When Racket editors initially asked me if I’d like to review the one Rocky Rococo Pizza location in Minnesota from the perspective of a Wisconsinite, I instinctively turned them down.
Why? Well it had nothing to do with the pizza; the pizza is (spoiler!) incredible. It was more me telling Racket, “Hey! my culture is not your costume! You’re always trying to commodify my Wisconsiness! I’m not a cartoon!” But then later that night as I supped on cheese curds, raw beef, and brandy old fashioneds, I realized that I am kind of Racket’s official Wisconsin correspondent, and I do have a lot of tasty nostalgia tied up in Rocky Rococo. So... maybe I am a cartoon?
More than that though, I remembered my new year's resolution: to say "yes" to the universe. For example, I’ve been taking all this expired medication that I found in my bathroom cabinet, just to see what happens. I’m saying yes to 100 milligrams of benzotorpedine from 2022 and the heart palpitations have been exhilarating! We need that sort of proactive excitement in our lives, especially in the doldrums of winter. Therefore, I decided that, yes, I would take the yes-plunge and journey 30 frigid minutes, all the way out to Brooklyn Park, to visit the last non-Wisconsin Rocky Rococo location.
For you North Star Gophers who aren’t familiar, Rocky Rococo is a superb and quirky square-cut pan pizza chain first opened by two college students in Madison in the early 1970s. It was a slice shop before slice shops were really a thing in the Midwest. Years ahead of the Detroit-style craze, it was slinging that thick, buttery, right-angled crust heaping with cheese. When I told my dad, who's from Madison, that I was writing about Rocky Rococo, he waxed fondly about when the chain first opened...
When I was a poor high school and college student I could go to the original location on Gilman Street right off State Street and buy a slice which was thick and rectangular for a modest price. All my friends too. A carb feed. It was tasty.
Rocky Rococo reached its peak in the 1980s with 120 locations spread across the U.S. However, like many mid-level pizza chains, the Oconomowoc-headquartered company was bloodied in the brutal pizza wars of the 1990s. (I am a veteran of the pizza wars; I was a lieutenant in Little Caesars’ “Big Big” Battalion). As delivery and takeout became king while pizza parlor culture fell away, Rocky Rococo lost its marketplace footing and, eventually, fell victim to overexpansion. My non-MBA hypothesis for its decline? Thick crust pizza is more time consuming to make for home delivery, and delivering single slices is impractical. Today Rocky Rococo boasts a modest 31 locations, 30 of which are scattered, pepperoni-like, around Wisconsin. For Minnesotans, this makes the Brooklyn Park location “The One,” not unlike that fantastic Jet Li movie.
Growing up in Green Bay, where champions are born, we didn’t have a Rocky Rococo for most of my childhood. However, we’d still see the oddly horny TV commercials—an excruciating tease!
The chain grew into this tantalizing satellite orbiting my life, especially because its mascot, a cartoonish faux-mafioso clad in a brilliant white zoot suit, was and remains bonkers fun. (Read his in-depth fictional backstory here; read the real-life original actor's obit here.) Sometimes as a kid you’d see an ad for a chain restaurant that didn’t exist in your area, and your brain would fill in the gaps, building it into a kind of gastronomical Narnia. Rocky Rococo felt just out of reach, a culinary ghost haunting me from highway food and lodging exit signs as my parents drove us to swim meets.
Then, in high school, a Rocky Rococo magically opened on University Avenue in Green Bay, just a mile or two from my house. Although it was owned by my asshole little league coach—who used to bean me with the ball—it largely lived up to expectations with affordable, filling, and cheesy pizzas. And they offered value meals for working-class teens like me: a slice, breadsticks, and a Pepsi for 4 bucks. All was right in the universe.
Fast-forward 20 years, and I’m barreling down I-694 at 3 p.m. on a recent Wednesday to see if my memory of the pizza holds up, to see if all is still right with the universe. Traffic is oddly congested, and my vision keeps tunneling from pizza anticipation and expired Benzotorpedine. Brooklyn Park is an interesting suburb. On the surface Brooklyn Boulevard looks like a sea of car dealerships, strip malls, and chains, but what’s to complain about? It has Culver's and a bunch of cool international markets. It has a Godfather's Pizza! It has the studied verve of the North Side and Rocky Rococo is located next door to a Planned Parenthood. That feels subtly radical and cool.
Inside, I’m helped by a lovely woman named Rebecca who steers me toward the Wednesday Slice of the Day: The original Chicago Slice, which I order with a cup of breadsticks and a drink for around 11 dollars. Yes, in 2025, I will only eat my breadsticks via cup. She convinces me to download the app to get a free slice for my next visit, which I immediately do. We’re down the block from Park Center High School, and I ask Rebecca if a lot of high school kids come in here for lunch. She says they don’t, but a lot of workers do. When I get my meal I can see why; for $11, it’s actually a lot of food: six breadsticks and a massive slice of pizza. Rocky Rococo is a clutch budget option, “a carb feed” for fueling up, as my dad put it. And it’s convenient, with slices ready upon arrival and even a drive thru.
After my first bite, all's right with the universe. My pizza is fantastic! This isn’t the expired Benzotorpedine talking! Rocky Rococo is legit excellent!
I enjoyed a corner piece roughly the size of a football field, with these massive chunks of Italian sausage and tomato over a lavish pile of quattro cheese blend. Rocky Rococo boasts that its pies are 20% bigger than "conventional pizzas," whatever that means. Looking at this slice, I believe it. To make things more perfect, the mantle layer of cheese gives that cartoon mozzarella stretch, like something out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The cheese makes Rocky Rococo stand apart, which makes sense. Wisconsin, the producer of 1 billion pounds of mozzarella per year, should be a hub for quality pizzerias. As for that buttery crust? It comes from dough that's made fresh daily, a process that reportedly takes 17 hours.
In an era where hedge funds are scooping up and ruining chains left and right, Rocky Rococo feels like this last bastion of hope for the small, unspoiled, regional brand. The Brooklyn Park location is a beautiful, delicate flower bestowed to Minnesota by its next-door neighbor, like when France gave America the Statue of Liberty. We should all be militantly committed to protecting this Rocky Rococo from closing, at all costs.
And I haven’t even mentioned all the other batshit crazy stuff this weird little chain provides, including its zany marketing antics. Believe it or not, the Rocky Rococo mascot has released several musical singles over the years. Enjoy my favorite below.
And then there are the movie parody posters. The walls of the Brooklyn Park location are covered with ones featuring Rocky Rococo as the hero of seemingly every blockbuster movie of the past 50 years, including: The Meatrix, which asks diners to choose between the red slice or the blue slice. I’m not making this shit up! That’s a real promotion. And hell, if The Meatrix actually existed, I’d live in it!
Maybe that’s what 2025 is all about. Maybe we're all living in The Meatrix already, and I’m saying yes to the blue slice. The only way to know for sure is to pop two expired Benzotorpedines and head back to Brooklyn Park for another go at that sweet, sweet pie. I’ve still got my free slice to redeem from downloading the app, it’s just barking from my pocket. This year I’m saying yes to the universe, yes to pepperoni, yes to Rocky Rococo.
