Papa Johns wants to get out of the restaurant operations business and more into the franchising business. The chain recently sold 85 locations in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. to big-time franchisee Chris Patel of Pie Investments. Patel’s company already owns 150 Papa Johns locations and aims to reach 250 by 2030.
The move is part of CEO Todd Penegor’s plans to reduce Papa Johns’ company-owned footprint from 545 locations to “mid-single-digit” levels over the next two years— a model favored by franchise giants like McDonald’s.
The refranchising strategy makes sense when you look at the numbers. Papa Johns’ company-owned locations have underperformed franchised restaurants for at least two years, with same-store sales down 2.5% at corporate units versus 1.3% at franchised locations through the first three quarters.
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Meta Kicks ChatGPT and Copilot Off WhatsApp
Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Meta wants WhatsApp all to itself. That’s the message it sent after changing its terms of service, which now ban AI companies from using the messaging app to distribute chatbots not made by Meta.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are both leaving the platform by January 15th after WhatsApp updated its Business Solution terms. ChatGPT users can link their accounts to WhatsApp to preserve chat history, though Copilot users won’t have that option. Other third-party AI chatbots including Perplexity are likely to announce departures soon.
WhatsApp announced the change in October, banning AI companies from using its business API as a distribution platform while still permitting businesses to use it for customer service or support chatbots. This means companies can’t use WhatsApp when the AI itself is the product—a straightforward way of stopping Meta’s AI rivals from reaching customers on its own platform.
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