According to a news report from cnn.com, “Sometimes during peak hours, the phones are silent in Andy Freitas’ pizza restaurants, yet the cooks are busy keeping pace with hungry customers. That’s because orders are rolling in through the Internet.”
“It’s pretty amazing not to hear a phone ring on a busy night,” said Freitas, an operating partner with the largest Papa John’s franchisee in the Washington, D.C., market,” said the story. “In the past seven years, Louisville-based Papa John’s International Inc. has made a lot of dough from online ordering — more than $1 billion to be exact. The nation’s third-largest pizza delivery chain trumpeted the $1 billion milestone Wednesday, noting that its U.S. online sales have been growing at an average clip of more than 50 percent per year. In 2001, the chain’s online sales totaled $20.4 million. Last year, its online sales approached $400 million. “It took us seven years to reach our first billion in online sales, and at our current pace and growth rate it will take us less than three years to hit our next billion,” said Jim Ensign, vice president of marketing communications at Papa John’s.”
