I wrote here and here about my woes with the Fry Road Papa John’s franchise in Katy, Texas. I wrote about how afeter months of ignoring the situation, I receive, ostensibly from the chain owner, a coupon good for a free large two-topping pizza. Well last night I was out of time. I wanted to watch the basketball game and I hadn’t prepared a meal. The kids were agitating and free is free. So I call up the local pie shop. I explain that I would like to order my free pizza. “You have a buyone get one free coupon?” “No, I have a buy nothing get this pizza free card.” “Hold on.” Shouting in background along the lines of “huh? can we do that, just do it, have the driver get the coupon, blaa, blah” He comes back and asks if I would like anything else. I say sure and ask to hear the specials.  I order one of the large specials.  He asks how I will be paying and I say by Amex. I give him my number and expiration date. He then asks for the 3 digit code on the back. I explain how there is no 3 digit doce on the back of an Amex. “Yes there is, sir. Just turn your card over and it’s the last three…” “Look, it’s an Amex card, there are no security numbers on the back. On an Amex, it’s a 4 digit number on the front; do you want it?” More yelling and screaming in the back and then “yea, I’ll take the 4 digit number from the front.” “Your total is blah, blah, blah.” And I ask how he gets to that number. “O,h I only know how to do one special per order.” “So why did you offer me additional specials?” About that time the manager grabs the phone and tells me that the “rule” is one special per order. I ask if that meant just one pizza or one of a category… Cause I’m pretty sure that I could order multiples of the night’s specials without a problem. Well, yes, you could, but we don’t know how to do more than one different special. “This is ridiculous.” “Would you like me to cancel your order?” At this point, I should have taught him how to process two separate transactions, but instead I just said “Yeah, cancel it all.”

I wound up ordering from a different pizza place.  But you know what? A Pap John’s driver showed up about 40 minutes later with my order! He was greeted with a smile, but I explained to the driver that his manager had nuked this order and that I was giving him a couple of bucks, not for pizza delivery, but to make sure that my credit card was not charged. And then I explained to him that it was his manager who was wasting time, resources, and food… simply because their franchise could not get their shit together. He indicated that they do suck pretty bad. My last comment was “no kidding?!”