REVIEW: Papa John’s Double Cheeseburger Pizza

Papa John's Double Cheeseburger Pizza

Being fortunate enough to live in an area with a large number of mom ‘n’ pop pizza shops, I’ve seen the cheeseburger pizza road before. (But not an actual Cheeseburger Pizza Road – if I saw that, I would move there immediately.)

I’ve found that small pizza joints tend to have a wider variety of toppings and, thus, a wider variety of specialty pizzas, ranging from cheeseburger to taco to gyro to something with pine nuts and Hoisin sauce. Okay, I made up the last one, but it’s not out of the question.

Comparatively, most chain specialty pizzas and toppings in general are pretty pedestrian. I consider myself lucky if I can even get white sauce as an option. If they do decide to branch out, it tends to be towards Crazy Town, like shoving hot dogs or seven different cheeses into their crusts. In fact, a lot of the insanity in chain specialty pizzas involves shoving shit into the crust. I’m looking at you, Pizza Hut.

Papa John’s went a different direction with their Double Cheeseburger Pizza, however. They put the crazy on top, not in the crust.

Papa John's Double Cheeseburger Pizza Slice

Here’s what Papa John’s has to say about the Double Cheeseburger Pizza: “Featuring a zesty burger sauce covered with a double layer of 100% real beef, dill pickle slices, fresh cut roma tomatoes and 100% real cheese made from mozzarella.”

I have several points of contention with this description. Let’s start with the burger sauce.

Papa John's Double Cheeseburger Pizza Burger Sauce

First off, the words “zesty burger sauce” are both generic and sound like they should be about five miles away from my pizza. Upon tasting, I uphold this idea. On its own, the flavor of the sauce was distinctly mayo mixed with ketchup, aka the poor man’s Thousand Island dressing. Call me crazy, but fresh-from-the-oven hot mayonnaise is not appealing.

Next we have the double layer of real beef. “Double layer” is a questionable quantity, and that really showed here, as I found the beef pieces to be rather sparse. Furthermore, the pieces of beef were small and remarkably flavorless, which is a bad trait for a pizza that’s supposed to taste like a burger.

Papa John's Double Cheeseburger Pizza Pickles

The tomatoes and cheese were just fine, but the real issue was the pickles. While the beef had a weak showing, the pickles certainly made up for it in spades. It appeared that Papa John’s used the same pickles you’d find on a regular fast-food burger, which sounds promising on paper but did not translate at all to a burger party in my mouth.

I could not escape the pickles. There was a slice in every bite. After I’d done my duty for the purposes of this review and eaten the pizza as-is, I tried removing the pickles in an attempt to have a slice of pizza that did not taste like a jar of brine. It was impossible. Even with the pickles themselves gone, the juice had been absorbed deep into the crust.

I would like to officially rename Papa John’s Double Cheeseburger Pizza to Papa John’s Precariously Plentiful Pickle Pizza. With sad beef, warm mayo sauce, and so many brined cucumbers that it made me want to make about 15 Pickles the Drummer jokes throughout this review, I cannot in good conscience call this a cheeseburger pizza.

To use a forced basketball analogy, Papa John’s Double Cheeseburger Pizza needs to work on its fundamentals. For right now, I’m benching it.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/6 of a small pizza – 260 calories, 130 calories from fat, 14 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 600 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, 8 grams of protein.)

Item: Papa John’s Double Cheeseburger Pizza
Purchased Price: $6.00 (on sale: regular price $12)
Size: Small
Purchased at: Papa John’s
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: I got it for 50 percent off. The tomatoes and cheese were fine. Metalocalypse. I only ordered a small. If you put pickles on everything you eat, this is your dream come true.
Cons: Pickles overtook everything. A chain restaurant that left the crust alone but still made an awful specialty pizza. Warm mayo/ketchup sauce. I wish I was actually good at basketball. The double serving of burger was a double serving of sadness.

15 thoughts to “REVIEW: Papa John’s Double Cheeseburger Pizza”

  1. I was fortunate to sample this during the overrated super bowl Boulevard in Times Square.

    I tried it one bite and then chucked the rest into the trash. It was most disgusting thing I ever tried. Pickles really overtook and I agreed with you. The aroma sucked and I didn’t enjoy the pizza. I feel bad for the suckers whom will fork over $12 for this junk without reading the reviews.

    What made the R/D department decided to make a cheeseburger pizza?!

    I loved the thin crust cheese pizza.

  2. I should have mentioned this in the review, but as an afterthought I’d like to add that I LOVE pickles. Just apparently not a million of them on a pizza.

    1. I agree. I thought the sauce they had on it was really good and the pickles were not overwhelming at all. I would order again.

  3. Well, that helps me decide where to go for dinner tonight. I was already bitter about Papa John’s not delivering to my area anymore, and the thought of dill-covered pizza really makes me not hungry at all.

  4. I am a fan of the pizza but they do need to fix some things… I agree way too many pickles. The sauce I like but “regular: it is way too much and when ordered light there is barely any, they need a happy medium. They should have cheddar cheese mixed in on top too, they already have it in stores for one of their Chicken pizzas so why not. I also added onions, bacon, and mushrooms.

  5. I thought it was pretty good. Maybe it was just me but I didn’t notice any excessive pickles and I really liked the sauce

  6. We tried it tonight. We had tomatoes, beef and grilled onions and it was really good for a change. But after looking at the calories and fat content, don’t think we’ll be ordering this again ! :<(

  7. I tried the cheeseburger papa johns adding green chile hoping to add some flavor. The description is pure b/s my pizza came with almost no hamburger on it and was on the same level as the worst pizza I ever had . It was just awfull I’ve had better frozen pizzas from the grocery store freezer section. I used to get the green chile cheeseburger pizza from another chain that was very good and i mistakenly thought papa johns would do better than was given to me .sadly that chain no longer has a location in my part of town this just might be the end of many papa johns patronage. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone !

  8. I tried it before reading any reviews(mistake), I did opt out on the pickles, but that did not make it any better, the sauce was icky times a thousand

  9. We were not pleased with the papa John’s double cheeseburger pizza. Thought it would have two kinds of cheese like cheddar, an mozzarella. Didn’t order pickles but added mushrooms. Did not like the mayo sauce at all and worried about reheating my leftovers with that sauce over all would not order again

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