When you walk into a Papa John’s, you usually aren’t there to enjoy a meal. It’s more likely you’re going in to pick up your pizza and go home. It’s designed to push you out, and when the fluorescent lights hit your eyes, it’s obvious that this isn’t where you want to take a seat (there aren’t any anyway). Nothing is inviting you in. Papa John’s removed all tables and even removed the wall of pizza boxes.

So instead of a welcoming environment, you’re greeted by a counter for takeout. An employee will stand behind the counter waiting for you, the kitchen behind them exposed. The kitchen is centered around getting food to the customers as fast as possible through the takeout counter. When I’m in a Papa John’s waiting for my order, all of the customers in there are strangers and don’t interact. This makes it quite quiet, with the occasional beep from the oven or chatter among the workers. In fact, many of the customers don’t even stay in the building to wait for their food, as many will just wait in their cars on their phones. This means there is little interaction between everyone. This leads to my conclusion that the space was designed for one thing: to get your pizza and to get out.

A quick one-minute drive down the road gets you to Carrollton’s one and only American Pie Pizzeria. This might be in the same business of selling pizza, but it sure does deliver it differently. Yeah, Papa John’s has the typical school lights, but American Pie has more of a “millennial burger joint” type thing going on with the warm lighting and all of the wall art and wood. This is a much better place to enjoy a piece of pie, and it’s way more comfortable. The tables are arranged for sitting (crazy), and there is plenty of space to interact and have fun. There are TVs, an arcade area, candy machines, and a large party room. The walls also have tons of community sports flags, and there’s lots of memorabilia and stuff hanging from the roof. This is begging you to stay and buy some pizza while you’re at it, with money…

All of these things that make the room so comfortable definitely affect how people act. Instead of just standing for their food or sitting in their cars on their phones, it’s families talking and eating and friends interacting. During the lunch hours, you can eat at their buffet, which gives you another reason to stay and interact with other people. You can hear the conversations, the music, the kitchen staff, the employees taking their orders, and it’s a much more lively atmosphere. Even though there’s always an option for pickup, it’s not the main option.

Papa John’s isn’t bad in the sense that it does its job well; it gets people their pizza so they can eat it at home. While both Papa John’s and American Pie share the same purpose of serving pizza to their customers, Papa John’s relies on its takeout-centered approach to encourage people to just eat at home (a common theme for fast food restaurants), whereas American Pie relies on a more open space and tables to create a community-centered atmosphere (a common theme for local restaurants). This shows that American Pie isn’t necessarily better at being a pizza place than Papa John’s; they just have different goals.