PdC’s Pizza Ranch now open
The Pizza Ranch in Prairie du Chien held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and grand opening this past week. The Prairie du Chien Area Chamber of Commerce, along with representatives from the city, county and local businesses attended the cutting on Wednesday, Oct. 29. (Steve Van Kooten/Courier Press)
Ambassadors from the Prairie du Chien Area Chamber of Commerce as well as representatives from the city, participated in a “first bite” during the ribbon cutting this past week.
By Steve Van Kooten
Pizza Ranch and the Prairie du Chien Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting on Oct. 29 for the opening of the franchise’s Prairie du Chien restaurant, which is located at 700 East Blackhawk Avenue. The business opened to the general community on Monday, Nov. 3.
“When you go to those small communities, this is exactly what you see: Pizza Ranches in downtown areas or nestled into neighborhoods,” said Alan Pottebaum, partner member of Grassroots Management Services. “If you go into our dining rooms in a lot of our rural communities… we are the go-to place for families.”
Grassroot Management Services, which opened its first Pizza Ranch location in 2012, now invests in and helps manage 35 Pizza Ranch locations throughout the Midwest. The Pizza Ranch franchise, which began in Hull, Iowa, in 1981, now has more than 200 restaurants.
Jim Ferdenzi, the store’s general manager, worked as a franchisee for Toppers’ Pizza and Papa John’s before working with Grassroots. His wife, Suzanne, will be operating the store’s day-to-day operations.
Representatives from the city of Prairie du Chien and Crawford County, among many others, attended the cutting as well as a “first bite” event — it’s sort of like slamming a wine bottle on the side of a ship at the start of its maiden voyage.
“It’s a new building in the city. Hopefully, they’ll bring more people to town,” said Mayor David Hemmer. “I think what will attract people here — at least families with kids — is the FunZone. They’ll come to eat, and then the kids will go and goof around.”
The restaurant includes an estimated 2,500-square-foot FunZone area with approximately 25 arcade games that Pottebaum thinks will offer families in the Prairie du Chien area a unique experience.
“It’s a night out for families and an appealing environment for them,” he said. “Here you can let your kids run, have some fun and run into the arcade.”
Along with the FunZone, daily buffet and ordering service, Pizza Ranch expects the location to start offering delivery in “about a month,” according to Ferdenzi.
Pottebaum said they did not have issues finding people to fill out their employee roster; the location received more than 100 applicants, and 64 were hired to work there.
“We had some great management candidates [who] came out of the community,” he said. “We were quite surprised by how many applicants we had.”
He added that approximately 40 of the hired workers are high school age, and 15 of them are under 16.
“We hired a lot of high school kids and first-time-job people,” said Pottebaum.
At the building’s groundbreaking ceremony this past March, Bjorn Kaashagen, a member of Grassroots’ franchisee team, said Prairie du Chien is one of the smallest communities to host one of the franchise’s restaurants.
“Because of the cost of new construction and development, and everybody is now required to have a Fun Zone, you need a certain amount of volume to pay the bills,” he said. “They don’t want to go into communities that are less than 15,000 people, but we convinced them that Prairie du Chien is going to work because of all the tourism in town and all of the seasonal people that come here.”
Other incentives from the city, including free land parcels in Prairie Bluffs Court, help attract commercial businesses to the area, according to City Planner Nate Gilberts.
“So, if they need an acre or two acres, we’re giving that to them,” he said. “We’re also doing the infrastructure work. There’s water and sewer running through here that’s brand new.”
