d assume.
It’s pizza for teens, like “Little Seizures.” They want as much pizza as they can get for what little money they have on their person. It’s completely understandable. There’s a large market of teens out there and Papa John’s is answering the call for inexpensive,substandard pizza.
If there is a silver lining to living in NJ, it is that because I live only a dozen miles west of NYC we have A LOT of family pizzerias. These chains have opened around here, but I suspect only young people or immigrants would patronize them; the stuff is garbage compared to “NY style” pizza from a family-owned place. I live near the “Pizzaland” featured in the Sopranos opening, and even though it is now run by Christian Egyptians they still make great pizza - and they are within a couple of blocks of two competitors (a Papa Johns and another family-owned one).
We have Dominoes and Pizza Hut as well, but once you’ve had the real deal you just can’t regress to that crap...