I swear Papa John's used to be decent for a national chain. I remember when I was living in northern VA in the early 2000's having it for the first time and really liking it. Granted, I was in a pizza wasteland (it's a little better these days), plus Pizza Hut sucked as always and Domino's was at its absolute worst before they tried to fix themselves several years later. Little Caesar's had seemingly vanished altogether, so outside of getting a frozen pizza, Papa John's had a brief period where I genuinely liked it. I thought the crust and toppings were HUGELY better than the other chains, and to the point that when I was back in the area as late as 2007 visiting family I remember thinking, "oh, nice, Papa John's!" when I found out they had ordered it one night. And then it arrived, and it was all rubbery and bland there was no looking back. I'm pretty sure it was always like that, and I was just young and full of booze and other things to the point that anything edible was OK.