Carney Still Wants A Slice Of The Pie

Nearly 40 years ago, Frank Carney and his brother Dan borrowed $600 from their mother to open a pizza place that in time would become the world’s largest pizza chain.

The first store was in this south-central Kansas town, but their red-roofed pizza parlors known as Pizza Huts were all over the world by the time they sold the chain to Pepsico Inc. in 1977.

Twenty years later, Carney, 58, is back in the pizza business. But this time there’s only one kind of crust, the sauce is just a little sweeter and the business - Papa John’s International Inc. - is in competition with the chain he started at 20.

After helping develop Pizza Hut’s deep-dish crust, Carney left Pizza Hut in 1980 and invested in several businesses. Two years ago, a friend asked him to take a look at Papa John’s.

“I’d been asked 20 or 30 times to get into pizza deals, but I didn’t have the stomach for it,” he said.

Then he tried a bite of Papa John’s in Memphis, Tenn. He liked it - a handtossed crust that tastes like “the best breadstick you ever ate,” he said, and a sauce made from fresh tomatoes.

“The place was clean, the people were doing a great job,” he said.

The story of Papa John’s is similar to Pizza Hut’s. Carney had eaten pizza only once when the landlady for his family’s grocery told him she had read an article that predicted pizza would be the next big food.

His brother had tried it a few other times while traveling with the Air Force. Another friend at McConnell Air Force Base said he had a recipe and needed a part-time job. Pizza Hut was born as a way to earn a little extra money.

Papa John’s started with John Schnatter, 34, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, which now has about 1,100 stores, most of them franchises, in about 25 states. Schnatter’s father asked him to help out with the family tavern in Jeffersonville, Ind. Schnatter agreed, but only if he could set up a pizza oven in the broom closet.

“The pizza sold better than the liquor,” Carney said, and Schnatter opened a store down the street.

At Papa John’s Carney will be experiencing the pizza business from the franchiser’s point of view.

“I’m in there, battling for territory,” he said. He and his partners have 24 franchise stores in Houston and are opening about one store per month there. They expect to open a total of 62 in the area.

A second partnership has plans to develop 35 stores in Kansas and Missouri. Four are open in the Kansas City area, while Lawrence and Topeka each have one.

Carney was involved in more than two dozen business ventures - most of which he has sold - when he decided to try Papa John’s. He says he could survive financially with just the Houston stores, but he says he plans to take Papa John’s as far as he can.

“I’m going to work somewhere,” he said. “I wasn’t satisfied with where I was financially.”

Carney says no clause in his contract with Pizza Hut prevented him from working in a competing pizza business.

His most recent market venture is where he first introduced his first pizza to the world, Wichita. Carney, his wife and their two youngest children, 19 and 21, and a family friend have plans to open eight Papa John’s restaurants in the next three years in Wichita.

Papa John’s restaurants, decorated in red, white and green with neon signs and colorful awnings, are designed for carry-out and delivery. The company focuses on the quality of the product, Carney said, rather than variety.

Bob Jordan, executive editor of the trade magazine Pizza Today, said Papa John’s stores thrive by keeping things simple and not requiring a lot of money to start.

“They are one of the fastest-growing companies out there,” he said.

Pizza Hut still has eight stores to every Papa John’s pizzeria. But now Papa John’s has Carney, who spends some Friday nights working the ovens.

He makes it clear that challenge of building a company is what finally brought him back to his roots.

“I had so much fun when we were building Pizza Hut,” he said. “I’m back having fun again.”