While candies, flowers, cards and fancy jewelry may be the most common Valentine’s Day gift, but one peculiar (and more filling) alternative is apparently gaining traction as the choice Valentine’s Day gift: a heart-shaped pizza.

As CNN Money reports, searches on Google for the term “heart-shaped pizza” is up a whopping 230% since January. Heart-shaped pizzas have actually been around for some time, but the “novelty” Valentine’s Day gift has been picking up quite a bit of steam lately, particularly in Illinois, Texas, and California.

Naturally, pizza chains big and small have caught on to the growing trend, and more and more will be offering heart-shaped pizzas at their restaurants this year, including popular pizza chain Papa John’s. The heart-shaped pizzas have apparently been successful for the chain, too–in 2011, more than 60,000 heart-shaped pizzas were sold, and the company expects that number to grow this year.

“We first offered them nationally three years ago, and they’ve become widely popular,” Papa John’s spokeswoman Tish Muldoon told CNN Money. “They’re popular with families who celebrate Valentine’s Day together.”

Papa John’s won’t be the only restaurant to offer heart-shaped pizzas, of course. Papa Murphy’s and Papa Romano’s Pizza have both confirmed they’ll be offering the Valentine’s Day-themed pizzas, and plenty of local restaurants across the nation will be doing the same.

via CNN Money

Heart-shaped pizzas are the next big Valentine’s Day trend is a post from: The Inquisitr

On Saturday Harlem resident Minhee Cho tweeted a picture of her Papa John’s receipt with the message ”Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn’t ‘lady chinky eyes.’ It didn’t take long for other Twitter users to start retweeting the picture of the racist Papa John’s receipt and now the company has responded.

After apologizing profusely on Twitter and Facebook the company has fired the 16-year old high school girl who put the name on the receipt.  @PapaJohns tweeted, ”We are very upset by recent receipt issue in New York & sincerely apologize to our customer. Franchise employee involved is being terminated.”

While Papa John’s has apologize their ignorant manager Jerome told the  Post:

“I think the lady put it out there just to get some attention—some people like that type of attention” while he added, ”I truly don’t think it’s fair. It’s been taking up all our time. It’s been very disruptive.”

The stores assistant manager echo’s Jerome’s sentiment:

“We’re all of different races here in this store. So she didn’t mean any harm, didn’t mean to stereotype against her, to discriminate against her, but that’s how she took it.”

Jerome then agreed with the assistant manager:

“It’s a busy place, and it was a way to identify her and her order. You know, we do stuff like that sometimes. We’ll write ‘the lady with the blue eyes’ or ‘the guy in the green shirt.”

If anything Jerome seemed more upset that it called a disruption to his employees:

“It’s affecting how we work. This is a place of business. I truly don’t think it’s fair what she did; it’s just crazy.”

Cho says she was surprised by the name on her receipt because as she told the Daily News:

“I was very surprised because the lady that was serving me was super nice and we joked and it seemed super normal.”

For her part Cho says Jerome was right that she wanted to show her friends and shame Papa John’s for calling her lady chinky eyes.

Do you think Minhee Cho created an overblown reaction to the receipt?

Papa John’s Apologizes For Racist Receipt, Fires Employee is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you can’t beat em, burn em to the ground, that was the idea hatched and executed by two Domino’s pizza manager 10 days ago.

The incident occurred in Lake City, Florida when Sean Everett Davidson, 23, confessed to an October 20 arson attack on a competing Papa John’s pizza franchise. One day after arresting Davidson police arrested another manager Bryan David Sullivan, 22, who was also charged with arson.

After being arrested the men admitted to the fire and also said they had built an “ignition” device to start the fire but then decided against using it. Both men say they dismantled the device which included an 8-inch-long clock and 9-volt battery at which point they threw it out a car window while driving down the interstate.

If anyone spots the clock, battery or a small ball of black gunpowder while driving down I-75 in Central Florida they are advised to call 911 immediately and report the exact location of the bomb making hardware.  Based on the men’s account of their ignition device specialists from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives say it would likely not explode but instead create a large flash.

According to the Ocala Star-Banner police the men’s motivation was simple, they wanted to increase their own sales figures by eliminating a competitor for as long as possible.

Is this the dumbest criminal story you’ve heard this week?

Domino’s Pizza Managers Arrested For Burning Down Papa John’s Franchise is a post from: The Inquisitr

“Papa” John Schnatter saved his family’s business in 1983, but he had to sell his beloved 1971 1/2 Camaro to do it.

He was too heartbroken to watch his beloved ride drive off into the sunset. And the business, that eventually grew into Papa John’s Pizza. Becoming a wealthy man in the intervening years, Schnatter never stopped looking for his Camaro, and thanks to the internet, the story eventually had a happy ending.

With the $2,800 he received for the Camaro he was able to save the family business and launch Papa John’s, a business that now numbers at more than 3,000 pizzerias in 26 countries with a market value of three-quarters of a billion dollars. He had a lot, but Papa John still missed that Camaro. So Schnatter started looking for it.

Schnatter searched for the car throughout the 90s, even employing an ex-FBI agent in the search. When he couldn’t locate the vehicle, he had a replica built, but predictably, it just wasn’t bitchin’ enough. The blog Jalopnik got involved in the search, and after dropping $25K on a “finder’s fee” to the original buyer, Schnatter managed to locate the original vehicle. And for an additional $250K, the keys to his original Camaro were his again.

Schnatter was so happy to finally have his car back that he’s giving away free pizza at all Papa John’s locations today. The catch? You’ve got to go get it, in your Camaro.

Papa John’s founder reunited with beloved Camaro, gives away free pizza is a post from: The Inquisitr

John Schnatter’s Papa John’s Comments

John Schnatter’s comments came during an interview with the BBC’s “Radio Four” show in the U.K. this week. Schnatter was asked whether he was worried about how anti-obesity efforts by the British government were affecting his business.

“No,” he answered. “Pizza’s actually healthy for you if you don’t eat too much of it. You can’t eat five or six slices.”

The program’s host laughed, telling Schnatter: “I’m not sure your investors would want to hear you tell people, ‘Don’t eat too much of our pizzas.’”

Whoops.

Don’t Eat Too Much Pizza, Says Papa John’s Founder John Schnatter is a post from: The Inquisitr