I have had several years experience as a customer at Oak Harbor's franchise. In the course of doing business with Josh, he has shown himself to be an arrogant, tight-fisted (cheap), argumentative franchisee with a highly inflated image of himself as an entrepreneur. He will instantly heap praise on himself and his restaurant and put down any customer who is not satisfied. He is the opposite of a customer oriented retailer. I have known some of his employees, who describe him as a cold penny pincher. This is borne out in my visits, seeing the crew of young employees working in silence, their heads bowed with expressionless faces, like they are working in a job they "need" rather than one that they might enjoy. Imagine the work atmosphere.
Before they decided to accept credit cards, I innocently asked if they might begin to do so soon. The manager's answer was that they would "never take credit cards because we don't have to." She said that their business was doing just fine, without offering that convenience, and it would cost them money. She conducted herself like either Josh's wife or mother, ie. small minded, self-satisfied, self-serving attitude.
Often I purchased 2 pizzas at one time. They refused to put the baking instruction sheet in with the second pizza because of the $2. customer reward discount coupon on it. Josh said he would not do it because he didn't want the customer who buys 2 pizzas at a time to have a discount on the second pizza. He said matter-of-factly, that he wanted to sell the second pizza at full menu price. He was oblivious to and/or dismissive of the fact that a 2-pizza customer might deserve equal consideration to a one pizza customer, rather than a penalty. When I told him that his policy just encouraged game playing by his customers by having a second person purchase the second pizza in a separate transaction, he said that he would catch that and stop it, as if he would know it were happening. This is a minor issue, granted, but it goes to show his hugely inflated estimation of his abilities and his adversarial business mindset.
Papa Murphys Corporation has developed a good pizza. In Josh's franchise, he will take the customer for every penny that he can and cut his costs by every penny he can. I have seen the majority of his pizzas made short of ingredients by keeping residual ingredients continuously stuck to the bottom of their measuring ladles and cups, in effect making them smaller. So, if you don't mind getting pizzas made to "almost" the corporate standards, then Josh's will be OK. If you don't mind being seen and talked down to, as a mark for his profit plan, then Oak Harbor Papa Murphys will be OK. read more