A friend of mine -- who recently came to LA -- ordered a Papa John's Int'l, Inc. (Nasdaq: PZZA) pizza. She used the Internet. All in all, it was pretty efficient.

Well, according to a recent report, Papa John's has sold about $1 billion in pizzas (over the past seven years). That's certainly a lot of dough, huh? And, as should be no surprise, the growth rate has been stunning: about 50% per year.

There is lots of competition, such as Dominos Pizza (Nasdaq: DPZ) and Pizza Hut. And interestingly enough, Pizza Hut plans to launch a web-enabled widget so you can get pizza at super-fast speeds (I'm sure this will be a big hit for Web 2.0 programmers, who tend to eat pizza at about 2 a.m.).

But, as my friend has experienced, there are some glitches. Ordering online it took two hours for her to get her pizza.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.