Pizzerias just might be the Wild West of America’s culinary scene, a bastion of gastronomic anarchy. Sure, many U.S. operators still hold to the traditions of the Old Country. But some pizza chefs have an outlaw mentality—don’t tell them what they can or cannot put on a pizza. Case in point: Zorbaz, with 11 locations in Minnesota.
In a recent New York Times article, readers shouted out their favorite pizza spots on the planet, and Zorbaz made the list with a hearty endorsement from Conor Rayl of Las Vegas. Rayl called Zorbaz’s Detroit Lakes, Minnesota store “the greatest Mexican-Italian pizza joint in the world.”
It’s the kind of national publicity you couldn’t buy with all the gold in Deadwood.
Related: The New York Times sniffs out more amazing pizzerias in the U.S. and beyond
Rayl, it seems, is particularly enamored of a pie called the Lowden Zpecial. According to DL-Online, it’s named for its creator, Kenny Lowden. Back in the late 1980s, Lowden, an employee at the time, conspired with now-retired Zorbaz co-owner Rick Jansen on a pizza featuring one of Lowden’s favorite ingredients: peanut butter.
Jansen is an avowed fan of peanut butter, too, so the idea didn’t strike him as all that, well, nutty. “I like peanut butter on hamburgers and hot dogs and on toast,” he told the DL-Online. “I like to mix in some sriracha [on peanut butter toast].”
Jansen and Lowden settled on a combination of pepperoni, cheese and jalapeños piled on a crust with a peanut butter base. The pie didn’t make it onto Zorbaz’s menu right away, but customers who heard about it could order it. It proved so popular that it soon became a featured specialty pizza and remains a popular item to this day.
A few years after the Lowden Zpecial’s introduction, Lowden himself moved to another Zorbaz location in Perham, Minnesota, and gave his epicurean oddity a tweak: He added the chain’s signature pizza sauce to the recipe. Today, individual Zorbaz stores can choose to include the tomato sauce or leave it off, but the peanut butter base is a given.
Jansen retired from the business nearly 20 years ago—his son Tate now runs Zorbaz—but he’s still a regular at the Detroit Lakes location. And he still orders the Lowden Zpecial…sometimes with anchovies.
The Detroit Lakes store was the original Zorbaz location, opened by founder Tom Hanson in 1969 in a former candy store. Hanson later brought Rick Jansen in as a partner.
True to its name, Zorbaz is a great place to catch some Zs. That is, the letter Z features prominently on the menu and the chain’s website. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an S in the descriptions of the various specialty pies—sorry, zpecialty piez. Those include the Hot Hawg (Colorado green chili zauce, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, andouille zauzage, zmoked bacon and jalapeñoz); the Thai Pie (BBQ peanut zauce, zmoked bacon, red onionz, pineapple, banana pepperz and cilantro); and the Joze Zorba (pepperoni, beef, red onionz, tomato, black olivez, jalapeñoz, garlic, cilantro and four cheezez.)
If a customer wants a pizza with the works, there’s the Zorbaz Zuper, too—and they can order it with “zauerkraut on requezt.”
It’s enough to make your phone’s autocorrect explode, but it’s a clever marketing gimmick if you azk uz.
