04-05-2006, 03:48 AM
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#9 (permalink)
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Junkie
Moderator Emeritus
Location: Chicago
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Papa John's adds $1 fee for delivery
Quote:
Pizza maker cites labor, gasoline costs
By David Goetz
Papa John's company-owned stores are hitting customers with a $1 fee for pizza deliveries, following the lead of Domino's and Pizza Hut. The company blamed the $1 surcharge on rising costs, especially for gasoline and labor. The extra buck for deliveries took effect Monday.
"We're kind of third to the market with delivery fees," said Papa John's spokesman Chris Sternberg. "We've tried to hold off putting a delivery fee in place for as long as we can, but for us to continue to give our customers a quality pizza at a competitive price, a delivery fee has become necessary."
Some Louisville-area Domino's stores have had fees for at least a year and Pizza Hut restaurants for about three years. Both charge $1 per delivery.
"We went to a delivery charge when gas prices escalated last year," and the majority of the 41 Domino's stores in the Louisville market have such charges, said Greg Neichter, president of Central Missouri Pizza Inc., a franchisee with 15 Domino's outlets in Louisville.
"Delivery fees are common now both among franchisees and in corporate restaurants" in Louisville and elsewhere, said Pizza Hut spokeswoman Patty Sullivan.
The fee applies to 430 company-owned Papa John's stores across the country, Sternberg said. About 40 company stores already have been charging for delivery, mostly in markets where Papa John's franchisees had initiated the charge. The company owns 568 U.S. restaurants.
About 60 percent of franchised Papa John's stores charge for delivery, some 1,200 of the nearly 2,000 franchised domestic Papa John's outlets, Sternberg said. Some have had charges for three years.
None of the charge will go directly to pizza delivery drivers, whose pay is hourly and per delivery.
"In many of our restaurants we've already increased driver pay and the delivery amount that we pay them over the last 12 to 18 months to retain drivers," Sternberg said. "We've already borne the cost of part of what the delivery fee will offset now."
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this article was from may of 2005... the charge is on a franchise basis... and none of the charges go directly to the delivery dude... tip the dude..
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