as we may blog

By Christine Doty
The Gazette
Friday, June 20, 2003, 5:52:44 PM

HIAWATHA — My daughters and vitamin a in dogs
I took my husband out to The Pizza Ranch for Father's Day -- which proved to be a good family choice.

The restaurant opened Jan. 13 in the InTenTcity building, 1195 Boyson Rd., Hiawatha.

The tent-shaped building has a Hollywood Tan, Golden Palace (Chinese food), Guaranty Bank, Texaco and a Gas Shack in addition to The Pizza Ranch.

The restaurant has numerous locations in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and one in Michigan.

The Hiawatha location is big, clean and roomy. It has many booths and lots of tables. It has a separate entrance or you can go through the Gas Shack, a convenience store. You can even access the building's lobby, where there is a large display of antique coin banks.

I thought it was perfect for a family with children who aren't overly fond of sitting. They could walk around and look at the banks, and the parents could still keep an eye on them through the windows. My 11-year-old daughter loved the two arcade games in the Gas Shack, and we could watch her from our booth.

The food is pretty basic but good.

The restaurant offers a large array of pizzas, including an all vegetable "Prairie"; a "Stampede," covered with almost everything except anchovies; a "BLT," which is just like the sandwich, including mayonnaise; a "Chicken Broccoli Alfredo"; or you can choose whatever ingredients you want.

It's not all about pizza, however. The menu also has Crispy Ranch Chicken dinners with mashed potatoes or potato wedges and cole slaw. Or you can get the chicken in barbecue sauce. Sandwich options include three wraps: a Bacon and Chicken Wrap, a Caesar Wrap and a BBQ Wrap.

For families who have a hard time making decisions or those times when everyone wants something different, Pizza Ranch offers four value meals. We chose the Ranch Pack 4, which includes any medium pizza, eight pieces of chicken, potatoes, Ranch Stix with cheese and Cactus Bread.

We selected the Roundup pizza, with beef, pepperoni, Italian sausage, onions, mush- rooms and black olives.

The Ranch Stix came out first -- eight pieces of flat breadsticks covered with melted mozzarella cheese served with marinara sauce.

Next came our chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and one roll. The chicken was really good and crispy. Even the white meat was juicy. And the mashed potatoes were a hit.

We were starting to get full when they brought out the pizza.

It says on the menu that the thin crust was "sure to put a smile on your face." It was really good, and we probably would have smiled more had we not been so full.

We thought we were done and didn't think we had room for one more bite, but then came the "Cactus Bread." It was basically a small pizza crust, cut into eight pieces, with streusel crumbs, cinnamon sugar and white icing drizzled on top. It was excellent.

We thought it was odd that we had only gotten one dinner roll but after we were done eating, we saw that one roll still sitting on the platter, and no one wanted to eat it as we were too full.

All that food came to a grand total of $31.05, which included two beers. And we had enough leftovers for lunch the next day for two of us.

I'm sure we'll be visiting again soon.

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