3 Casey’s Pizza Facts That Trace Back to Iowa

Tell someone from another state you picked up dinner at a gas station, and they’ll probably raise an eyebrow.

Not Iowans.

Here’s where Casey’s pizza got its start and what’s behind the pies locals know and love.

1. Corning Kitchen

The homemade pizza you order at Casey’s today started in Corning, Iowa, in December 1984, according to the company’s blog.

The radio station KHAK says a local pizza restaurant had closed.

A franchisee then began making pizza in his small Casey’s kitchen.

What’s in your crust?

If you order a pie, team members prepare made-from-scratch dough for it.

The Takeout described the crust as hand-rolled and the cheese as 100% mozzarella in 2019.

2. Breakfast Pizza

Casey’s breakfast pizza traces back to Iowa too.

The Des Moines Register says Casey’s officially started making it in 1984 at the Corning store.

Casey’s then waited 17 years to roll it out across its stores.

That rollout came in September 2001.

Radio station KHAK’s 2023 rundown says you could start with either cheese sauce or sausage gravy.

Scrambled eggs, mozzarella and cheddar go on top.

If you want meat, you can pick bacon, sausage or ham.

Meat is optional.

A veggie version has green peppers and onions.

3. Taco Pizza

You can find a taco pizza on Casey’s online menu, with beef or chicken, mozzarella, lettuce, tomatoes, taco chips and cheddar.

If you’re curious where taco pizza came from, The Takeout reported in 2019 that Happy Joe Whitty invented it in 1974 at his Happy Joe’s restaurant in Davenport.

Little Village magazine dates the first commercial version, called the Taco Joe, to December 1974.

Whitty told the Des Moines Register in 2017 that a franchisee wanted to add tacos to compete with a taco place that opened nearby.

A rival got it started.

The Takeout wrote in 2019 that Casey’s, Kum & Go and QuikTrip all offer versions of the quintessential Iowa pizza.

The Casey’s version adds refried beans, an ingredient that was in the original Happy Joe’s recipe but has since been removed.

Before the Homemade Pizza

You might assume Casey’s always made its pizza from scratch.

Not at first.

Business Record‘s July 2026 story says Casey’s opened its first store in Boone, Iowa, in 1968.

The directory says founder Don Lamberti bought an Ames, Iowa, oil company in 1967 that owned four Square Deal service stations.

The first Casey’s was one of them, a converted three-bay gas station.

The first pizza you could buy there was a frozen Tombstone, microwaved and sliced, Lamberti said in the story.

Casey’s went public in October 1983.

Its made-from-scratch pizza followed in 1984, 16 years after the Boone store opened.

The switch meant opening up the kitchen and making the crust from scratch.

Casey’s also chose whole milk cheese instead of 2%.

By the end of 1985, pizza was in 85 stores, and the stores started selling it by the slice the following year.

The 1990 Move to Ankeny

As of April 30, 2026, Casey’s annual report lists 2,944 stores in 19 states and calls pizza its flagship prepared food product.

If you want the year, Casey’s began selling pizza in 1984.

In 1990, the directory says, Casey’s moved its corporate offices from leased space in West Des Moines to a 36-acre, $19.2-million complex in suburban Ankeny.

The distribution center there had grown to 140,000 square feet.

By 1990, Casey’s was making about 4 million pizzas a year, and fiscal 1990 ended with 769 stores.

You can pick up a grab-and-go slice or order a whole pie made to order.

Pizza After 1984

Casey’s pizza spread well beyond those first stores, and you can see it in the directory’s numbers.

By the end of 1994, one reckoning made Casey’s the nation’s seventh-largest retailer of pizza.

Pizza was available in 92 percent of its stores by fiscal 1996.

If you compare that with April 30, 2026, the annual report says pizza was available in almost all stores as of that date.

Des Moines Register Poll

Do you rank Casey's pizza first among gas station chains?

A Des Moines Register online poll did, The Takeout reported in 2019.

The Register called the result unscientific.

You can still see the margin: 85% of respondents ranked Casey's first, ahead of Kum & Go at 7% and QuikTrip at 4%.

That's a wide margin.

Small-Town Stores

Many Casey's stores in Iowa sit in towns of fewer than 5,000 people, the Des Moines Register reports.

In many of those towns, Casey's takes the place of bigger pizza chains such as Domino's, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Papa John's.

After Lamberti opened the Boone store, Business Record says in a February 2026 story, it soon seemed as if you could find a Casey's in every small Iowa town.

The Takeout said in 2019 that after starting pizza in 1984, Casey's quickly became the only pizza seller in many rural towns.

You'll find about 550 Casey's stores in Iowa, which has about 3 million people, Casey's chief merchandising officer told Fortune in August 2026.