8 Papa Johns Items You Should Avoid Ordering, According To Reviews

In theory, pizza should be a money-printing machine for delivery giants like Papa Johns. The joint is a household name, hawking pies that fill our bellies when we don't feel like dirtying the kitchen. However, profits across North-American units have plummeted this year — they are down 3% from the usual turnout, according to Restaurant Business. Leaning into novelty promos, like the Shaq Pizza collab or Papa Dippa (featuring a four-piece sauce flight) would be a good strategy to draw customers back from the fence. However, that's a tall order when many customers are being let down by the menu — again and again. 

We wanted to round up the most prominent duds diners should avoid, and Papa Johns has many. Static Media's taste-tested a couple of the following offenders below. Additionally, we decided to expand our findings to the digital sphere. Sure enough, TikTok videos, Reddit threads, and YouTube reels essentially delved into these same issues verbatim. You might consider chain pizza to be a "bargain" meal of sorts and should be let off the hook for atrocious quality, but that isn't the case. Papa Johns specializes in dough, but as you'll see, no offering was off the table for critique. 

With the Boneless Wings, the general consensus among regulars is pretty bad. As the name suggests, these are breaded wings minus the bones, which the chain tosses in your choice of glaze, including BBQ and Honey Chipotle. Few people seem to have anything nice to say about them, describing grossly mushy coating containing chicken that's low-grade, dry, and mealy. It's also not a coincidence how many compare them to frozen chicken nugget brands (and the worst-ranked ones, at that) you'd find at the supermarket. 

Being glorified chicken nuggets is one problem, but the pizza spot gives plenty of other reasons to avoid the dish. Sizing varies, for one, with reports of morsels that are pitifully small for the price-point. Diners say the chicken barely arrives with much of the sauce, and in some cases, a wing doesn't contain any meat at all — only breading. Complaints also touch on Papa Johns' choice to bake them, arguing that frying achieves a tastier end product. 

For reference, these were a replacement for the franchise's Chicken Poppers (back in 2023), which customers remember fondly. If you're in this boat, we'd save our dollars and cook up nuggets at home instead; these days air fryers gets food so crispy, it beats a hum-drum restaurant's wings easily. 

Without pepperoni pizza, birthday parties and sleepovers wouldn't be quite as fun (or friendly on the wallet) — but when you have a restaurant known for pizza and they fumble the flavor? That's a very bad sign. Papa Johns' ranked dead last in a sampling from Tasting Table, and sure enough, there's plenty of standing for why it's so unpopular (compared to other brands, that is). 

The mozzarella cheese is plastic-y and artificial, while the dough is a huge downgrade, both cardboard-y or nearly raw with no in-between. The pepperoni is also borderline inedible, to some. If you get a particularly mediocre pie, you'll find the toppings scarce, or dispersed so sloppily it ruins the experience. One Facebook comment called it "cardboard with cheese and pepperoni on it!" Reddit users commiserated over its obvious decline: "It tastes like a cheap frozen pizza," another person wrote. 

Numerous complaints cite how changes behind-the-scenes might explain the low quality. Per employees, it's common for kitchens to churn out a bunch of pizzas in advance with dough pressers in lieu of human hands. As a result, pounding out the dough with this gadget could be overworking it, causing the brittle byproduct panned by many of its critics today. When the best pizza for pepperoni lovers comes from the freezer, rejecting takeout of this nature becomes a duty. 

Breadsticks are a classic accompaniment, even if you really don't need more carbs to go with your stuffed pie. Just dunk them into the marinara to see what we mean. Papa Johns carries them in two styles, Garlic Parmesan and Original, but from the wide array of evidence, it's better to avoid the latter on your pizza run. Customers dislike how basic the taste is, with the rough, mouth-scratching finish essentially an exercise in pain tolerance. 

This leads us to another strike against the breadsticks: its presentation (or lack thereof) — they're never rolled out to a uniform size. Quite a few people remarked on their strange appearance, as the slabs appear bulbous, oblong, or skinny as baseball bats. Lambasting the bread sticks is a beloved pastime on Reddit. One post compared them to potatoes, and the replies only kept the jokes coming. "Those look awful," one commenter said. "They look like my dog chew treats." 

Looking like a cross between root vegetables and cavemen clubs does not fare well for this lackluster side dish. Plus, the cook time is all over the place. When you can't guarantee that they're edible (whether under-baked or totally burnt), not buying them is for the best. 

Ordering pizza like a New Yorker has become easier if — like many folks — you don't have the pleasure of calling the Big Apple home. The New York Style Crust dropped in 2021, was Papa Johns' way of channeling the signature crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside feeling. However, connoisseurs aren't buying it. From the complaints, you're not getting as much dough as you would receive ordering the standard crust. Speculation on Reddit suggests that if one was to order an Extra-Large pie, for example, staff would roll out a dough ball intended for large pizzas. The slices might be wider, but it's all an illusion: they're not as hefty, so patrons tend to be left craving more. 

Delving into authenticity is kind of a losing battle with chains, since they're never supposed to be better than the real deal. However, the takeout chain doesn't get it right on those merits, either. Aside from the thinness, most customers disagreed that it tasted anything close to the regional style. It's a flatter (and sadder) version of Papa John's standard dough, which we already know falls below the threshold. Some folks don't mind it, but in terms of a good value, those with a ravenous appetite won't be very happy with this uninspired imitation. Wrote one person on Facebook, "Papa John's "NY style" pizza would make any and all New Yorkers laugh."

If the Boneless Wings were an unlucky fluke, the traditional variety appear to be equally repulsive as well. We can't think of another offering that elicits this much disgust. Sure, some employees ate them on the job — but given the choice, most would rather eat their own shoes than yucky chicken coated in a gummy skin (which, by the way, isn't crispy at all). This is because Papa Johns oven-bakes its appetizer, which we know never gets as piping-hot and crunchy as anything fried in oil. What you're left with instead is a gushy, gelatinous consistency that sloughs right off the bone. 

Additionally, customers give major side-eye to the portions. Those who report ordering the wings find them on the puny side, and that's saying a lot since the regular wings aren't huge by any means. Wrote one Redditor online, "They look like they belong on a sparrow." Assuming the pizza purveyor can deliver any improvements, installing a deep-fryer would go a long way. As it stands, though, Papa Johns makes some of the worst fast food wings of all time. Bringing back the Chicken Poppers might be necessary — fiery Buffalo sauce, it turns out, can only mask so much.

Whether from the sauce or extra moisture in the toppings, sogginess is an occupational hazard pizza shops must deal with, especially during the transport phase. Papa Johns does deserve credit here, because in this case, diners can request a "well-done" pizza to get a browner bake than what they typically are advertised as. There's no telling how dough-slingers behind the counter will treat it, however. You could get it lightly charred — maybe. Or, the pie will be singed, scorched-earth style, and that junky delicacy will be thrown to the dogs (never mind the trash if it's really awful). 

Obviously, burnt pizza is an unwelcome surprise nobody wants dumped on their doorstep. Hearing from employees, well-done pizzas also seem to be a racket — baking a pizza already takes time. When they're juggling other tasks on a hectic Saturday night, toasting the crust a little longer could instantly segue into blackened despair when one's not careful. "Looks like they cooked it in a volcano," one commenter remarked on Facebook.

Proving that an additional blitz in the oven could wreck your delivery order, taking the risk is a bit of a dice-roll. How much charring could you tolerate? True, some gripe that there's zero color at all, but if you'd like to prevent complete pandemonium, here's a fix: heat the pie in your own oven when you get home. 

Listen, Papa Johns — we have to talk about your red sauce. It's too sugary for your customers, perhaps even to qualify as the savory foundation to the Italian-American staple we know and devour. The sweetness is noticeable from the first mouthful, and patrons find it alarmingly similar to ketchup (or, worse: fixings on an ice cream sundae. "Your red sauce shouldn't taste like it's a few tablespoons of sugar away from being a dessert topping," a commenter complained on Reddit. We can assure you, nothing candy-like ever belongs in the same breath as pizza — not now, not ever. 

There's more than the saccharinity that drives this sauce off a cliff. Other customers, many of whom expressed sadness at the company's plummeting quality, also bashed the consistency. It's quite liquid-y, when it once boasted a thicker character capable of sticking to the crust. Via internet speculation, it's possible a switch over to bagged sauce (from cans) could have factored into why it's so diluted, although admittedly, people assert that the chain's sauce source hadn't changed in any way. 

Regardless, the act of pizza-eating is now much more fraught if you have a habit of spilling — or a weak sweet tooth. By passing on the tomato sauce, what options, exactly, does that leave you with at Papa Johns? While a subjective matter, some champion the Alfredo sauce, praising the profile as a better substitute to the rouge stuff. 

Carryout pizza shops always stock these delectable side-nibbles that, now and then, outshine the slices altogether. There's a common impulse to tack Garlic Knots onto a Papa Johns pizza, but you'd be remiss to ignore why some people skip them. To sum up, what you see in the product images is not always what you get, and it's disappointing to witness. 

From its website, each order is supposed to be doused in a garlic and Parmesan spice blend, but numerous people report getting bare twists. "More like Garlic Nots," quipped one Redditor on the undressed dough. In some instances, the topping ends up splattered in the cardboard container, which is a huge waste. Papa Johns skimping on that salty goodness is a crime, but to make matters worse, it might skimp on the order-count, too. Despite advertising eight knots apiece, there's been reports of receiving less than the quantified amount. 

The Garlic Knots, truth be told, actually enjoy a bit of a following. They aren't exactly in the universally-deplored category, as the wings are. Because there's testimony that doesn't match up to these hyped expectations, the rude awakening would be worse than not ordering them in the first place. 

To hash out the Papa Johns menu items worth avoiding, our sources needed to reflect a consensus. Food influencers on social media — as well as regular joes on Facebook and Reddit — assisted this effort, and reviews needed to be recent (within the last year, max). We factored in product quality and value, with the most egregious culprits earning a spot on our list. 

The takeaway couldn't come from a single TikTok video or YouTube comment, either; the faults focused on had to appear at a rate we couldn't ignore. Our intent wasn't to offend prospective customers who liked these items. If anything, we hope it comes in handy when dining out — people want to eat dinner, not the cost of a bad meal.