- Sep 13, 2002
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Iowa’s love affair with gas station pizza, explained
Jon Yates
It’s just after noon on Friday as Christina Gigante pulls up to the Casey’s General Store on North Pine Street in Davenport, Iowa.
It is Gigante’s birthday, and she’s celebrating in the most Iowa way possible—by buying herself and her coworkers three Casey’s pizzas. There are fancier pizzerias around, places with gratuitous amenities like tables and chairs and utensils that aren’t wrapped in plastic. But ask any Iowan and they’ll tell you: The best pizza in the state comes from gas stations.
If Breaking Bad had been set in Iowa instead of New Mexico, Walter White and Jesse would have been cooking up convenience store pizza instead of meth.
“I love it,” Gigante tells me as she placed the three pizzas on her passenger-side seat. “I can’t even describe it. It’s great pizza.”
And in Iowa, it’s everywhere. Although not every rural town is large enough to support a Domino’s or a Papa John’s, a good many of them have a convenience store. Almost all of those convenience stores–the omnipresent Casey’s, the Kum & Gos, the QuikTrips—have a small kitchen with a pizza oven (or two).
While competition is fierce, there is a distinct pecking order. Casey’s is the undisputed king—the most popular and hands-down the best. In aDes Moines Register online poll, 85% of respondents ranked Casey’s pizza first, followed by Kum & Go at 7% and QuikTrip at 4%.
When presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke visited Iowa recently, he went straight to a Casey’s for pizza, declaring in a tweet: “Casey’s pizza. Breakfast of champions.” For O’Rourke, it was a mulligan, of sorts. In May, he posted an Instagram video of himself eating Casey’s pizza in the morning, saying “We’re eating some breakfast pizza right now.” Iowans were quick to point out he was eating regularpizza for breakfast, not breakfast pizza, which at Iowa convenience stores is a thing. It wasn’t quiteJ ohn Kerry ordering Swiss cheese on his Philly cheesesteak, but for Iowans, it was close. Perhaps that’s why Beto is polling at around 2% in most pre-caucus polls.
There’s a reason Iowans get so worked up about their gas station pizza. It’s good. Not just cheap-pizza good, but actually, genuinely good. Casey’s pizza dough is soft and airy, creating a crust that’s the perfect blend of bubbles and bread, much closer to homemade doughthan you’ll find in most pizzerias. The whole operation is amazingly efficient. Order a pie on Casey’s app and it’s ready for pick-up 20 minutes later, piping hot and fresh, better than what you’ll find at many of the fancy full-fledged pizza restaurants.
The breakfast pizzas at all three chains are spectacular, combining scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon (or sausage) in perfect greasy balance, rendering breakfast burritos, which more often than not are too egg-forward, obsolete. Kum & Go puts hash brownson its breakfast pizzas. At Casey’s, you can order your breakfast pizza with sausage gravy as the sauce, the way God intended.
All three chains offer versions of the quintessential Iowa pizza—taco pizza—which was invented by Lawrence Joseph “Happy Joe” Whittyin 1974 at his Happy Joe’s restaurant in Davenport. TheTaco Joeremains the gold standard and the undisputed champ, the state’s greatest culinary achievement since the loose-meat sandwich. The Casey’s version has the standard taco pizza toppings—lettuce, tomatoes, taco chips, cheese and beef—but adds refried beans, an ingredient that was in the original Happy Joe’s recipe but has since been removed. I’m a sucker for the classics.
Jon Yates
It’s just after noon on Friday as Christina Gigante pulls up to the Casey’s General Store on North Pine Street in Davenport, Iowa.
It is Gigante’s birthday, and she’s celebrating in the most Iowa way possible—by buying herself and her coworkers three Casey’s pizzas. There are fancier pizzerias around, places with gratuitous amenities like tables and chairs and utensils that aren’t wrapped in plastic. But ask any Iowan and they’ll tell you: The best pizza in the state comes from gas stations.
If Breaking Bad had been set in Iowa instead of New Mexico, Walter White and Jesse would have been cooking up convenience store pizza instead of meth.
“I love it,” Gigante tells me as she placed the three pizzas on her passenger-side seat. “I can’t even describe it. It’s great pizza.”
And in Iowa, it’s everywhere. Although not every rural town is large enough to support a Domino’s or a Papa John’s, a good many of them have a convenience store. Almost all of those convenience stores–the omnipresent Casey’s, the Kum & Gos, the QuikTrips—have a small kitchen with a pizza oven (or two).
While competition is fierce, there is a distinct pecking order. Casey’s is the undisputed king—the most popular and hands-down the best. In aDes Moines Register online poll, 85% of respondents ranked Casey’s pizza first, followed by Kum & Go at 7% and QuikTrip at 4%.
When presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke visited Iowa recently, he went straight to a Casey’s for pizza, declaring in a tweet: “Casey’s pizza. Breakfast of champions.” For O’Rourke, it was a mulligan, of sorts. In May, he posted an Instagram video of himself eating Casey’s pizza in the morning, saying “We’re eating some breakfast pizza right now.” Iowans were quick to point out he was eating regularpizza for breakfast, not breakfast pizza, which at Iowa convenience stores is a thing. It wasn’t quiteJ ohn Kerry ordering Swiss cheese on his Philly cheesesteak, but for Iowans, it was close. Perhaps that’s why Beto is polling at around 2% in most pre-caucus polls.
There’s a reason Iowans get so worked up about their gas station pizza. It’s good. Not just cheap-pizza good, but actually, genuinely good. Casey’s pizza dough is soft and airy, creating a crust that’s the perfect blend of bubbles and bread, much closer to homemade doughthan you’ll find in most pizzerias. The whole operation is amazingly efficient. Order a pie on Casey’s app and it’s ready for pick-up 20 minutes later, piping hot and fresh, better than what you’ll find at many of the fancy full-fledged pizza restaurants.
The breakfast pizzas at all three chains are spectacular, combining scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon (or sausage) in perfect greasy balance, rendering breakfast burritos, which more often than not are too egg-forward, obsolete. Kum & Go puts hash brownson its breakfast pizzas. At Casey’s, you can order your breakfast pizza with sausage gravy as the sauce, the way God intended.
All three chains offer versions of the quintessential Iowa pizza—taco pizza—which was invented by Lawrence Joseph “Happy Joe” Whittyin 1974 at his Happy Joe’s restaurant in Davenport. TheTaco Joeremains the gold standard and the undisputed champ, the state’s greatest culinary achievement since the loose-meat sandwich. The Casey’s version has the standard taco pizza toppings—lettuce, tomatoes, taco chips, cheese and beef—but adds refried beans, an ingredient that was in the original Happy Joe’s recipe but has since been removed. I’m a sucker for the classics.
