Papa Johns Thinks the Next Great Pizza Topping Is Software

Quick-service restaurants operate in a tough environment. Margins are tight, labor is scarce, and customer expectations continue to rise. For large brands, technology and digital capabilities increasingly shape how they can compete and grow.

“I think data is probably our greatest resource next to our people,” Kevin Vasconi, chief digital and technology officer at Papa Johns, told PYMNTS during a discussion with Savneet Singh, CEO of PAR Technology.

But gathering data alone does not solve operational challenges. The real opportunity comes from connecting it.

“Connected data is what gives you insights versus noise,” said PAR’s Singh. “You might say sales went up, but if your margins went negative, that’s not good for operators or owners. Connected data gives you the narrative behind what’s actually happening so you can take action.”

That reality is driving a major digital transformation at Papa Johns. The company recently partnered with PAR Technology to replace its legacy core point-of-sale infrastructure and build a more connected data platform across its stores.

Turning Data Into Decisions

Quick-service restaurants, especially those with national and multinational operations, can generate enormous amounts of information. Orders, labor schedules, inventory levels, delivery data and customer behavior all create streams of data every single day.

“We’ve been collecting consumer data for 30 years. The foundation for solving almost any problem starts with the data,” Vasconi said.

The goal of every transformation, however, is not to overwhelm with information. Instead, the system should deliver decision-ready data to the people who need it.

“We’re trying to make sure we utilize decision-quality data, not rough data or unenhanced data. And we want to get the right amount of data to the right person,” Vasconi said. “Sometimes that experience is for the consumer. Sometimes it’s for the team member.”

“We asked our operators very early on, what does the next generation point-of-sale system need to do?” he added. “We got exhaustive requirements from them.”

After all, for restaurant operators, the POS system sits at the heart of daily operations. It processes orders, manages payments, connects to inventory, and links to delivery systems. Replacing it is one of the most complex technology decisions a restaurant brand can make.

Or at least it used to be, before the advent of artificial intelligence.

AI Supercharges Decisioning

Inside technology organizations, AI is already transforming how software is built with development productivity increasing significantly as AI tools assist engineers with coding and testing. But the bigger opportunity may lie in customer experiences.

Papa Johns is experimenting with AI-powered ordering systems that allow customers to interact naturally with a digital agent, and recently built a multimodal ordering agent with Google that can guide customers through placing an order by answering questions, adjusting pacing, and helping customers solve common problems such as estimating how much pizza to order for a group.

“It’s one of the better pizza ordering experiences I’ve ever seen,” Vasconi said. “It asks the questions a good store operator would ask like, ‘How many people are there? Are they young people or older people? Do they have food allergies?’”

“It takes stress out of the situation and yields a much better order,” he explained.

And, in the future, agent-based ordering could also reshape how restaurants interact with customers. Over the past decade, many restaurants have relied heavily on third-party delivery platforms. While those services expand reach, they also create distance between restaurants and their customers. AI agents may help rebuild those direct relationships.

“In an agent ordering world, you’re going to be ordering from your TV, from your car, from your phone,” Singh said, noting that those orders can connect directly to the restaurant instead of passing through third-party marketplaces.

“That means the restaurant has the data, understands the customer’s preferences, and doesn’t pay a toll to another platform,” he said.

Human Success Factor

At the center of the Papa Johns transformation is a new point-of-sale platform built with PAR Technology, where the success will be judged less by vision than execution.

Vasconi said Papa Johns is tracking a wide scorecard that includes labor management, food management, uptime, response time, customer satisfaction, franchisee satisfaction, and store-level adoption. He also pointed to an operational metric with outsized importance in quick service: training time.

“How fast we can get them trained and up to speed on the technology is a huge benefit as an operator,” Vasconi said.

After all, when operators do not understand why a change is happening to such a critical system, resistance can quickly follow. Technology upgrades often fail when companies treat them as isolated fixes rather than part of a broader strategy.

“We’re talking about ripping the core of our technology architecture out and replacing the point of sale system,” Vasconi said. “That’s not a decision we went into lightly.”

“If you haven’t brought the front lines along for the journey, there’s a lot of friction,” Singh said. “They don’t understand the why. They may not see the return on investment immediately.”

One key step involved bringing franchisees into the process from the start. Papa John’s operates thousands of franchised locations, and their support was critical.

“At the end of the day, the people using the technology in the store need to feel like they got a better system,” Vasconi said.