Fine Dining - Papa Johns: Garlic Dip, CEO Scandals, & the First Bitcoin Pizza

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

🍕 Papa Johns: Garlic Dip, CEO Scandals, & the First Bitcoin Pizza 🍕 From a broom closet in Indiana to viral garlic sauce bath bombs, Papa Johns has had one of the weirdest journeys in chain restaurant history. In this episode, I explore the story of America's youngest major pizza chain — the sauce that changed the industry, the man who ate 40 pizzas in 30 days, and how a slice of Papa Johns became the first physical purchase made with Bitcoin. We’re talking about Shaq, lawsuits, racial slurs on conference calls, and a clock made of eagles. Yes, really. Comedian Nick Stargu joins me to talk everything Papa Johns! Does Papa Johns have the most cursed origin story in pizza? Or is it just misunderstood? 🧄 The Garlic Dipping Sauce That Changed the Game 📈 Explosive Growth & a Stock Ticker Called “PZZA” 🚗 Selling a Camaro to Fund the First Oven 👎 CEO John Schnatter’s Downfall: NFL Drama & Racist Rants 🤑 The $800 Million Bitcoin Pizza 🛁 Garlic-Scented Bath Bombs for Superfans 📉 How Papa John’s Nearly Lost Everything 🍕 Shaq Joins the Board (And Gets His Own Pizza?) 👨‍🍳 From “Better Ingredients” to Better PR Moves? 💬 COMMENT BELOW: What’s your go-to pizza chain — and is Papa Johns even in the conversation? Check out Nick's comedy special here! 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🔥 Patreon (Bonus reviews & exclusive content!): https://www.patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Chat chains & share horror stories!): https://discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@finediningpodcast 🔗 All links: https://www.linktree.com/finediningpodcast ⚡ Like, Subscribe & Share if you love chaotic deep dives into fast-casual history! Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van 👉 NEXT WEEK: We’re actually going to eat Papa Johns. Is it as bad as I remember? Or has it crawled back into crusty relevancy?

From a broom closet to closet racism, Papa John's has been on a journey. One of the big four in the United States, Papa John's is the youngest of the American pizza chain juggernauts after being founded in 1985, a whole 25 years after Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Little Caesars. The thing that caused them to break through the cardboard ceiling? Garlic sauce. Papa John's is who we have to thank for popularizing the practice of dipping pizza into different sauces, an innovation that, by 1993, had this fledgling pizza company

trading on the stock market. It's like the Wolf of Wall Street, but instead of full frontal nudity, it's a Midwestern man who would later openly admit to eating 40 pizzas in 30 days in the sweatiest interview of all time. And it is Papa John himself who has been the source of most of the brand's controversy. After expressing some tone deaf opinions about NFL players, a defensive Papa John used a

big no-no word on a conference call with a marketing agency. The brand faced a firestorm of bad press that led to the immediate resignation of John himself. This week on the show, I'll dip my crusty knowledge tips into your garlic cups of curiosity so that you too may become as learned as I am about all things Papa John's. Then we'll turn our attention to Yelp to see what people are saying about the PJs we went to. Stay tuned, this is the Fine Dining Podcast. It'll be the perfect five. Fine dining. Better than you thought.

Worse than you hoped. Fine dining. We don't treat mediocre as a joke. Breaking every single place we've been. Compared to the perfect five out of ten. I did say something on a conference call and almost got fired. It was a company meeting. It wasn't the same thing he said, was it?

It wasn't the same thing. Okay. Yeah. Should we start? I'm using this. Oh, we're starting. Yeah, during a company meeting, I promoted one of my comedy shows and it was live streamed. I was at PlayStation working at Sony

and they got very upset with me afterwards. I've got to say, not the same level of infraction. No, no, but I was just trying to reach. Yeah. Yeah. Hello and welcome to the Fine Dining Podcast. The quest to compare all restaurants to Chili's. I am your host, Michael Ornelas.

And this is the show where I dive deep into the history of our favorite restaurants one week before reviewing them the next. This week, we'll be going over the history of Papa John's an Indiana based pizza chain with a complicated relationship with the public. Joining me today is a new friend who's a delight to be around.

He is some of the most impressive hair I've ever seen. But more importantly, he's also a hilarious comedian whose multimedia stand-up special, Why Won't You Dance With Me, is available to watch on YouTube. It's Nick Stargew. Hey there, thanks for having me. Is that... is that your voice? Is that what you... you're trying to talk. I was trying to talk.

I'm just trying to talk. Sorry. Hi. How's it going? You had a saxophone for a mouth, an ee-wee. Yeah. I programmed that last night specifically for this podcast. It seems very catch-all.

There's a lot of places where you can say thanks for having me. You know, Andre 3000 uses this thing to communicate. That's like his Stephen Hawking situation. But instead of Microsoft's speech, Sam or whatever, it's the ewe. Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining me to come to Papa John's. Sorry. Yeah, sorry is good. You should be sorry. Yeah. Do you have a history with Papa John's?

Like, did you grow up on them? Were they ever your preferred chain? You've had them before. I've had them before, unfortunately. It's always been kind of a last minute, like we just need to get something to eat. It's never like, oh man, let's go get some Papa John's. Yeah.

It's not an exciting proposition. Yeah, they actually, I think they had a Papa John's near where I used to work at PlayStation years ago. So we would go there sometimes if we needed to like in a crunch. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I remember when Papa John's burst on the scene

and like the garlic dipping sauce was the thing. This was for me, my introduction to Papa John's was probably the mid nineties, maybe 95, 96, 97, somewhere in there. And I remember being skeptical because I grew up a very picky eater. I was very scared to try new foods. And I remember the garlic sauce

being genuinely one of the first things I tried to branch out from my comfort zone. And I liked it well enough. The thing about wet, anything you, I'm scared of wet food. I get that. And I'm a picky eater as well, but I've been branching out.

And I didn't, I was afraid of soup. That was my thing. Interesting. It's the wettest of foods, I think. So- I mean, it's the drinkiest of foods, for sure. It's also drinkiest, yeah. So yeah, sauce is not a fantasy.

Gravy, you know not a fan of gravy. The idea of dipping something that's already half wet because of the sauce into more wet stuff just grosses me out. So I didn't quite understand the dipping sensation. How do you do with like an au jus? Like something where it's like its own juices are what you're-

I think that's okay. Yeah, I think that's okay. Especially if I can see where it's coming from. I think not knowing what you put in this wet situation messes me up. We could honestly talk about this for an hour. I'm not even kidding. Like, I have so many thoughts about why I'm picky about certain things and like what my barriers to overcome, which some of them I have.

It's funny how it makes people upset though when you tell them like what my barriers to overcome, which some of them I have. It's funny how it makes people upset though when you tell them that you don't like something that's kind of a universal thing, right? I don't like cheese. You don't like cheese, I don't like chocolate. I get so much better, what the fuck? I know, I get that too.

You don't like soup? Like what happens when you're sick? Yeah. You know, and there's lots of, you know, there's other things you can do. Yeah. But I did start eating ramen. Okay.

And so that was my crossover. That's very close to soup. A lot of noodles, you know. Can I tell you my intro to ramen? Yeah. Was going to Tatsu. Oh yeah. On Melrose.

Great, great spot. And I started with their naked ramen. It doesn't come with broth. And so I'm like, okay, this is kinda like I'm just eating Japanese spaghetti. Okay. And it's still what I get there. I now like brothy ramen when I go like, okay, this is kind of like, I'm just eating Japanese spaghetti. Okay. And it's still what I get there. I now like brothy ramen when I go places,

but when I go to Tatsu, they're naked ramen. You like to get naked at Tatsu. I love to get naked at Tatsu. Yeah. All right, well that is our histories with Papa John's. Do you wanna get into the history of Papa John's? Let's hear about it. All right, we're gonna jump into this week's eat deets.

In 1984, John Schnatter, a young man with a passion for pizza and a dream of making it big, sold his prized 1971 Camaro to raise $1,600 to buy some used equipment. He set up shop in the broom closet of his father's bar in Jefferson, Indiana, and began selling pizzas to the bar's customers. Schnatter, not a great last name. Not the best. And like, I was looking it up, I was like, is it Schnatter?

It looks like Schnatter, I saw very close to shatter I I would rather shnatter than shnatter. Yeah, who's not or I don't even know hardly know what oh boy Comedy let's get out of the next batch Shnatter's pizzas began to get god that hurt that felt bad Schnatter's pizzas began to get. God, that hurt. That felt bad. Schnatter's pizzas began to gain attention and demand quickly outpaced his small closet operation.

Within a year, the pizzas became so popular that he was able to afford the space next door and opened the first official Papa John's. It was here that he invented the company's signature dipping sauces, at least specifically for pizza. Before then, it was just sauces for breadsticks that were around. I wanna picture this guy experimenting

in this new location. He's like trying all sorts of things, right? Cracking the code. He's like, oh man, what are the other things he did before? He's like, actually, let's do this dipping sauce. I picture him like a rapper who at the end of a verse goes one take.

You got it right. Right. The very first time. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. Well, because it's like equal parts butter, garlic and salt is what I saw. Yeah. For it. Just like, oh, just put this in and then this and then this. Yeah. OK. Like when the when the makeup is equal parts, that does to me scream first try. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, good for him. It's the last time you'll hear us say that.

Within a few years, the small operation exploded into something far larger. By 1986, Papa John's was born as a franchise and the company began rapidly expanding. By the early 1990s, Papa John's was a nationwide phenomenon. The company grew exponentially and Schnatter's simple better ingredients, better pizza slogan became a fixture in American pizza advertising. At one point, the company was opening new locations

at an average rate of two per day. And by 1993, Papa John's was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PZZA. You know, when I grew up in Connecticut, they didn't have... I don't know that Papa John's infiltrated our region, really. We were like Papa Genos. Okay. We had a Papa Genos, which was...

Yeah, anyway. Was it better? I think it was better. I think it was better pizza. A chain still, right? A chain, yeah, franchise. But I don't remember seeing Papa John's anywhere in Connecticut, but maybe you know, when did you leave Connecticut? 2005 and you don't think I don't think I pop it. Maybe I just didn't notice it Yeah, as we'll see it doesn't stand out. It's not sexy. Yeah, you know, it's not it's not like who's this right, you know

Yeah now I this right you know yeah now I don't have the facts fully formed here because I I read it but then moved on and didn't put it in the script but the better pizza better ingredients slogan right was something that they ended up in a lawsuit with Pizza Hut over because I wish I could remember the specifics, but like a former Pizza Hut co-founder. Was now a Papa John's franchisee and they used him in a commercial and had him saying the better pizza, better ingredients, better pizza slogan. And Pizza Hut like sued them saying it was like this almost like slander. Yeah.

Yeah. And it kind of went through, like there was one ruling and then like there were appeals and it got counter ruled and all this. So by him saying better pizza, it's like saying then pizza sucks. Yes. Right. And eventually it got to a point where neither company could use better pizza as a thing that they were touting. use better pizza as a thing that they were touting. And then the Supreme Court declined to hear the case,

which then released it back to Papa John. So they were able to use it again. But they were damaged in the process over the litigation revealed that they were using canned tomato sauce and canned mushrooms, despite claiming to be these like super high quality ingredients. And what we found out today, we'll get into that. I'm going to put that in part two. Yeah, okay. But a bomb.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, being publicly traded marked a major milestone in the company's meteoric rise. By 1996, they had over a thousand stores. Wow. Pretty quick in 11 years. Yeah. Yeah.

Papa John's brought the idea of dipping sauces for their pizza crust to the masses. Initially launching with a simple garlic butter sauce, the dipping sauce quickly became a signature offering and other chains followed suit in trying to replicate the success of the dipping sauce innovation. It became one of the company's hallmark features, often marketed alongside their pizza as a must-have combo. You know, I had a comedy bit once where the idea was people had food portals here. And then they would make their own food from a portal right here. In their belly? In their belly and make their own food. And there were dipping sauces for it.

Now I'm realizing maybe Papa John's was where I got the idea for the dipping sauce. All sorts of flavors. I'm terrified. Realizing maybe Papa John's it was where I got the idea for the dipping sauce All sorts of flavors I'm terrified Sweet and sour buffalo ranch I'm horrified at the notion of a stomach portal it kind of I Just draw a parallel to a colostomy bag. Mmm, and I know it's not that yeah It's not that but but pretty close if you're dipping in something coming out of your stomach, I don't like it.

In a moment that seemed to epitomize his determination, in 2009, Schnatter bought back the same 1971 Camaro that he had sold all those years ago for his $1,600 in startup cash, this time for a quarter million dollars as he put a bounty out on it. The repurchase of the car symbolized both his financial success and his emotional attachment to the early days of Papa John's. The guy who gave Schnatter his car back had recently purchased it only five years prior for $4000. Wow, that's a great return. That's a great ROI Wow I mean, that's you think that was like his peewee Herman's bike Situation where he just was like I need to get that I gotta get it back. Just that thing. Yeah, I

Feel so happy for the guy for the guy for the $4,000. Yeah. Yeah, I mean Let's get him on the podcast What did he do with the money? 16 years ago. Wow. Do you still have it? Do you still have the money? No. He invested in Papa John's.

Oof. Oof. Not a good look. Apparently if you invested in like 2013, you would have like tripled your money over the next three years. That's yeah, that's pretty good. And then,

And then lost. And then in 2018, you would have lost it all. Wow. Yeah. On May 22nd, 2010, the first notable Bitcoin retail transaction involving physical goods was an exchange of 10000 mined BTC for two pizzas delivered from a Papa John's on Atlantic Boulevard in Jacksonville, Florida.

Some cryptocurrency users have celebrated May 22nd as Bitcoin Pizza Day using the current value of Bitcoin. This would be the equivalent of paying 870 million, 101,887 dollars and seven cents for two Papa John's pizzas. That hurts so bad. That just, I've seen this guy in interviews and stuff and he's, I feel so bad for this guy.

I would rather be the guy who simply forgot his hard drives password for the 7,000 Bitcoin. Oh my gosh. Rather than like knowing that I spent 10,000 Bitcoin for just two Papa John's pizza and like Papa John's pizza. Right yeah at least make a good, great pizza. Yeah. Or good at least. You can afford it.

Yeah. Well you could have. Could have. Poor guy. Yeah. Or good. You can afford it. Yeah. Well, you could have. Could have. Poor guy. Yeah. Okay. Now for the controversy. Papa John's reached a dramatic low in 2018 when Papa John himself, John Schnatter, was involved in a racism scandal.

During a conference call, Schnatter was complaining to his marketing firm about the backlash he was receiving for expressing his opinions about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem. He then said Colonel Sanders called blacks the N-word and Sanders never faced public backlash, except he actually said the thing. Right. Yeah. While he was no longer the CEO of the company at that point,

Papa John resigned from his position as chairman of the board of directors after the story broke. I've listened to the the board of directors after the story broke. I've listened to the tape of them talking on the board after he said that. So they're just like, we got it. We got just let this guy talk for an hour and he will just out himself in public. And it feels that way. Yeah. Yeah. Just let the guy talk. And because because also he's like Colonel Sanders called blacks the n-word. I'm like Did you see there's a video of him giving a tour of his mansion

No, you what's the creepiest thing and you? The kid the camera walks in opens the door and the first thing you see is this giant They he calls it a clock, but it's like two eagles that every 15 minutes it moves just a little bit. You can't even really tell the time. You just have to know where it was before it. Is it like a statue kind of? It's like a statue, yeah.

It's the creepiest thing to walk into. People who are too rich, it's like, what do I spend my money on? It's like, help the world. You know, you don't need these eagles to tell you the time. No, you don't. No one. You're not home enough.

Right. For this. A billionaire. Yeah. Yeah. In the aftermath, several major partnerships, including sponsorships with the NFL and other brands were severed, and Schnatter's public image took a severe hit.

Obviously. Yeah. I mean, deserved. Yeah, very deserved. Through lawsuits and stock purchases, Schnatter tried to scheme his way into having access to the company's internal books and records, and promised a day of reckoning for the new leadership in which the truth would come out.

The lawsuits were eventually settled after Papa John's was sold to the investment firm that turned Olive Garden's fortunes around. I didn't know Olive Garden needed a fortune to be what happened to Olive Garden. I mean, just business was dipping for a lot of chains throughout like the mid 2010s. That's I think when a big shift started to happen where they were selling to different hedge funds and investment firms and stuff like that. After the 2008 crash, I'm sure it affected a lot of them.

I'm sure it was kind of like a slow bleeding out process from there. And just people not having the same disposable income, they weren't going out to these places, nor was the quality of these places justifying it. Right. Yeah, so Papa John's was bought by. The Olive Garden?

I think it's called Starboard Value is the name of the company. Okay. But they ended up buying Darden, which owns Olive Garden and a couple other chains. And then he wasn't a part of it anymore at that point? No. Yeah.

But like, I saw some like weird quote that I was like, I feel like I'm reading this out of context of like one of the people who was working with Papa John's and in charge and opposing John Schnatter in the lawsuit was like, hopefully this will help us bring him back on board. Oh. But like, he never did. Yeah. And like quotes I found later from Schnatter did sound like they were still at odds.

So I don't know if it was an out of context quote. I'm not going to actually state that. I just saw something that felt like it was that. And I was like, I don't understand this. I know I watched an interview with him. He was on a podcast. And he was trying different pizzas. This was just in the last couple of years.

He was comparing pizzas. And I think it was Domino's was number one and he thought Papa John's was the second best. So he thought they changed the recipe. He's like, oh, the sauce tastes different. Was it a blind test? No, no, he just was tasting it. He was just being on it?

Yeah, being objective. Okay, I'll take it. In 2019, Schnatter made headlines once again with his infamous 40 pizzas in 30 days claim. You heard of this? I didn't hear of this now. In a sweaty, unhinged interview with Fox News, he declared that he had eaten 40 Papa John's pizzas in 30 days in an attempt to demonstrate his commitment to quality control and to prove that Papa John's had lost its way under the new leadership Now did they say what size the pieces were cuz they were like this

There's no I think I think he just straight-up or personal pizzas I think he just ordered a bunch of pizza. Well, that's crazy. That's crazy There's no way he ate that many full pizzas or he probably shared them with like his family or something Super size me situation, right? Worse. So much worse. Yeah. Oh, wow. The bizarre interview went viral and while it was an attempt to regain some of the spotlight, it only contributed to Schnatter's image as a controversial figure in the business world.

The statement became a meme and many began to question whether Papa John's could ever fully recover from his eccentric behavior. I still think about him. You do? Yeah. Like, yeah. To this day, the link is there. He is Papa John. He is Papa John. Whether or not he's still with the company, I'm gonna think about it. You could take the apostrophe away, but you can't take the John out of Papa John. It's like Subway and Jared. Right. He hasn't been a part of Subway in almost 10 years.

He has such a lasting impression on all of us who've watched him on TV. Yeah. Yeah. That will always be an association. And it is a black mark on Subway, much how Papa John's just unhingedness is just like, okay, that does reflect on Papa John's just unhingedness. It's just like, okay, that does reflect on Papa John's. Yeah. So also in 2019, Shaquille O'Neal became a member

of the board of directors as well as a brand spokesperson. The Chacaroni Pizza was then introduced, which was just an extra large pizza with extra pepperoni and extra cheese. So that's a great pizza right there. I mean, you know, if you're gonna make your own pizza. I don't know, I would want a unique assortment of toppings, not just, we made it bigger.

What do you think Shax should have been? I don't think Papa John's has like a bacon as one of their offerings. My go-to pizza from Domino's is a pepperoni bacon with garlic. Oh, wow. That's what I like. Yeah. That's how I get down with the Michael. Michael O'Neill.

Yeah. So with Shax, I don't know. And he also owns he's also on the board. Yes. Yeah. And lastly, in early twenty twenty five, Papa John's found the worst way to respond to a series of truly deranged social media posts from fans saying they want to bathe in the brand's garlic sauce. They announced they would be releasing a garlic bath bomb. One of the tweets they quoted speculated that it would cost $475 to fill a tub with Papa

John's garlic sauce. They forgot to calculate that it would also cost them their soul. But the bath bomb is supposedly only going to be given directly to superfans and not actually sold for retail. Yeah, I wonder. I'm so upset. Like if you who is a super fan of Papa John's? Like, you got to wonder about somebody like that, right? I mean, the people who are tweeting,

I wanna bathe in their garlic sauce. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, something going on there. They're still around and they are doing better these days. Yeah, that's true. They are on an incline right now. Right. So, but the garlic bomb itself is off white like garlic,

comes in a green cardboard box that just says, special garlic bath bomb. I wonder if there's any warnings on it. Like, can you eat the thing? Mm. Do you think they have to say don't eat this? I imagine there are some warnings. And that'll do it for this week's Eat Deets.

Nick, I hope you were listening to all of that and got some good advice on how to become a major player in the world of chain dining, because the next few minutes are all about you and your vision for a themed, casual restaurant dining experience of your very own. Should I start? Oh, I'm gonna. Oh, okay. We gotta do a theme song.

Oh, okay. What style should I do for a song? In the style of blank. How about Prince? Only want to see the restaurant that's in your dreams. I love that. Okay. Alright, now you continue with line two.

Do I have to do it as Prince? Yeah. Oh gosh. I should have changed it. You dug your own grave. Can I do it as Les Claypool? Yes, the Prince Les Claypool collab. The Prince Les Claypool collab that never happened.

Go for it. We'll put in some bass licks here. Alright. Alright, let me start. Yeah, you start and then We'll put in some bass licks here. All right. Um... All right, let me start. Yeah, you start and then I'll come in. I only want to hear about the restaurant of your dreams There you go! Restaurant of your dreams.

Coming up right on after... Nick's not very good at improvising. There you go. Papa John can suck it not to get extreme. This is the restaurant of your dreams. Man, I should have prepped for this. I'm just going to say sorry to James, my guy who composes under that. I love the idea of it though. Oh God.

All right. Well, Nick, the floor is yours. We get to hear all about a restaurant that you've designed. It must be practical, it must be delicious, it must be memorable. Does it have? Three, two, one, go. I do have visual aids.

This is actually, has been a dream of mine for a long time. Okay. I've always wanted to have a restaurant where you could get food from different ages, like different time periods. Oh. So normally you go somewhere and it's like, it's thematically like this is an Italian spa, this is like, you know, New California, New American, whatever. But you want to go try like real classic Italian. Real classic, yeah, from, you know, say like...

The Roman Empire. Roman Empire, yeah. Which famously was in which century? You know, all the good centuries. Yeah, yeah. So it's called Time, and as you can see by the visual here, it's like there's a portal with two arms that are-

You love portals and food. I do love portals, yeah. And then the hands are also like, it's like a clock. Yeah, yeah. Horrifying. Yeah. So you go to the restaurant and there's these holes in the wall, these portals in the wall. Ah, it's a hole in the wall spot. It's a hole in the wall spot. There you go. And you can, you give them your order, you throw it into the portal, and then, this is an image of what the arms look like.

Okay. And then... They just look like obsidian mannequin arms. I could see that, yeah. And these are entities from... Is that what they're called? Yeah, they're entities. And these actually, so the food actually comes from that time period.

So they have a chef in each time period. I have a follow-up question. How do the chefs in that time deal psychologically with being visited by a being from the future. Right. Telling them, you are a chef for us now. How voluntary is it? I mean, I think it's like a religious kind of thing for them.

They tie it into their religion. It's like a talking bush. Yeah, that kind of thing. And so you could get food from, you know, I'm thinking BC. You know, you want you want a brontosaurus meat. Like barbecue, like I have like a brontosaurus rib kind of situation. Honestly, though, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Would be a little big. You might wonder what the market price is. You want to go back to the 80s and get that Mr. T cereal? That there's all these cereals in the 80s that I feel like they probably couldn't make anymore because it was probably so bad for you that they put, like, stuff in it and put... But here, you're skirting regulations.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then, you know, go back to Marie Antoinette era, all those good pastries. Did you see the movie? The original Girl Dinner? Yeah. Yeah, right Just I love the idea of like these ingredients were you know pre-monsanto? It's I say it monsanto Oh, yeah, the yeah, just just a side. Yeah, just like the ingredients were fresher, you know

Yeah, and yeah, there's so you got these entities and that looks so horrifying. That literally looks like. Well, you don't actually see them. They put these gloves on. And then that's why their arms look that way. I'm gonna post this picture on my Instagram. It's gonna be on the YouTube version. But I am looking at something that if I saw in real life, I would cry, curl up into a ball.

Yeah. And it'd be over for me. But in this situation, you would pay for it, and it'd be over for me. You would pay for it. You'd pay money to experience it. Yes. There's a couple different breeds here. And that's the idea for the restaurant.

And now, practical, I'm not sure it's practical. What are the startup costs you require? Oh, it costs a lot of money. It's a lot. Papa John's money, you know Yeah, I like to think that you like to open a restaurant like this. You've gone beyond current You're not only opening a restaurant opening a portal. Yes opening portals. So That's my dream. That's my dream restaurant. I Also wanted to open up a Street Fighter

I also wanted to open up a Street Fighter restaurant where they fight as they deliver your food. They're like, honestly. And then it ends like when the round's over. If you can destroy this car in 40 seconds, you get a free dessert or whatever. Yeah, I love that. Free soft serve. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thanks for going over all of that with me, Nick. I now have a better insight into what you dream about. One more time, less claypool to my prints. I only want to see the restaurant that's in your dreams. All right, let's bring things back to reality and see what other people think of the Papa Johns that we went to in this week's Yelp from Strangers. We need a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers.

A one star, two star, three star, four or five, yeah. So get a little yelp, a little yelp, a little yelp from strangers. A little yelp, a little Yelp, a little Yelp from Strangers. A little Yelp, a little Yelp. Give us those complaints while you literally whine and die. Yelp! This is Yelp from Strangers, our segment where we turn to Yelp and read out our favorite. One, two, three, four, and five star Yelp reviews of the very restaurant that we dined.

Nick, do you mind if I start us off with the first one? Start us off, bad boy. Two star review. This is a two star review from Trea C of Lake Wales, Florida written November 6th, 2011. I love Papa John's and it is my preferred pizza. This is how we're starting a two-star review. Has been for years.

This place is certainly not the best I've experienced though. It is just okay. And it seems like several pizzas I got from here were a little overcooked. I also barfed a lot one night after eating pizza from here, but I'm pretty sure it was the garlic sauce that did it. Beware of that stuff. Maybe it went bad, but I won't eat that anymore. You got to wonder if they were just that they were just eating it without even

dipping. They were just drinking shots of the sauce. Oh, that sounds so, that sounds like it's a user error. That's the type of person who's also looking to bathe in the garlic sauce. If you're doing shots of it. I consider this place decent, which would get three stars from me normally, but since you is made me puke, you only get two. Poor Papa John's. Making people barf.

I also love puke and barf for the terms that he, not throw up, not vomit. He goes for like the more colorful terms. Very colorful. Yeah. Very 80s. Three star review. All right, so this is a three star review.

Okay. Okay, this is from Elvin J of Glendale, California. That's my neighbor town. I have a love hate relationship with this pizza joint. So maybe he's from the East Coast originally. We call it a pizza joint. Love the crust and gooey cheese, but I feel skimped on the toppings every time.

Last time I ordered a pizza with bacon, jalapeno, onions, tomatoes, and chicken, I counted one jalapeno and a quarter of pizza and chicken. Though... What does that mean? A quarter of pizza and chicken? I think they meant like of the full circle. They only put it in one quadrant? Yeah, interesting.

They just kinda, yeah. Though they did overload it with onions. It's good to, maybe they were out of chicken. Maybe. Yeah. But even then. But they should have spread it around. Yeah, don't concentrate it.

Yeah. It's good to know that Papa John's is there to cock block me and deter any women getting 10 yards near me because of the onions. Because of the onions. Yeah. The time before that, you're learning a lot about this guy.

The time before that, my pizza was just as I expected it, mediocre with extra cheese. That's an order. Can I get my mediocre with extra cheese? No matter, this place is still way better than Pizza Hut, other food joints, not and. I will still order and- Which, yeah, according to the staff, not the case.

Not the case. Not the case. I will still order and play Russian roulette on whether my pizza will come out right. You could play regular roulette. Yeah. You don't have to try and kill yourself every time you're getting Papa John's. Also, there is something about people who write Yelp reviews.

It takes it's just like it takes a special person. Yeah. To write a Yelp review, good or bad. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're like, you know, the restaurant personally or something. Right. Yeah. Well, that's what he wasn't barfing. Did you enjoy those two Yelp reviews? You can get three more over at my Patreon. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. And for just five bucks a month,

you can get the extended Yelp from Strangers segment, as well as an exclusive restaurant that I cover each and every month, dropping on the last day of the month. Uh, in January I covered Dan's hamburgers, which is literally my favorite burger in the world. It's this little diner in Austin, Texas, and you get to hear me gush about it. February, I covered Jersey Mike's a sandwich place that I didn't have a lot of respect for going in and they have made me respect them.

I actually think Jersey Mike's is very good now. And for March, I covered Blaze Pizza, which if you've never had, is one of those assembly line style pizza places with a wood fired oven in back. It's actually very good. So you can find all of that at my Patreon and more. Hope to see you there. Thank you. All right, that's part one.

Tune in next week as we review Papa John's. I was absolutely dreading this as it's my least favorite chain pizza place on the market, but I am going to absolutely be rating it objectively. So we'll have to see if it exceeded my very low expectations. That's next week. We'll go into everything that was good about it, not good about it,

and all of the other things that were just there. Until then, Nick, where can people find more of you online? Just check me out on Instagram at DJRealSmells. So you go by DJReal? Yeah, it's, I've been DJReal for a long time, but it's so hard to find me online because there's a lot of DJ Reels. And I think I was maybe the first one,

but over the years, there's a lot of DJ Reels. So I've just been going by Nick Stargew recently. Well, let me tell you, the moment I saw your Instagram handle for the first time, I thought you went by DJ Real Smells. Yeah, that's confusing. And I was like, that's so fun. If you consider to pivot

into just being DJ Real Smells, as opposed to those fake smells. It started off, I was DJ Real Stupid. That was the first iteration. And then I just became DJ Real. And, but yeah, check it out. DJRealSmells.com also. Check that out.

DJRealSmells.com. And you can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and Blue Sky, all at Fine Dining Podcast, or in the case of Blue Sky, at fine dining podcast.bsky.social. I also have a Discord and I have a Patreon. So if you want exclusive episodes every single month, go check those out.

I dropped them on the last day of the month, and then you also get the full Yelp from Stranger segment. You get to hear all five reviews as opposed to just two for free. And then, yeah, on the discord, we're just, we're just having some fun conversations, we're sharing pictures of food, fun restaurant stories, fun Yelp reviews we come across. It's a blast. Come join us if you want to talk about food, about the podcast, about the world,

about whatever we'd love to have you. In the podcast, about the world, about whatever. We'd love to have you. In the meantime, we're just going to be sitting here waiting on our table. We will be back next week with our review. Have a fine day. Waiting on our table, waiting on our table The step is done and we had some fun Now we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table Join us next time, we're stuck in line Waiting on our table, waiting on our table We're so hungry, tummy's grumbling Waiting on our table, waiting on our table

We gotta continue our search for mediocrity Yeah Waiting on our table, waiting on our table We'll be waiting and dissipating Waiting on our table, waiting on our table We're swimming in this week or digging in Cause we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table We've got an appetite, but just sit tight Cause we're waiting on our table, waiting on our table Search will continue when we see you next week

He-he-he-he Brother, we'll never know Waiting on our table, waiting on our table Waiting on our table, waiting on our table Waiting on our table, waiting on our table Waiting on our table Waiting on our table Waiting on our table

Waiting on our table Waiting on our table, waiting on our table, waiting on our table, waiting on our table, waiting on our table