Papa Johns (NASDAQ:PZZA) plans to open 50 new restaurants in North America by 2028 in partnership with The Bajco Group, owned by one of the company’s largest franchisees, Nadeem Bajwa.
The Bajco Group currently operates more than 200 Papa Johns (PZZA) restaurants across the Midwest, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Florida with a goal to operate 500.
The expansion ties in with Papa Johns’ (PZZA) Back to Better 2.0 Strategy to accelerate franchisee growth by lowering its marketing expenditure to 6% from 8%, enabling franchisees to gain 200 basis points of margin at the restaurant level.
In Q4, the restaurant chain reported an 8.6% increase in sales which bolstered profits by $0.20 per share, better than what Wall Street expected. North American franchise royalties and fees were up 12% to $38.7M.