Heggies Pizza

Since we haven't been able to dine out during the COVID-19 pandemic, we've been doing a lot of home cooking.  Sometimes we'll take short cuts when we don't want to put a lot of effort into what we're making and go the easy route - as in something like a "take-and-bake" meal.  Costco has some wonderful lasagna in their frozen food section that we've made a couple times during the pandemic, but they also have something that I was very skeptical of when I was first told of this product - Heggies Pizza.  We happened to find a two-pack of Heggies Pizza in the freezer during a trip to Costco in late March and we decided to give it try.  

Heggies (pronounced with a hard "g" as in "egg" and not a soft "g" as in "hedge") is sort of a phenomenon across the Upper Midwest.  Found primarily in backwoods bars, small town taverns, lakeside resorts and bowling alleys in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas, Heggies got its start in humbled fashion after a failed attempt by Don and Polly Hegedus at running their own pizza restaurant in the Minneapolis suburb of Anoka.  

After closing their restaurant, the Hegedus' moved to the small town of Onamia, MN near Lake Mille Lacs.  They went out to some of the small bars in the area that catered to boaters, fishermen and - in the winter - snowmobilers and found that the places had limited to no options for food.  Talking with friends of his in the area, Don was encouraged to start making pizzas in his garage, freezing them, and delivering them to the bars in the area for them to cook and sell to their customers.  Don and Polly started Heggies Pizza - named after Don's father's nickname - in 1989.  (Completely disregarding fate and any sense of bad luck, Heggies was also the name of their defunct pizza restaurant.)  

Heggies first customer was the owner of a lodge on Mille Lacs who was friendly with Don and Polly.  Using fresh ingredients and a crust that didn't taste like cardboard or get flimsy during cooking, Heggie's pizzas were an instant success with those who tried them.  Soon, many other small bars, VFW halls, bowling alleys and seasonal resorts in the area were stocking Heggies Pizza and making them on little single pizza broiler ovens that the Hegedus' provided to their customers.  

As Heggies grew, the Hegedus' continued to work out of their two-car garage in Onamia.  At one point in time, they had to get certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in order to make and sell their pizzas wholesale.  It was written in articles I read on the Heggies legacy that the Hegedus' garage may have been the smallest USDA-approved facility in the nation.  

Don set up delivery drivers to transport his pizza to the bars in and around North Central Minnesota.  He tried to control growth with Heggies allowing bars to buy not more than $250 worth of pizzas at a time.  As Heggies continued to grow slowly, it came to a point where he knew he needed to expand his operation.  The Hegedus' added onto their garage not once, but twice in order to keep up with growing demand as they began to branch out to bars as far away as the Twin Cities, nearly 90 miles to the south.  

And Heggies also gained somewhat of a cult following in the process.  Since they were only available for sale at bars, the stories of people stopping Heggies delivery drivers in tavern parking lots to buy pizzas directly from the truck were abundant.  There were also stories of how cops would pull over Heggies drivers along the road only to see if they, too, could buy pizza directly off the truck.  

By 2003, the Hegedus' were on the verge of outgrowing their garage operation in Onamia and they weren't certain they had it in their heart for another expansion.  Don and Polly decided it was time to retire.  This is where Shawn Dockter comes into the story.

Dockter grew up in South Dakota and attended the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering.  Over the following years, Dockter worked for the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and with a small start-up company that marketed satellite images.  By 2003, he was ready to do something else and when he heard from a friend back in Minnesota that Heggies was for sale, he became intrigued with the possibility of taking over the operation.  He'd had his first slice of Heggies pizza at a VFW hall in Chaska, MN a number of years before and was hooked.  Once he heard it was for sale, he started to look into what it would take to purchase the business.  In 2004, Dockter - along with a small group of minority partners - purchased Heggies Pizza from Don and Polly Hegedus for an undisclosed sum.  

Dockter immediately saw the limitations of working out of a expanded garage in the small town of Onamia.  He knew that the first rule in taking over a successful business was to not mess with the formula.  But in order to grow, he knew he needed to expand beyond bars and VFW halls.  He started to distribute Heggies pizza to grocery and convenience stores.  He did away with the $250 maximum limit that Don Hegedus imposed on pizza purchases for bars.  He added production line workers and delivery drivers to meet the demand.  It wasn't long before Dockter knew that he had to expand the facility in order to continue to grow the business.  And it wasn't going to be in the expanded garage where Don Hegedus started Heggies Pizza.

In 2008, Heggies Pizza moved to a new building in the small town of Milaca, MN, about 20 miles to the south of Onamia.  The new facility was extremely bigger than the expanded garage - 25,000 square feet in total, or more than 3 times the space they had in Onamia.  Even more production workers were hired, more delivery drivers were hired and the further expansion of Heggies Pizza across the Upper Midwest was underway.  

Heggies is also instrumental in working with local groups, schools and charities providing pizzas for community fundraisers.  Heggies works with organizations around Central Minnesota in the planning of selling pizzas as a fundraising option and will deliver the pizzas once the group order has been made.      

I first heard about Heggies when I was with a buddy having a beer at a VFW post in Newton, IA about six or seven years ago.  He pointed to a Heggies sign behind the bar and said, "You ever had one of those Heggies pizzas?"  I told him that I had never heard of them before.  He said, "They're a frozen pizza..." and I sort of turned up my nose at the notion of a frozen pizza.  I had graduated out of frozen pizzas years ago, with the notable exception of a couple three frozen deep-dish pizzas I've brought home in the past from Lou Malnati's in Chicago.  My take on frozen pizza is that while some were good, they just aren't THAT good.  I would rather wait 45 minutes on a delivered pizza (and NOT from one of the national chains) than have a frozen pizza in less than 30 minutes.  

But my buddy was adamant.  "No, no," he assured me.  "They're actually pretty good."  And over time - and liking to get a burger in dive bars every once in a while when I'm on the road - I noticed that Heggies was available at more and more places that I stopped at.  It intrigued me enough to want to try one, but preferably not at a bar. 

So, weeks ago when my wife and I were looking through the frozen food section at our local Costco to try and find some of their very good frozen lasagna, I looked over and said, "Holy crap!  They have Heggies Pizza here!"  My wife didn't know what Heggies was and I gave her the quick explanation of hearing about how good it was.  "I've always wanted to try one of these," I said as I admired the box holding 2 sausage and pepperoni pizzas inside the glass door of the freezer.

"Well, grab one," my wife said somewhat enthusiastically.  I was sort of surprised by her eagerness of wanting to try a Heggies Pizza because her ideology of frozen pizza parallels mine.  

The instructions for cooking a Heggie's Pizza is pretty straight-forward - get your oven to 450 degrees, put the pizza in the oven when it hits that temperature, and cook it for 12 to 15 minutes, depending how done you want the cheese and other ingredients.  

Out of the plastic wrap the pizza is in, it doesn't look much different than other frozen pizzas I've seen in my lifetime.  The cheese appeared sort of waxy, but there was a lot of it.  I couldn't tell how much sausage or pepperoni was on the pizza.  But I could see some of the tomato sauce peeking through the shards of cheese on top of the pizza. 

We don't have a pizza stone, so we decided to put it on a 12"x20" baking sheet.  It fit perfectly inside the side edges of the pan.  We set the timer for 12 minutes, popped it in and waited.  

After 12 minutes, we sort of looked it over and it seemed to not be all the way finished.  The cheese wasn't fully melted and there was no caramelization of the cheese on the pizza.  We popped it back in for another 3 minutes.  

We figured that it had to be cooked after 15 minutes, but the cheese still wasn't browned all that much on top.  So I turned on the broiler for a couple three minutes to quickly melt the cheese.  And that did the trick. 

For a frozen pizza, it smelled pretty good out of the oven.  We let it cool on the baking sheet for a moment before transferring it to the round cardboard base it came on out of the box.  It cut pretty easily with the crappy pizza cutter that we've had for years.  

The crust was a little bit chewy.  We determined that it probably needed to be on a stone or possibly on a pre-heated baking sheet to give it a little more crunch to the crust.  We liked the thickness - or lack thereof - of the pizza.  Anything more thick in the crust would have made it very doughy in taste.

It turned out that there was ample amounts of sausage and pepperoni under the cheese.  The cheese was - maybe - a little too caramelized, but it was still creamy in its taste.  The pizza sauce I liked a lot.  It was tangy and had a bit of a spicy taste to it.  The sausage and pepperoni tasted very fresh to me.  We were both impressed with the taste quality of the pizza.  And the most important part - and a test I use with every new pizza I try - it tasted very good with a cold beer.  

Well, we had a second one that we needed to eat at some time.  And that some time was about two weeks later on a Friday evening.  Only this time, we had fresh baby bella mushrooms that we sliced up to put on the pizza.  Then I put some shredded Italian-blend cheese on top of the pizza.  We preheated the baking sheet this time along with the oven, then cooked it 15 minutes at 450 degrees and 3 minutes of low broiling to caramelize the cheese.  

This time, the crust was almost too crunchy.  We accomplished our goal of making the crust more crispy, but I thought it was probably in there for 3 or 4 minutes too long on the pre-heated baking sheet.  And my wife complained that there was too much cheese on this pizza - the shredded Italian blend overpowered the overall taste of the pizza for her.  OK, well, like trying anything new, there's always trial and error.

We did go back to Costco about three weeks ago and picked up another 2-pack of the Heggie's sausage and pepperoni pizzas.  The third one we did about two weeks ago was spot on - 450 degrees on a pre-heated cookie sheet for 12 minutes, then 3 minutes at low-broil to caramelize the cheese.  We didn't add anything to the pizza and let it set on the cardboard after cooking for a couple minutes to cool it down.  It cut pretty easily and the taste quality was very good.  Even my wife likes it, which sort of surprises me knowing her discerning palate for pizza.  In fact, one evening last week she suggested just making the other one out of the second 2-pack that we bought.  And it, too, was good.

So, now we have to go back out to Costco and get another 2-pack of Heggies Pizza just to keep around the house for those times we just don't feel like futzing with anything for dinner.  It's probably the best store-bought frozen pizza I've ever had.  

Comments

[Robby H.]

Heggies is da bomb! First time I had one the bartender made one up around 10:30 and gave free pieces to people at the bar. He must have sold 6 or 7 pizzas after that to people who were hungry after trying a small piece. Including me!

[Shawn L Douglass]

I only looked up and found this article because I too have LOVED HEGGIES. TODAY R. I. P. HEGGIES. They messed with something or r using cheap product! So depressing!