Storm Lake Pizza Ranch marks 12 years with new ownership

Storm Lake Pizza Ranch celebrated 12 years in business Monday with a ribbon cutting, a $12 buffet and new ownership under Grassroots Management and longtime manager Jenny Peterson.

The transition put a familiar face at the center of the change. Peterson had already run the Storm Lake restaurant for six years, and company leaders said her ties to the community were a major reason they wanted to buy the location. Grassroots Management, based in Wisconsin, is Pizza Ranch’s largest franchisee with 35 locations, and Peterson’s work organizing local fundraising nights gave the chain a built-in connection to Storm Lake.

That connection has long been part of the restaurant’s role at 517 W. Milwaukee Avenue. Pizza Ranch says the Storm Lake location includes community rooms and fundraising options, and its careers page lists 80-plus employees at the store. The company’s own history says Pizza Ranch has grown to more than 200 locations across the Midwest, but in Storm Lake the brand has also become a place where school groups, first responders and local causes gather as much as diners do.

Monday’s anniversary event doubled as a Community Impact fundraiser for Ray Hansen, an Alta-Aurelia High School student diagnosed with cancer. Tips and 10% of the day’s proceeds were directed to his family, and his parents, Dr. Chris Hansen and Bekah Hansen, attended with brothers John and Michael Hansen. Supporters from the Alta-Aurelia Warriors Athletic Booster Club were also there; the booster club backs the school’s athletic department and school spirit, and its members have sold more than 900 shirts to help with medical expenses.

The fundraiser fit a pattern that has run through the restaurant since its earliest years in town. In 2014, a Storm Lake Pizza Ranch fundraiser for the Conner Weiland Scholarship Fund brought in more than $1,100. That scholarship fund was created after 16-year-old Conner Weiland died in a farming accident in September 2014, and the event helped cement the restaurant’s place as a regular stop for local giving.

Grassroots Management’s new role also comes with a strong operating record. Pizza Ranch’s franchise award coverage named the company its Franchisee of the Year in June 2024 and listed team members Robert Rehm, Jr., Sherry Rehm, Bjorn and Elizabeth Kaashagen, Mark and Barbie Miller, and Dale and Diane Jorgensen. At the Storm Lake celebration, a prayer was offered for the new owners, workers, customers and family members, underscoring how the restaurant’s latest ownership change was framed less as a handoff than as a continuation of a local civic gathering place.