WINONA, Minn. – The 200-unit pizza and chicken buffet chain is opening a franchise at the former Ground Round on the Far West End. An opening date is pending. The chain has locations in 14 states, the nearest in Minnesota in the Rochester suburb of Stewartville and in Wisconsin at Eau Claire and LaCrosse.. Pizza Ranch franchises require an investment of $1 million – or as much as $4 million to construct a building from scratch. The franchise fee is $30,000. Furnishings and signage typically are $500,00o to $700,000. Arcade games: Another $300,000 to 4400,000.
Buffet is back
The Winona site, at 405 U.S, Highway 14, earlier housed Beier’s, which itself had been an aging pancake house. Butch and Beth
Beier remodeled the place into a three-meal-a-day menu with a salad bar that drew diners. When salad bars faded from favor, the Beiers re-invented the place as a Ground Round franchise with an expansive menu (but no breakfast), an upscale decor and furnishings, and an elaborate bar. Their son Tim eventually took over. In 2022 amid a massive remodeling project that would have included a venue for live entertainment, Tim closed the business for health reasons and placed put up a sign for lease or sale.
Western-themed for kids. Many units have arcades. Minimal table service.
Pizza Ranch profile
Corporate legend has it that Adrie Groeneweg, then 19, saw people in little Hull, Iowa, driving iout of town for pizza. Groeneweg and a buddy set up pizza shop with seven toppings made from scratch. That was jn 1981. The place caught on. From tiny Hull in northwest Iowa, population 2,600, they expanded in Iowa. Their places got television attention as presidential. candidates in the Iowa primaries and caucuses saw Pizza Ranches as a good place to shake hands and smile for cameras. The chain wears a religion, Christianity, on its sleeve. Its vision: “To glorify God by positively impacting the world.” Unlike the similarly themed Chick-Fil-A chain Pizza Ranch sites are open every day, Sundays included. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Don’t expect beer with your pizza. No liquor is served. A dark point in corporate history occurred in 2001 when Groeneweg’s founding partner, Lawrence Vander Esch, went to prison for taking semen samples from teen-age employees.