Papa John's Wants You to Tip on Top of the Delivery Fee — and People Are Furious
Papa John's is getting roasted — and not in an oven.
A TikTok video showing a pizza box stamped with "DELIVERY FEE IS NOT A TIP. Please reward your driver for outstanding service" has gone viral, racking up 245,000 likes and 4,300 comments, most of them not printable in polite company.
The timing couldn't be worse. Papa John's is already deep in a turnaround effort, with plans to shutter 300 locations by the end of 2027 and cut its corporate headcount by 7%. Alienating your remaining customers with guilt-trip pizza packaging is a bold strategy.
It's also not a new one. In 2023, DoorDash sparked its own backlash with a prompt warning customers that orders with no tip "might take longer to get delivered." The message was clear: pay up or wait.
But consumers are increasingly fed up. A Pew Research survey of 12,000 adults found that 72% of Americans feel they're being asked to tip in more places than five years ago. And 41% told Bankrate that tipping has gotten "out of control."
Papa John's didn't respond to requests for comment. The pizza, presumably, got cold anyway.