Dave and I made our first trip to Pizza Ranch today for lunch. It’s a new place along restaurant row at I-35 and Industrial Road – right next to Pizza Hut.

Onnalee Harrell gave such a positive report on her Pizza Ranch experiences that we thought we should give it a go. The restaurant just opened after Christmas.

You walk in and pay – if you’re getting the buffet (maybe you pay later if you’re ordering from the menu, I don’t know.) We were greeted warmly and the staff was pleasant and service-oriented.

During our meal, Jim Watson from the corporate office, who was in Emporia to help open the restaurant, stopped by our table to ask how things were going. I told him the staff was very helpful – they kept offering to fill drinks and take away empty plates. “We have a great crew of kids here,” Watson said.

The buffet is only during certain hours, 11-2, I think, and then again in the evening.

It’s a ranch theme in here. We were about the first ones in at 11 a.m., but the place filled quickly. It’s a new place in town and there was an article in The Emporia Gazette this week, so the people came.

I’m a fan of mashed potatoes and even though these didn’t have that lumpy homemade taste, they were very good. And the gravy, too. The chicken was good – there’s no trans fat involved – and the pizza, pretty good also.

I know that other place, Pizza Hut, has wings and all, but personally, I have a difficult time reconciling pizza with fried chicken. Or pizza and mashed potatoes. I guess you don’t have to eat them at the same meal, but … well, they were there and I wanted to try everything.

There was spinach on the salad bar. I like spinach.

In addition to plain mashed potatoes, there are cheesy potatoes. Very good as well.

Those are potato chips – just like Grandma used to make.

Various pizzas ready on the buffet table. They also told us if we didn’t see what we were looking for, they’d make it for us.

I looked at their menu – and you can have sauerkraut on your pizza. (Getting weirder by the minute.)

I asked Jim Watson about sauerkraut pizza and he says that some people really like it, that they often order it with Canadian bacon and the sauerkraut gets crispy in the oven and it’s good. He did add that some people order sauerkraut and jalepeno pizza.

Dave had some of the coffee and Mr. Watson told us that they get their coffee from the only certified German roast master in the United States. And he told us about the roasting process and that Germans take their coffee almost as seriously as they take their beer. He said there’s a 4-year apprenticeship for becoming a German roast master.

The salad bar.

The dessert bar.

That concludes today’s visit to Pizza Ranch. Check out their website.

Emporia has the very first Pizza Ranch in Kansas. Coming soon to Lawrence and Manhattan. Pizza Ranch began in Iowa and has dozens of locations there. You can find them in Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota.

5 Comments

  1. Well, Onnalee’s description plus your photographs just put me in the mood for pizza (and chicken?)…..don’t think I’ll order the sauerkraut pizza…

  2. The Pizza Ranch management has done a terific job training their personnel. Everyone is so congenial and so genuinely happy and positive. This shows through their service to each customer – that they would do absolutely anything for everyone at anytime. The training must have been very extensive. It is seldom that you go into an eating establishment of this size and witness so many people working that have such a consitent contagious enthusiasm. This makes a person even happier that they went there to eat and spend their money. Then the great food doesn’t lead to any regret, either. Emporia has certainly gained a great business to their community. Not to mention, it is only about 4 blocks from us – if there were “blocks” between our home and the Ranch Pizza.

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