A Pizza Ranch restaurant greets customers in Bemidji, Minnesota. Credit: Shutterstock / Edgar Lee Espe
Pizza Ranch, an Iowa-based chain known for its western theme and for offering fried chicken and Midwestern side dishes alongside its pies — is expanding into the Alamo City.
The company is spending $1 million to build a buffet-style restaurant in Northeast San Antonio near the Santikos Galaxy theater, state regulatory filings show.
The nearly 10,000-square-foot store at 5500 Walzem Road is owned by a local franchisee and is expected to launch sometime in 2026, officials with Orange City, Iowa-based Pizza Ranch confirmed.
“We’re developing several locations in Texas right now,” Pizza Ranch Chief Development Office Mark Souba told the Current. “They’re all in different stages right now.”
The company is making the leap into Texas because of the state’s brisk economic growth, its large number of urban areas and its likely acceptance of the restaurants’ western theme, Souba added. He declined to identify the owner of the Alamo City franchise unit.
Pizza Ranch launched in the early 1980s, and has since added a franchising operation and expanded to more than 200 units across 15 states, according to its website. None of those states are adjacent to Texas.
As Pizza Ranch has grown, it’s added arcades to its stores and expanded its offerings to include weekend brunch buffets and bake-at-home frozen pizzas.
The buffet chain touts itself as a Christian-based company that seeks to “glorify God by positively impacting the world,” according to news reports. Indeed, its Iowa restaurants have become frequent stops for Republican presidential candidates during that state’s high-profile political caucuses, Politico noted in a lengthy 2024 article on the phenomenon.
Despite its reputation, one of Pizza Ranch’s founders, Lawrence Vander Esch was imprisoned in 2001 after pleading guilty to four counts of third-degree sexual abuse, RadioIowa reports. Vander Esch, who’s no longer with the company, was accused of convincing teen employees to provide him with semen samples that he falsely claimed would be used in a scientific study, according to media reports.
In 2006, an Iowa district court judge cleared Vander Esch’s record and vacated the conviction, citing an Iowa Supreme Court ruling in an unrelated case, according to court documents.
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