Freschetta is out, but fresh pizza on campus is still in.
Papa John’s Pizza is coming to the BYU Cougareat Food Court this fall, taking the place of Freschetta. Papa John’s is predicted to do better financially than Freschetta.
The actual opening date is still up in the air, according to Joe Tiapson, the general manager of Retail Dining and BYU Dining Services. As of right now, Papa John’s Pizza is looking to open sometime between August 1 and September 1, 2016.
“It all depends on construction (and) the training. We want to be sure that before we’re open, that we’re really ready to operate well,” Tiapson said. “We don’t want to kind of go halfway and do a poor job of the execution.”
Employees in this particular Cougareat kiosk are not new to rolling dough, spreading toppings and specially made pizza ovens: Freschetta opened sometime in August 2003, replacing Pizza Hut.
Tiapson said they’ve been looking for a couple years to find the right establishment to replace Freschetta.
“As we bring something in, we’re always looking for what’s best for the campus community,” Tiapson said.
The menu for the Papa John’s on-campus location will be a little different than the restaurants off-campus. The off-campus locations focus more on the sixteen-inch pizzas, but the Cougareat location will focus more on personalized, eight-inch pizzas. The on-campus site will still feature most of the speciality pizzas that are offered off-campus.
However, anchovy-lovers will not be able to purchase that pizza topping at the Cougareat. “There’s a couple items we didn’t select for this area just because we didn’t think it would be a good fit for BYU,” Tiapson said.
Those on campus not wanting to wait in line for a slice can still make use of the Cougareat Take-Out program. Students, faculty, staff and departments can have food delivered right to them.
