Papa Johns has decided that its best route forward is a turnaround rather than a sale.
Following an 18-month strategic review that considered a potential sale, the pizza chain has opted to press ahead with its turnaround strategy. The company is also reportedly suspending its quarterly dividend, freeing up capital for investments including marketing, technology, franchisee support and restaurant operations.
The decision comes at a challenging time for the chain. North America comparable sales fell 8.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2026, with CEO Todd Penegor[JW1] pointing to a softer consumer environment, lower order volumes and a highly promotional quick-service restaurant market.
As Papa Johns doubles down on its turnaround, YouGov BrandIndex data provides a snapshot of how consumers currently rate the brand against its competitors.
Papa Johns trails the big five pizza brand benchmark – but some gaps are much smaller than others
Across five BrandIndex health metrics, Papa Johns currently scores below the average for the U.S. top five pizza chains. The narrowest gap is on Quality. Papa Johns records a score of 12.8, just 0.7 points behind the category benchmark of 13.5.
There is somewhat more ground to cover on Recommend, where Papa Johns scores 10.6 against 14.5 for the top five, and Satisfaction, at 12.6 compared with 16.6.
Impression shows a similar difference, with Papa Johns registering 15.1 compared with the category average of 19.4.
The largest deficit is on Value. Papa Johns scores 8.4 on this measure, 5.6 points behind the top five average of 14.0.
Papa Johns brand health has improved over the past year, but it has some way to go
The picture is somewhat encouraging when looking at how Papa Johns’ overall Index score has moved over the past year. YouGov BrandIndex’s Index score is a measure of overall brand health, calculated as the average of six metrics: Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Reputation and Recommend.
Using a 12-week moving average, Papa Johns’ Index score rose from 5.5 on August 27, 2025 to 10.4 on August 25, 2026 – an increase of 4.9 points.
The top five average also strengthened over the same period, rising from 8.6 to 13.9. That means Papa Johns has not closed the gap across the year as a whole: the difference stood at 3.2 points at the beginning of the period and 3.5 points at the end.
But the more recent movement is worth watching. At the end of March, Papa Johns’ Index score stood at 7.2, compared with 11.4 for the industry leaders – a gap of 4.2 points. By late August, Papa Johns had climbed to 10.4, bringing that difference down to 3.5 points.
In other words, the brand has been moving in the right direction in recent months, even as its major competitors have continued to improve as well.
Papa Johns’ turnaround will ultimately be judged on business performance. But consumer perception can provide an insight into whether or not a brand is on the right track and where it has room to improve. YouGov BrandIndex suggests the chain is starting from behind its biggest rivals across several measures, although the relatively small Quality gap and recent improvement in overall brand health give it some areas to build on.
Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. Index scores are a composite measure of overall brand health, calculated as the average of Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Recommend and Reputation scores, and are reported on a scale from -100 to +100. This analysis is based on U.S. adults. Data is weighted using a propensity scoring methodology with targets from the American Community Survey (ACS) to ensure representation by age, gender, race, education, and region. Trended scores represent 12-week moving averages from August 27, 2025 to August 25, 2026. Sample sizes are 9,123 for Papa Johns and 45,468 for the U.S. top five pizza chains. U.S. top five pizza chains represent the biggest pizza chains by 2024 sales figures in the U.S. - these include Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, Papa Johns and Marco's Pizza.