Pizza Ranch, a Midwestern brand with more than 220 locations in 14 states, has a superfan. And he won’t rest until he has dined at every store in the chain’s network.
As WDAY-TV reports, Jason Halkias recently made his 175th visit to a Pizza Ranch store—this one in Fargo, North Dakota. In fact, he stood waiting outside when the restaurant opened for business that morning.
No wonder Halkias has become known as Pizza Ranch’s “Legendary Guest.” Or maybe he just awarded himself the honor. It’s unclear, but that’s what it says on his favorite T-shirt anyway.
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His obsession started, Halkias said, while he was dating a woman he’d met in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She “happened to be a big Pizza Ranch fanatic in her own right,” he explained. They broke up eventually, but his love affair with the brand, which is headquartered in Orange City, Iowa, took off.
Halkias has since traveled around the country to sample Pizza Ranch restaurants, most recently bellying up to the buffets in cities like Duluth, Winona, Bemidji and Hibbing, Minnesota, before heading west to North Dakota. He plans to tuck in a bib at all 14 Pizza Ranch locations in that state.
“It’s always a really good place wherever you go, and that’s what my quest is: to visit all the Pizza Ranches,” he told WDAY. “It allows me to go to [parts] of the country that I’ve never seen before and allows me to see what’s out there.”
“Every location is unique, you know,” he continued. “Yes, a lot of locations are similar in many ways, but they’re each tied to their own community, so that’s what makes each one stand out from one another…I honestly feel that every one is excellent in their service and their food and their environment….I’m never disappointed wherever I go.”
Does your pizzeria or multi-unit pizza brand have a superfan? Why not load that person up with some merch and let the news media know about it? In addition to the coverage on WDAY, Halkias has been spotlighted by TV stations like KEYC in Mankato, Minnesota; Dakota News Now in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and KTIV in Orange City, among others.
Many Pizza Ranch stores shower Halkias with swag before he leaves. For the WDAY interview, Halkias was wearing a logoed Pizza Ranch hat given to him by the brand’s headquarters and a pin bearing his name from a store in Holland, Michigan. For his 100th visit to a Pizza Ranch location in August 2023, the chain’s president, Adrie Groeneweg, presented him with a special certificate.
As for that aforementioned T-shirt, he had it custom-made. It reads, “The Legendary Pizza Ranch Guest.” In other words, Halkias is a walking billboard for Pizza Ranch.
