Papa John’s

With nearly 5000 restaurants, including locations in all 50 states in the U.S. and in 37 other countries and territories, Papa John’s is the third largest take-out and pizza delivery chain restaurant in the world. Their quality control is legendary in the industry. They were also the first national pizza chain to introduce online ordering, inspiring their competitors to follow suit. As a digital innovator, Papa John’s is supremely interested in ensuring their online ordering process is a strategic focus.

Papa John’s chose Happy Cog to evolve the UX for their ordering process, including making the entire experience responsive. At the center of our work was a dynamic “pizza builder” component that visualized a fully-customized pizza in real time through use of animation. Technologically, it was a painstaking and ambitious task to create a system by which myriad pizza combinations could be assembled (with ingredients floating down from the sky and landing on a pizza) to ultimately resemble a real Papa John’s pizza.

Happy Cog’s flexible and extensible system also needed to accommodate varying menus and marketing campaigns across regions, countries, and continents. As such, the work was modularized to facilitate rollout, all while adhering to stringent performance standards through the establishment of a strict performance budget. Every second counts when it comes to e-commerce.