Papa John’s heats up the pizza fare

Attention Pizza Lovers! Papa John’s Pizza is ready and rearing to enter the local market aimed at providing a wider variety of products for the pizza connoisseurs among us and more competition for established pizza restaurants. Signs of progress can already be seen on the Eastern Main Road in Curepe, near to Royal Castle, which is to be the site of Papa John’s first outlet. The outfit behind this new venture is a two-man team going under the name “Elysians Limited.” In an interview with Business Day, one of the team, Dr Harry Singh, said that all systems were go for the planned opening date sometime in late January.

He noted that the time had come for a new pizza restaurant to enter the market. The company, he continued, had done three feasibility studies in the past two years, which showed that many people were “dissatisfied” with the quality of pizza presently being offered in Trinidad. “There is room for another good pizza,” he asserted. Papa John’s, Dr Singh continued, which has approximately 3,000 restaurants in 49 states and 11 international markets, is presently conducting a major expansion project in the Caribbean region. The Trinidad branch, he went on, will be the fourth in the region. Established in 1983 and headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Papa John’s is the third largest pizza company in America. As of January 25, 2003, there were 2,787 Papa John’s restaurants (591 company-owned and 2,196 franchised) operating in 49 states and eleven international market. Papa John’s also franchises 144 Perfect Pizza restaurants in the United Kingdom.