Pizza Ranch was not meant to be a buffet, at least not initially. But a franchisee tested the concept of an all-day buffet decades ago. The idea worked. And the chain known for its unique combination of chicken and pizza became a buffet concept, growing methodically throughout the Upper Midwest. It now has 218 locations.
Buffet, in fact, was all the chain knew. Oh sure, it did some takeout and delivery. But that wasn’t its thing. “When you’re focused on the buffet, delivery and to-go is a sideline,” Adrie Groeneweg, the company’s president and founder, said in an interview. “We did it, but it was secondary.”
And so, in March of 2020, the buffet chain that was not meant to be a buffet chain suddenly had to learn to live without the buffet. The pandemic all but shut them down.
“Buffet and COVID did not go together,” Groeneweg said. “We lost off the board 80% of our sales.”
But adapt the company did. System sales at the chain in 2021 were up 3.5% when compared with 2019. That may not seem like a lot, particularly compared with some other pizza chains, but consider this: Buffet chains as a sub-sector were down more than 38% compared with where they were before the pandemic, according to data from the Technomic Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report. And that’s an undercount, given that a few big ones—notably Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes, Old Country Buffet and HomeTown Buffet, are all gone.
Pizza buffet chains have not fared much better, with companies like Pizza Inn and Cici’s down at least 22% from pre-pandemic levels.
“We’re very happy with where we’re at,” Groeneweg said. “Sales are back to where they were and even above. We’ve got a lot of interest again from franchisees.”
Hull, Iowa
Pizza Ranch specializes in pizza and fried chicken, traditionally served out of buffets. Popular Christian music frequently plays overhead and the company’s vision is “to glorify God by positively impacting the world.” The chain’s community rooms often lure Republican presidential candidates during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.
The company “lived its Christianity on its sleeve,” franchisee Brandon Pratt says. That’s part of what convinced him to become a full-time Pizza Ranch franchisee 16 years ago.
Groeneweg founded Pizza Ranch when he was 19. He was a full-time welder who worked part-time in a pizza restaurant and couldn’t help but notice how busy it was. He convinced his father to take out a loan so he could buy a building and some pizza equipment.
“We had 17.5% interest rates in 1980,” Groeneweg said. “Without my dad, this would have never happened.”
The restaurant opened in 1981 in Hull, Iowa, a town with a population of 2,000 southeast of Sioux Falls, S.D., just south of the Iowa-Minnesota border. He used pizza recipes developed in his parents’ kitchen, where Groeneweg lived his first year in business.
Those early days were tough. “The first year I didn’t get paid, but I was living at home so it wasn’t so necessary,” he said. “A lot of new businesses, that’s how it works.”
By the second year, he said, the company’s reputation grew. He eventually got paid. The company opened a second location in nearby Orange City. “That took off from day one,” Groeneweg said. Then, someone wanted to buy the recipe for his pizzas. Groeneweg instead convinced him to become a franchisee.
Six years later, the chain operated 50 stores. Almost all of them were in towns of 5,000 or less.
“I don’t care for them. The food is subpar. The restaurants are always on the dirty side. I didn’t want to be a buffet house.” -Adrie Groeneweg, founder of Pizza Ranch.
Listening to franchisees
Pizza Ranch wasn’t a buffet concept, not right away. There was a simple reason. “I was against it,” Groeneweg said. “I’m not a big buffet guy.”
Wait, what?
“I don’t care for them. The food is subpar. The restaurants are always on the dirty side. I didn’t want to be a buffet house,” he said.
It’s a notable admission. But sometimes innovation can be born out of such skepticism. Pizza Ranch did have a buffet at lunch, but Groeneweg did not want that extended to dinner. A franchisee asked him to make the idea all day and tested it himself. Sales immediately increased.
“His sales bumped up 23%,” Groeneweg said. “You can’t not look at something that bumps up sales 23%.”
The remaining restaurants had the same kind of result. And Pizza Ranch became a buffet concept. Groeneweg, meanwhile, changed his mind on the idea, which is what a 23% sales boost can do. “I’m very proud to be a buffet now,” he said. “My attitude has a completely changed. I’m a stickler on cleanliness. Your stores look better fresh. That’s how we run them.”
But there’s another thread here. Pizza Ranch listened to one of its franchisees. That’s been common throughout the company’s history.
“The fried chicken came from a franchisee. It didn’t come from Adrie,” Pratt said. “The Fun Zone didn’t come from corporate. The drive-thru window came from a franchisee. They’re really, really good about understanding the importance of listening to their operator.”
All those innovations have been important to the brand’s history. One year, in the late 1980s, a family-owned restaurant in Sioux Falls opted to convert into a Pizza Ranch. But he wanted to keep its fried chicken. “I noticed his noon hours were way busier,” Groeneweg said. “I went down and worked with him a week and realized it’s the chicken.”
The company put chicken in more stores, then came up with its own recipe. “It definitely sets us apart,” he said. “We should have been called Chicken Ranch. We did put it on employees’ shirts.”
“We have a great relationship with our franchisees,” he added. “I lack in a lot of qualities. But one thing I’m good at, I’m a great listener. Franchisees know that. People who work with us know that.
“We get our best ideas from franchisees. They know how to do things.”
Some of those ideas carried the company through the pandemic.
Pizza buffet chain sales since 2019
Source: Technomic Top 500 Restaurant Report
Eatertainment chain with a drive-thru
It’s difficult to say just how bad the pandemic has been for the buffet business. But many, if not most, of the restaurant chains that have completely shut down have been buffet concepts. “It was a time of depression,” Pratt said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. And in the beginning there were so many false narratives that continued hurting the restaurant industry, particularly the buffet industry.”
Pizza Ranch did a lot of things to adjust to the new reality. It launched a virtual brand, for instance. But it also began focusing more intently on its “out-the-door” business, or takeout and delivery. It began working with third-party delivery companies, though some operators have their own drivers. The company sold a lot of two-piece dinners and family meals to customers.
“We all knew sooner or later COVID would go away,” Pratt said. “We needed to stay relevant. It wasn’t about profitability. It was about staying in the customer’s face.”
Pratt himself offered one idea, a brunch service in which the restaurants opened earlier on Saturdays and Sundays for people who wanted Sunday Brunch.
But another could become a permanent part of the company going forward: Drive-thrus. The brand tried the windows in four locations. It also has drive-up windows for people to get their call-ahead orders. “I would be hard-pressed to do any Pizza Ranch without that,” Pratt said. He has such windows in six of his locations. “It’s another sector of our business that’s just continuing to grow.”
Most of his markets get about 10% to 15% of their sales through the windows, with customers buying fried chicken as well as some pizza and, usually, the chain’s popular Cactus Bread dessert pizzas.
But the brand is also generating sales inside its restaurants.
When Pizza Ranch started, it had rooms with pinball machines and other games. As customers stopped playing them, they were removed.
More recently, however, a franchisee added newer games with prizes more akin to concepts like Chuck E. Cheese and Dave & Buster’s. The result was an instant boost in sales and profits.
Pratt, who owns nine units, added his first in 2018. “It came out of the gates wildly successful,” he said. They generate 20% more sales but can add 40% to 50% to a location’s profits. “The day you open up you go up 20% in sales,” Pratt said. “It’s a no-brainer.”
Adding them can require a $500,000 expansion, Pratt noted, but the revenue and profits quickly pay that off. Pratt himself has Fun Zones in five locations and two more under construction will include the games.
“We’re a new version of eatertainment,” Pratt said, referring to the sector that focuses on both food and entertainment.
Not for the faint of heart
There are challenges, of course. “Operating a Pizza Ranch is not for the faint of heart,” Pratt said. “It’s a challenging operation. You have to have great operators.
“We’re a buffet, a dine-in, a Fun Zone arcade, pickup, delivery and catering. That’s six different segments under one roof.”
It can also be costly to open a location, about $3 million. Groeneweg, in fact, notes that the company could not open today in the small towns where it made its name, largely because it wouldn’t be able to generate enough sales to pay for construction.
Franchisees also need to have more financial backing. “We have a different franchisee coming in today than 20 years ago,” Groeneweg said. “If they’re going to come in today, they really need money and have money that’s available to them. Back 20 years ago, somebody who had $5,000 in the bank could get it open. That wouldn’t work today. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.”
The focus now is on keeping the out-the-door sales the chain gained during the pandemic, without sacrificing too much of that buffet business. Both Pratt and Groeneweg said takeout has diminished somewhat, but not much. “Right now we’re at 33% (takeout and delivery) and we’re happy with that,” Groeneweg said.
Yet the brand is expanding now that it has emerged from the pandemic. It just opened a location in Wyoming and is opening one for the first time in Oklahoma. The company is on track to open 10 units this year. But Groeneweg, who is 60, wants to pick up the pace.
“I have three boys coming up the ranks here,” he said. “I told them I’m not going to retire until we hit 500 stores. We’ve got to get moving here.”