Papa John’s Will Now Let You Pay $2.99 To Skip The Line…Is It Worth It? Maybe Not


Papa John’s is piloting a new program that I’m calling a cross between a self-imposed fat tax and priority boarding on an airline. ‘Papa Priority’ will allow you to pay a fee of $2.99 to skip the line and have your pizza prepared next.

It works like this: if there are 15 pizzas being made and prepared to send out for delivery your pizza will then go from #15 to #1 if you spend the $2.99.

BUT, and this is a major wrench in the gears, the $2.99 doesn’t actually guarantee you delivery time within any specified window. So, in theory, you could spend the $2.99 to skip the line and have your pizza made first but then that pizza could just sit there in the box while the 15th pizza in line gets made because your neighbor’s the one who ordered it and Papa John’s is trying to consolidate deliveries. The way I see it, there are possibilities here that end with the customer spending $2.99 for stale pizza.

The ‘Papa Priority’ option is limited to 5 pizzas per night. So if you’re planning on ordering 10+ pizzas for March Madness you’re shit out of luck.

Papa John’s has reportedly been testing this option for months and will soon roll it out to everyone. I’d expect that customers who are getting skipped in line would be pretty pissed about this feature but representatives for Papa John’s told USA Today that the Papa Priority option has been met with ‘great customer reception’.