Biography & Early Wealth Journey
"So I went up to him and said, 'Hey, I need a name and a logo for this concept' and he came back to me three days later with both. And I actually really liked the way the logo looked, and thought the name was pretty clever. So I said to him, 'Listen, if this ever goes big, I will give you a pizza a week for the rest of your life.'"
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Normally, that would be the end of the story, but as luck (and pizza history) would have it, Schnatter went on to implement all of his ideas, along with his generous benefactor's, in making his pizza dreams a reality. He sold his car for $2,800 and used a little more than half of the proceeds to buy some used pizza-making equipment, and in a few years' time his business grew and grew, eventually into the massive behemoth that we all know today, along with a $600 million personal fortune for Schnatter. But Schnatter hasn't been able to make good on his promise:
"Now that we've been in business for 32 years, I owe someone $16,000 worth of free pizza. But he's never come forward and I don't know his name or how to find him. All I know is that he was from Chicago — and that I owe him good."
Hopefully, the author of the Papa John's name and logo is doing well enough on his own terms not to come forward and claim his lifetime supply of Papa John's pizza. But you know who really deserves a raise? Whoever invented that garlic butter sauce that comes with the Papa John's pizza, that stuff is addictive.