BERLIN — While the lack of a pizza place in town has puzzled lots of people, Morad Ramadan decided not to let it go at that. When the longtime resident was ready to go into business for himself, he was pretty sure we wanted to open a pizza place. After a few days at the Papa John’s corporate offices ,he was convinced.

“When I went up to the corporate offices, it was really family oriented,” he said. “They believe in their product and made me really feel like they knew what they were doing.”

He was similarly impressed when he met founder John H. Schnatter. Here was a guy who — pretty famously — sold his car and operated out of a broom closet but who had the drive to build his small business into one of the most recognizable pizza chains on the planet.

“He’s a hands-on kind of guy who started from scratch,” Ramadan said. “I like people who believe in what they do and go for it.”

For his part, Ramada took that respect, combined it with his own drive and set up shop in the Food Lion Plaza earlier this month. So far, the response has been as positive as anyone could have hoped.

“People come up to me and tell me how happy they are to finally have a pizza place in town,” he said. 

Since he is a new franchisee, Ramadan was able to debut the new look for Papa John’s restaurants. The waiting area is bricked and the service and preparation area are specially streamlined, so accuracy never has to be sacrificed to speed. The design, he said, is a credit to the company.

“You walk in here and notice right away what kind of company it is,” he said.

It is the kind of company that rewards hard work as much as it demands it. But working hard is only one part of the pizza business. Delivering a quality product is even more important, which was another of the things that drew Ramadan to Papa John’s.

What’s always separated this from other chain delivery restaurants is there is no pretense when it comes to tinkering with the ingredients. Papa John’s became successful as a chain not only by investing in quality ingredients, but continually seeking out even better products and methods for keeping their pizza both of predictable and high quality.

Add to that the garlic butter sauce and the pepperoncini and it is easy to see how a business plan built equally on customer service and produce satisfaction was able to succeed so quickly.

As part of its grand opening celebration, Papa John’s Berlin is offering three-topping pizzas for $11 and any of the pizzas on their specialty menu for $11 as well.

And to be completely honest, it’s something Berlin has needed for quite some time and since Papa John’s delivers until midnight, late-night snacking just got a bit easier.